how do crime documentary filmmakers get all their police footage?

497 viewsOther

Audio of 911 calls…police body cam footage…police interview footage…crime scene photos…what, do filmmakers just call up the cops and say “Hey, I’m making a documentary” and the cops are like “sure thing, here’s all this stuff”?

I guess I don’t understand what’s in it for the cops to share. And is none of this stuff considered private?

In: Other

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

If the case has already gone to court, which is the norm for documentaries, it’s all public record and anyone can access it.

If it hasn’t gone to court yet, like a lot of the raw bodycam footage you can find on YouTube, it’s usually obtained by filling out a Freedom of Information Act request with the department in question. One popular bodycam page on YouTube features mostly videos from Wisconsin. I suspect the operator of that page is from Wisconsin and just FOIAs shit he here’s about on the scanner/news/local paper etc and posts the good stuff

You are viewing 1 out of 6 answers, click here to view all answers.