Editor’s Note: A Victory for the Community

There were two big events in April that have helped to illustrate our goals as local journalists. We hosted our annual SuperKids Expo (more on that next issue), where we celebrated who we are as a community today, and we see in the eyes of our youngest residents who our community is going to be.

But it was something else that created a reason to celebrate, not just for us, but for the community — we won an appellate court case in a 3-0 decision (in baseball terms, a shutout). Back in 2024, we requested all of the police body camera footage from the City of Boulder related to the officer-involved shooting of Jeanette Alatorre on December 17, 2023. Sure, the city said, only it will cost you around three thousand dollars. (That number would later inexplicably triple.)

Here’s the thing. There is a law in Colorado known as ELEIA or the Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act. That law does not permit agencies from charging fees before releasing certain types of footage. In fact, they can only slightly delay releasing video clips if there is an active investigation that the footage would be relevant to. The Boulder police department did not relent and so we took them to court in 2024. We won the case. The city appealed. And this month we won again. 

The Colorado Court of Appeals found that the Boulder police department in fact can not charge for this type of footage. As Yellow Scene attorney Matt Simonsen said in his arguments before the court “I would certainly hope that when there is a complaint of police misconduct that there are public employees reviewing this video for other purposes than just to blur it.” 

To say that we were overjoyed at winning the appeal would be an understatement. It’s also important to understand that when we say “we won this case” we mean it as what is often called the “Royal We.” Yes, this case was spurred by our desire to find the truth in a tragedy but the ruling will affect all of us. It’s a win for accountability, for equality, and for truth. And those are three things that sorely need a mark in the Win column now. It means that misdeeds can’t be hidden behind a paywall, that family members can regain a little faith in the follow-up of an incident, and that we can collectively watch for the truth, not settle for the official version of what they want that truth to be. You can follow that thought a little deeper with John Oliver in his Last Week Tonight segment on Bodycams.

When the verdict was announced we celebrated a victory for all of us. And then we got back to work because that’s what we do. And we do it best when we do it together so please keep reading, share the stories that matter to you with friends and family and become a sustaining member to keep those stories coming.

If that win does anything, it shows the power of local journalists who will scrape and fight for the truth.

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