Kansas Police Body Camera Laws: Access & K.S.A. 45-254

Kansas classifies police body camera and dash camera footage as a criminal investigation record under K.S.A. 45-254, closed to the public by default. A narrow group of eligible people, mainly the person shown in the recording, can request to view or listen to it within 20 days.

This guide is part of our Police Bodycam Laws by State series.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses Kansas law governing police body cameras: the absence of a statewide equipment mandate, the K.S.A. 45-254 disclosure framework, and the eligible-person and court-order paths to obtaining footage. It does not address a civilian's right to record law enforcement, which is covered separately in our guide to recording laws.

Does Kansas require police to wear body cameras?

No. Kansas has no statute requiring any state, county, or municipal law enforcement agency to equip officers with body cameras. A 2021 proposal, Senate Bill 198, would have created a "police and citizen protection act" requiring every officer primarily assigned to patrol duty to carry a body camera starting July 1, 2023, and would have set statewide activation rules. The bill died in committee on May 23, 2022, and was never enacted.

Because no mandate exists, whether an agency has body cameras at all, when officers must turn them on, and how long footage is kept are matters of local department policy rather than state law. Kansas City, Kansas and other larger departments publish their own body-worn camera policies, but a smaller agency is free to use cameras only in limited circumstances or not use them at all.

Is Kansas bodycam footage a public record?

No, not by default. K.S.A. 45-254(a) provides that every audio or video recording made and retained by a law enforcement body camera or vehicle camera "shall be considered a criminal investigation record as defined in K.S.A. 45-217." Under the Kansas Open Records Act, K.S.A. 45-221(a)(10) allows a custodian to close criminal investigation records to the public, so a bodycam recording starts out presumptively unavailable, not presumptively open.

That closure is not absolute. K.S.A. 45-221(a)(10) lets a district court, in an action under K.S.A. 45-222, order disclosure of a closed criminal investigation record if it finds disclosure is in the public interest, would not interfere with a prospective law enforcement action, would not reveal a confidential source or investigative technique, would not endanger anyone's life or safety, and would not unreasonably invade a victim's privacy. That court process is available to anyone, not only the categories of people described below.

Who can view or listen to Kansas bodycam footage, and how fast?

K.S.A. 45-254(c) gives a defined group of people a specific, faster path than a general KORA request or a court fight. Eligible requesters are the person who is the subject of the recording, a parent or legal guardian of a minor who is a subject, an "heir at law" of a deceased subject (in order of priority: executor or administrator, surviving spouse, adult child, or parent), and an attorney representing any of those people.

Once an eligible person makes a request under the procedures an agency adopts under K.S.A. 45-220, the agency must allow the person to listen to the audio or view the video within 20 days, and may charge a reasonable fee for that service. The statute's language grants a right to listen or view the recording, which is narrower than a guaranteed right to a copy of the file itself.

Can anyone else get Kansas bodycam footage released?

Yes, but not through K.S.A. 45-254 itself. A person who is not an eligible requester can bring an action under K.S.A. 45-222 asking a district court to order disclosure of a closed criminal investigation record. The court applies the multi-factor balancing test built into K.S.A. 45-221(a)(10), and an agency that closes a record must, on request, give the requester a brief written statement citing the specific KORA provision it relied on.

In practice, the most common way bodycam footage becomes public in a contested case is not a KORA lawsuit at all, but civil litigation discovery: a family that files a wrongful-death or civil-rights suit can obtain footage through the federal or state civil rules governing evidence, sometimes even where a direct open-records request would have been denied.

A real example: the Taylor Lowery shooting in Topeka

On October 2, 2022, five Topeka police officers fired 34 shots at 33-year-old Taylor Lowery in the parking lot of a Kwik Shop gas station, killing him. Police initially described Lowery as having a knife, and the city resisted releasing the bodycam recordings of the shooting, consistent with K.S.A. 45-254's default closure of the footage.

Lowery's family filed a federal wrongful-death lawsuit, and in the course of that litigation a federal magistrate judge, Angel Mitchell, rejected the city's request for a protective order and ordered the video produced. The family released the footage, which showed Lowery bending to grab a wrench, not a knife, at the moment officers opened fire, a detail that had not been part of the department's public account. The case is a concrete illustration of how Kansas's default closure operates, and how a federal civil suit can be the path that ultimately gets footage into public view.

Is it illegal to record police in Kansas?

That is a separate question from the one this page addresses. Kansas generally recognizes a person's right to record an on-duty officer performing public duties in a public place. For a full explanation of that right and how it differs from the rules on police-generated bodycam footage discussed here, see Is It Illegal to Record Someone?