New Mexico Police Body Camera Laws: Mandate & Liability

New Mexico requires law enforcement agencies to equip officers who routinely interact with the public with body cameras under N.M. Stat. Ann. Section 29-1-18, keep footage at least 120 days, and can hold an officer liable for evidence spoliation if the camera is not used as required.

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

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses New Mexico state law on police body-worn cameras: the statewide mandate and spoliation-liability provisions of N.M. Stat. Ann. Section 29-1-18, and public access under the Inspection of Public Records Act. It does not address a civilian's right to record law enforcement, a separate and already-settled question covered in our recording-law guide below.

Does New Mexico require police to wear body cameras?

Yes, with one narrow exception. N.M. Stat. Ann. Section 29-1-18 requires a law enforcement agency to require peace officers the agency employs, and who routinely interact with the public, to wear a body-worn camera while on duty. The statute defines "peace officer" broadly, covering any full-time salaried or certified part-time salaried officer vested by law with the duty to maintain the public peace, which reaches municipal police, county sheriff's deputies, and the New Mexico State Police alike. The only exception applies when an officer is conducting an agency-sanctioned undercover operation focused on a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation and involving a covert operative whose identity is concealed. The law was enacted as Senate Bill 8 during the Legislature's First Special Session of 2020, part of a broader police accountability package Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed on July 8, 2020, with a compliance deadline of September 20, 2020, roughly 90 days after the special session adjourned.

When must a New Mexico officer's camera be on?

Section 29-1-18 requires every covered agency to adopt written policies and procedures consistent with the statute's activation rule. That rule requires activation of a body-worn camera whenever a peace officer is responding to a call for service or at the initiation of any other law enforcement or investigative encounter between a peace officer and a member of the public, and it prohibits deactivating the camera before that encounter concludes. Unlike some states, New Mexico's statute does not carve out separate rules for use-of-force incidents specifically; the same activation and no-early-deactivation duty applies across ordinary calls for service and higher-stakes encounters alike, once an interaction with the public has begun.

How long must New Mexico agencies keep bodycam footage?

An agency's written policy must provide for retention of body-worn camera video for not less than 120 days, the statutory floor set by Section 29-1-18. New Mexico's baseline is lower than several neighboring states, and the statute leaves the decision to extend retention, for example for footage tied to a use-of-force incident, a pending prosecution, or civil litigation, to each agency's own policy rather than a separate statutory tier. Departments frequently hold footage well past 120 days once it becomes evidence in an open matter, since destroying evidence connected to a pending case raises separate legal exposure under the spoliation provisions described below.

Can the public get a copy of New Mexico bodycam footage?

Bodycam recordings are public records under New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), subject to the exemptions in NMSA 1978 Section 14-2-1.2 for law enforcement records. A request for lapel or body camera video generally must identify the incident with reasonable specificity, such as a computer-aided-dispatch number, a police report number, or a date or date range, so the custodian can locate the recording. Within that framework, a custodian may redact narrow categories of especially sensitive content, including images of a dead body or of great bodily harm, but that redaction authority does not apply where the harm shown was caused by a law enforcement officer, a limit designed to prevent an agency from using redaction to shield an officer's own use of force from public view.

What happens if an officer fails to activate the camera, or tampers with footage?

New Mexico backs its activation duty with an accountability tool most other states do not use: civil liability tied directly to the missing footage. Under Section 29-1-18, a peace officer who fails to operate a body-worn camera according to agency policy, who intentionally manipulates a recording, or who prematurely erases footage in violation of policy may be presumed to have acted in bad faith. That officer can be held liable for the independent tort of negligent spoliation of evidence, or, where the conduct was intentional, the tort of intentional spoliation of evidence, in addition to whatever internal discipline the agency imposes. A person harmed by missing footage generally must file a written tort claims notice within 90 days to preserve a claim against a public agency. The rule responds to cases where a missing recording complicated a later prosecution or civil case, including the 2014 firing of an Albuquerque officer whose camera was not recording during a fatal shooting, an incident that predates the current statute but that New Mexico lawmakers pointed to when building today's accountability rules.

The Dotson shooting: bodycam footage in an active case

New Mexico's current framework is playing out in real litigation. On April 5, 2023, three Farmington police officers responding to a domestic violence call went to the wrong address and shot Robert Dotson after he answered his door holding a firearm, believing the officers were intruders. Body camera footage released by the department showed the officers knocking, announcing themselves, and debating whether they had the right house before opening fire, according to CNN's coverage of the family's lawsuit. A district attorney declined to bring criminal charges against the officers, and Dotson's family's wrongful-death lawsuit against the City of Farmington, filed under New Mexico tort law and the New Mexico Civil Rights Act, remains active, with a federal judge dismissing only part of the claims in 2025. The case illustrates how New Mexico's bodycam framework functions in a high-stakes matter: the footage was released and shaped public understanding of the shooting well before the civil case reached its outcome.

Is a civilian allowed to record the police in New Mexico?

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