Committee re-refers BCA data-posting bill to judiciary after testimony on redaction workload

Representative Lee Muller described House File 1354 as a targeted change to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’S public-posting requirement for officer-involved death investigations. Under current statute, the BCA must post public data from such investigations within 30 days of the end of the appeals period; Muller said the volume of body-worn camera footage and other material has made that deadline difficult to meet.

Superintendent Evans told the committee the BCA has a full-time team that processes data-practices requests and redactions but the volume of body camera and bystander video often requires redacting private or irrelevant footage before posting. "What this bill does is it doesn't change the data classification of any of the information… We will still put everything else up that we normally would, including the video that captures the incident and what led up to it. It would simply be what we refer to… extraneous video, meaning other video that doesn't actually [pertain] to the incident itself," Superintendent Evans said.

Muller said the bill aims to get the most pertinent information to the public within the statutory 30 days while allowing other footage to be processed through standard data-practices requests. The committee renewed Muller's motion to re-refer House File 13 54 to Judiciary; the motion carried by voice vote. No roll-call tally is recorded in the committee minutes.