Tennessee Police Report: How to Get a Crash Report, Incident Report, or Body Camera Video

Getting a Tennessee crash report starts with one question: did Tennessee Highway Patrol investigate it, or did a local department? THP crashes go through the state's online purchase system, purchasetncrash.gov. Every other crash goes straight to the city or county agency that responded, since Tennessee has no single statewide portal covering every police department in the state.

Tennessee's body camera law also carries a currency trap worth knowing about directly. The statute that makes certain bodycam video confidential, TCA 10-7-504(u), was written with a built-in sunset date, and a shallow read of the text alone will show it as expired. It is not. The Tennessee General Assembly extended that sunset before it took effect, and the provision remains live law through July 1, 2027.

Information last verified on 2026-08-10. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Getting a Copy of a Tennessee Crash Report

A Tennessee Highway Patrol crash report is purchased online through purchasetncrash.gov, run by the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security. The online price is $10, paid by credit card. Requesters who prefer to pay by cashier's check, money order, or personal check can request a copy in person or by mail instead, for $4, by writing to the Financial Responsibility Division, PO Box 945, Nashville, TN 37202-0945.

Eligibility is broad: any driver, owner, or passenger involved in the crash, or their agent or legal representative, can request the report. Reports are generally available roughly seven days after the crash date at THP district offices.

This channel only works for crashes THP actually investigated. If a county sheriff's office or city police department handled the crash instead, purchasetncrash.gov will not have it. The request has to go to that local agency's own records unit.

Once obtained, Tennessee crash reports come with a real limitation worth knowing before a car accident claim depends on one. TCA 55-10-114 states that accident reports "shall be for the confidential use of the department or other state agencies having use of the records for accident prevention purposes," and the same statute bars them from being introduced as evidence in a trial arising out of the crash itself. A Tennessee crash report is a tool for locating facts, insurance information, and the other driver's identity, not a document a court will accept as proof of what happened.

Getting a Copy of a Tennessee Police Incident Report

A general incident report, meaning a record of an arrest, a theft, or any other police response that is not a traffic crash, is requested from the records unit of the department that responded. Tennessee's baseline public-records framework is the Tennessee Public Records Act, and its confidentiality exceptions are collected at TCA 10-7-504.

That statute is easy to over-read. Its subsection (a)(2)(A) makes certain investigative records confidential, but the scope is narrower than it looks: it covers the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and a short list of named state agencies and divisions, not a blanket shield for every city or county police department's investigative file. A local department's incident reports are generally treated as public records under the Act's default rule unless a specific exception applies, though an active investigation can still support withholding parts of a file case by case.

Tennessee Body Camera Video: The 2027 Sunset, Explained

Tennessee's bodycam confidentiality rule sits inside the same omnibus statute as the general records exemptions, at TCA 10-7-504(u). Read the raw statutory text and it looks expired: the original language enacted in 2017 (Public Chapter 255) said the provision was "deleted on July 1, 2022, and shall no longer be effective on and after such date." That sunset clause is exactly what it says on paper, but it never actually took effect.

Before July 1, 2022 arrived, the Tennessee General Assembly passed Public Chapter 916 of 2022 (HB1957), signed into law and effective April 27, 2022. It extended the repeal date from July 1, 2022 to July 1, 2027, and at the same time expanded the categories of confidential video to add footage depicting a minor in a child care agency, preschool, or nursery school, alongside the K-12 school setting already covered. TCA 10-7-504(u) is current law through that 2027 date, not an expired pilot provision.

Under the current text, bodycam video is treated as confidential and not subject to public inspection where it depicts a minor in a K-12 school or a licensed child care agency, preschool, or nursery school; the interior of a licensed health, mental health, or rehabilitation facility; or the interior of a private residence not under criminal investigation. Do not confuse this with the separate, unrelated sunset on TCA 10-7-504(a)(4)(H), a different provision covering a minor student's school-resource-officer record with its own 2026 date. They are different subsections governing different records.

For the broader access framework and a state-by-state comparison, see How to Request Body Cam Footage and Tennessee Body Camera Laws.

Related Resources

Police Reports by State covers the full 50-state picture. See also How to File a Police Report, How to Read a Police Report, Are Police Reports Public?, Tennessee Body Camera Laws, Tennessee Car Accident Laws, Tennessee Public Records Laws, and Tennessee Court Records.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about how to request police crash reports, incident reports, and body camera video in Tennessee. It is not legal advice. Fees, portals, and statutes change; confirm current details with purchasetncrash.gov, the responding agency, or a Tennessee attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-10. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of August 2026.