How to Get a Police Report in Arizona (2026): Crash & Incident Reports

Arizona is one of the more unusual states in this cluster, because it has no codified law-enforcement public-records exemption at all. Where most states point to a specific statute that lets police withhold investigative records, Arizona's public-records law is a single, bare right-to-inspect sentence, and withholding runs on decades of case law instead.

Which agency you contact for a crash report also depends on where the crash happened. The Arizona Department of Public Safety (AZDPS) investigates crashes on state highways and interstates; a crash on a city street goes through that city's own police department.

Information last verified on 2026-08-11. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

How to Get an Arizona Crash Report

Which agency investigated your crash determines where you request the report.

State highways and interstates (AZDPS): Go to the AZDPS Public Services Portal at psp.azdps.gov and select 'Request a Report or Records.' AZDPS's own page notes that a separate self-report tool exists for collisions that do not meet trooper-investigation criteria, and that tool does not substitute for the official Arizona Crash Report. Confirm the current fee and processing time directly on the portal; some secondary sources cite roughly $9 for a mailed paper report plus a per-page charge, and a wait of at least 14 days for a trooper-investigated report to become available, but neither figure was independently confirmed on AZDPS's fee page this pass.

Local roads: Contact the police department for the city where the crash happened. Many, including Phoenix, run their own online records-request portals.

Who may obtain a copy: Arizona Revised Statutes 28-667(C)(6) requires the investigating agency, on request, to provide an unredacted copy to a person involved in the crash or the vehicle's owner (or their representative), an insurer investigating the claim, an attorney or licensed private investigator representing an involved person in connection with a legal proceeding, or an insurance support organization. Separately, Arizona Revised Statutes 39-127, confirmed directly on the Legislature's own text, gives a crime victim (or an immediate family member if the victim was killed or incapacitated) the right to 'one copy of the police report, audio recordings and video recordings from the investigating law enforcement agency or charging prosecutorial agency at no charge,' with the same right extended explicitly to domestic violence and sexual-offense victims.

Commercial-use restriction: Arizona Revised Statutes 28-667(C)(1)-(2) bars an agency from letting anyone examine a report for a 'commercial solicitation purpose' and lets the agency require a written certification, under penalty of perjury, that the request is not for that purpose.

How to Get an Arizona Police Incident Report

Arizona's public-records law, the bare right-to-inspect statute at Arizona Revised Statutes 39-121, is unusual nationally: it has no codified exemptions list at all. It simply requires that public records 'shall be open to inspection by any person' during office hours.

That does not mean Arizona police investigative records are automatically public. Withholding runs entirely on case law rather than statute. The controlling framework comes from Cox Arizona Publications, Inc. v. Collins, 175 Ariz. 11 (1993), and Scottsdale Unified School District No. 48 v. KPNX Broadcasting Co., 191 Ariz. 297 (1998): an agency must specifically demonstrate how releasing a record would violate someone's privacy or confidentiality, or would be detrimental to the 'best interests of the state,' rather than withholding an entire investigative file by category. In practice, contact the records unit of the agency that investigated (a city police department for a local incident, AZDPS for a state matter) to request a copy, and expect the agency to apply this case-by-case balancing test rather than a fixed exemptions schedule.

Arizona Police Bodycam Footage

Arizona has no statewide law requiring departments to use body cameras, and no dedicated statute governing access to bodycam footage once it exists. Two statutes touch bodycam only incidentally: Arizona Revised Statutes 38-1161 (civilian review board training topics) and Arizona Revised Statutes 13-4434 (victim-information redaction referencing bodycam footage), neither of which is itself an access statute.

Because Arizona also has no codified law-enforcement records exemption, a bodycam footage request runs through the same framework as any other police record: Arizona Revised Statutes 39-121's bare right-to-inspect language, filtered through the Cox/Scottsdale case-law balancing test described above. There is no separate bodycam fee schedule, timeline, or portal; contact the individual agency's records unit. See Arizona Police Bodycam Laws and our guide to requesting body camera footage for more on this case-law approach.

Corrections and Practical Notes

No Arizona-specific statutory process for correcting a factual error on a report was found; contact the investigating agency directly.

Arizona Revised Statutes 28-667 itself combines the officer's report-filing duty with the disclosure and redaction rules in one section, unlike states that separate a free 'exchange of information' form from the paid full report. Arizona does not appear to run that same fee-tier trap; a single accident report, subject to the eligibility rules above, is the operative document.

If a crash report indicates a criminal complaint has been issued, Arizona Revised Statutes 28-667(D) requires personal identifying information about any victim to be redacted before release, under Arizona Revised Statutes 13-4434.

For the aftermath of a crash beyond the report itself, see Arizona Car Accident Laws. For the broader public-records framework, see Arizona Public Records Laws and Arizona Court Records. For the general process of filing or reading a report, see How to File a Police Report and How to Read a Police Report.

Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about how to obtain a police crash report, incident report, or body camera footage in Arizona as verified on 2026-08-11. It does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Readers with a specific records dispute, or who need advice about a specific incident, should consult a lawyer licensed in Arizona.

Last updated: 2026-08-11. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of August 2026.