Highway Patrol urges law to let agencies withhold graphic crash and body‑cam images; advocates urge clarity for access in court

The North Dakota Highway Patrol told the Senate Judiciary Committee it supports Senate Bill 2083, legislation intended to let public agencies withhold or redact graphic images taken by body cameras, in-car cameras, drones and other recording devices at crash scenes.

Aaron Hummel, chief of staff for the North Dakota Highway Patrol, said the agency wants statutory discretion to withhold images that show people in their “worst circumstances,” including deceased or seriously injured crash victims. “We body cams are are catching a whole new aspect that that law enforcement didn't catch in the past,” Hummel said. “And, we're catching people in in their worst situations. And and, that probably isn't the intent, or the intent there probably isn't for that to be, for the world to see.”

Hummel described three categories the bill would cover: images from body‑worn or in‑car cameras that capture nudity or partial nudity as defined elsewhere in statute; images showing…