Ohio
$750 for body cam video? Ohio police agencies set steep prices after law change
See Ohio trooper rescue kitten from drain pipe in Columbus
Body camera footage shows the moments when an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper saved a kitten that was trapped in a drain pipe.
Some Central Ohio police agencies will now charge the public up to $750 for officer body and dash-cam footage under a new law signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in January.
The law that took effect in April gives Ohio’s law enforcement agencies discretion to charge up to $75 per hour for video records, including body camera and dashboard camera footage and surveillance video, with total fees per request capped at $750.
The law allows individual agencies to decide whether to charge fees and set their own rates. Central Ohio agencies that spoke with The Dispatch said they are still deciding whether to impose fees. Police in Grove City, Reynoldsburg and Whitehall have already set new fee schedules, charging as much as the new law allows.
Media outlets often use body camera footage to provide insight into critical incidents involving police, including shootings. Critics, including media groups and civil rights organizations, have argued that increased fees for body camera videos could hinder transparency and give policing leaders the ability to pick and choose what the public sees.
ACLU says body cam fees ‘financially impossible’
“It shouldn’t depend on how much money Ohioans have in their pocket to be able to enjoy access to public records,” Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the ACLU of Ohio, said.
Daniels said the ACLU of Ohio has grave concerns about the new law, which “sets a bad precedent” and will impede access to records. He added that many police agencies will likely charge the max for records, and it will become “financially impossible” for smaller news organizations to access footage.
Body camera footage is important for the public to access because it sheds light on sometimes hotly-contested moments in which police and witnesses disagree on events, such as when officers fire their guns or are killed in the line of duty.
On the other hand, compiling the footage is expensive and time-consuming for police agencies to produce. Some portions of the videos must be redacted to comply with state laws, including limiting images of uncharged suspects and crime victims. Many police agencies receive large volumes of requests; the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office fielded 400-500 requests for videos last year, spokeswoman Tracy Whited said.
The law allows agencies to recoup pay for employees who redact and produce the videos, as well as video storage fees, redaction software costs, and other expenses.
Ohio police departments say body cam footage review takes time, money
Grove City adopted its new policy on June 13, according to a copy provided to the Dispatch. The Grove City Police Department will charge a flat $10 base fee per video record to cover costs of redaction software and video storage, with maximum fees capped at $75 per hour of footage and $750 per video.
The requester must pay the estimated fee upfront before Grove City will produce the records. For “certain critical incidents,” the Grove City police chief may choose to release footage at no cost, according to the policy.
The Reynoldsburg Police Department’s policy, adopted March 12, says it will release footage of any incident in which an officer fires a gun without charge. Other videos cost up to $75 per hour or up to $750 per request.
Requesters must pay a $75 deposit to the Reynoldsburg police before the department will begin redacting the footage.
The Whitehall Division of Police states in its fee schedule that video footage costs $75 per hour or $1.25 per minute, with a maximum fee of $750 per request.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, and police in Columbus, Gahanna, Hilliard, Dublin, New Albany, Grandview Heights and Upper Arlington stated that they have not made any changes to their fee schedules. Several of those agencies said they are still reviewing the new law.
Whited said body camera footage requests make up the bulk of the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office records department’s workload and have caused a significant backlog, leading the sheriff’s office to consider outsourcing some of the work to a third party.
But hiring a private company would be expensive, and the sheriff’s office would prefer to keep doing the work “in-house,” Whited added.
Whited said the unit often watches videos three times: once to check for visuals that need to be redacted, a second time to review the audio, and a third time to ensure nothing was missed. That means a half-hour of footage could take over an hour and a half to edit.
In other cases, a less complex 15-minute video might take about 20 minutes to redact one segment of footage. Most of the videos are about 30-45 minutes long.
Currently, the sheriff’s office has software that can track objects in footage that need to be redacted, like a piece of paper with a social security number or a child’s face. Sometimes, for unknown reasons, the tracking fails, and staff must redact frame by frame, Whited said.
The sheriff’s office hasn’t received any quotes for outsourcing the video redaction process, but it did request one for an AI redaction service to speed up its staff’s work. That quote came to $30,000-$35,000 for 120 hours of raw video and gave the sheriff’s office “sticker shock,” Whited said.
Setting new fees while the backlog is in place presents some challenges. The requesters already waiting on records can’t be charged, and telling new requesters they must pay fees, then informing them they must also wait 4-5 months to receive the footage “doesn’t seem like good customer service,” Whited said.
