SMB Advertising, Inc. v. City of Boulder.
2026 COA 25. No. 25CA0026. Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act—Incident Recordings—Complaint of Police Officer Misconduct—Criminal Justice Records Act—Payment of Fees—Unfunded Mandate.
April 9, 2026
City of Boulder (Boulder) police officers shot and killed Alatorre. Several months later, the attorney for SMB Advertising, Inc. d/b/a Yellow Scene Magazine (Yellow Scene), a community news organization, filed a police misconduct complaint regarding the incident. Pursuant to the Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act (Integrity Act), Yellow Scene requested the Boulder Police Department (BPD) to produce recordings of the incident. Before producing the recordings, the BPD requested payment for the costs of searching, reviewing, blurring, and producing the recordings under the fee provision of the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA). When asked if it would produce the recordings without payment, the police department declined. Yellow Scene then sued Boulder, asserting claims for mandamus and declaratory relief. Alatorre’s daughter joined the lawsuit, seeking only mandamus relief, alleging that she had also requested recordings of the incident under the Integrity Act and had similarly been requested to pay fees before receiving the recordings. The district court entered declaratory relief in favor of Yellow Scene, holding that the plain language of the Integrity Act and the CCJRA does not authorize law enforcement agencies to condition compliance with the Integrity Act on the payment of fees. The court also rejected Boulder’s alternative argument that CRS § 29-1-304.5, the unfunded mandate statute, made optional the Integrity Act’s purported mandate that law enforcement agencies provide requested recordings free of charge. Yellow Scene and Alatorre’s daughter then moved to dismiss the remaining mandamus claim, and the court entered final judgment in favor of Yellow Scene on the declaratory relief claim.
On appeal, Boulder argued that law enforcement agencies have discretion under the CCJRA to charge fees before complying with recordings requests under the Integrity Act. The Integrity Act requires law enforcement agencies, upon request, to release all unedited video and audio recordings within 21 days for incidents involving a complaint of peace officer misconduct. The Integrity Act requires blurring of certain people or things in released video recordings for privacy protection but does not authorize a law enforcement agency to charge fees for the review, blurring, and production of requested recordings. It is undisputed that the recordings requested in this case are criminal justice records under the CCJRA, which allows a criminal justice agency to assess reasonable fees for searching, retrieving, and redacting criminal justice records. The court of appeals concluded that the CCJRA and Integrity Acy do not conflict; that CCJRA’s fee provision is limited to requests for criminal justice records under the CCJRA; and that the Integrity Act does not condition a law enforcement agency’s compliance with its obligations to produce requested recordings on the payment of fees. Accordingly, the district court did not err by entering declaratory relief in favor of Yellow Scene.
Boulder alternatively contended that because the General Assembly did not provide funding for local governments to review, blur, and produce requested recordings, it can treat these production obligations under the Integrity Act as optional under the unfunded mandate statute. First, the record is undeveloped on whether the mandate to release recordings under the Integrity Act is unfunded. But even assuming that the General Assembly didn’t fund the mandate requiring law enforcement agencies to produce recordings requested under the Integrity Act, the assumed lack of funding leaves the two statutes in irreconcilable conflict. In this situation, the Integrity Act, which is the more recent and specific of the two statutes, prevails. The unfunded mandate statute thus does not make optional BPD’s obligation to produce recordings requested under the Integrity Act.
The judgment was affirmed.