The Delaware County Sheriff’s Office is speaking with prosecutors and reviewing other Ohio police departments policies before coming to a decision, Whited said.
“There’s a lot of things we’re still looking at before we could implement it,” Whited said.
Columbus police spokeswoman Nicole Jaros said the division is still developing a policy in response to the new law. The division currently charges $1 per CD for records and does not typically charge for records provided in digital formats, such as email attachments.
Gahanna spokesman Dan Pearlman said the city doesn’t currently charge for video.
“We continue to research and discuss this with area agencies to see if there is a standardized approach,” Pearlman said in an email.
New Albany Police Department records supervisor Laura White said the department is considering charging fees and will likely do so.
YouTube creators, bloggers increase demand
The department doesn’t just field requests from traditional journalists or local citizens, White said. Many of the requests come from YouTube channels or other social media content creators.
Numerous YouTube channels and social media pages upload large volumes of police footage, publishing viral videos of traffic stops, shootings and embarrassing DUI arrests.
“We get inundated with requests from … YouTube and social media outlets that are looking for a wide range of information and records,” White said. “It’s very time-consuming.”
In March, the Columbus Division of Police fired Officer Spencer Badger, who runs the ‘Columbus Police Body Camera’ YouTube channel. The division said he violated policy by downloading some videos himself instead of submitting public information requests.
Daniels said the new law may have been introduced as a response to bulk requests from bloggers, YouTube channels, and other organizations that publish large amounts of videos, and he understands that those requests pose a burden.
But Daniels said those concerns could have been better addressed in other ways, like limiting the number of requests one entity could make per month. The ACLU wouldn’t be “thrilled” by that, either, he said, but it would be better than restricting access across the board.
“It’s hard to believe a compromise couldn’t be reached,” Daniels said.
Public Safety and Breaking News Reporter Bailey Gallion can be reached at bagallion@dispatch.com.
Cincinnati Reds legend and well-known gambler Pete Rose was possibly more than just curious about Ohio State football’s 2012 season when he texted Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer.
Appearing on “The Triple Option” show with Alabama running back Mark Ingram May 6, Meyer told a story about his relationship with Rose.
After OSU hired Meyer, the Reds asked him to throw out the first pitch at a game. Meyer threw to his son, Nathan, and walked into the dugout, where Rose, MLB’s all-time hit leader, was waiting to greet him.
“I couldn’t get enough talking about ‘Big Red Machine,’ and he wanted to talk college football,” Meyer said on the podcast, explaining how the two spoke for hours and exchanged numbers.
Meyer said that during his first season, Rose texted him early on. He wanted information about the team, like news on Braxton Miller’s shoulder injury.
“I told that to someone, and they said, ‘You’re an idiot. Do you know he’s trying to get information from you for gambling, and you could get in trouble?’ ” Meyer said.
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Though Meyer asserted that he never disclosed much, he started to steer the conversations clear of college football after he realized Rose potentially wanted information for gambling.
The two had another conversation in Las Vegas, where Rose told Meyer he gambled daily after retiring.
Rose was banned from baseball for betting on the sport, something he admitted to in his 2004 autobiography. Rose was reinstated in 2025 and so is considered eligible for the Hall of Fame.
Still baseball’s most prolific hitter (4,256 hits), Rose died in 2024.
GIRARD, Ohio (WKBN) – Over 100 athletes came together for the 5th Annual Trumbull County Special Olympics Invitational Saturday morning in Girard.
These athletes represent five different schools across Trumbull County to compete and spread the message of inclusion, achievement, and sportsmanship.
The Invitational continued its long-standing tradition of honoring the legacy of Randy Suchanek while celebrating the dedication and accomplishments of Special Olympics athletes throughout the region.
“You can hear all the excitement for this, for the athletes that are here today,” said superintendent Bryan O’Hara. “They work hard all year long to participate. We’ve always worked hand in hand with the rotary to get this accomplished is a lot of work behind the scenes.”
Participating schools included Ashtabula, Geauga, Columbiana, Kent-Portage and Trumbull Fairhaven
“There’s a lot of nice participation from girard students as you see behind us, and a lot of participation from the community helping out,” Girard-Liberty Rotary co-president Andy Kish added.
O’Hara added that the event keeps everything in perspective, seeing the athletes compete in the spirit of fun, along with the courage and determination that they show.
Alex Sorrells contributed to this report.
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
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