Texas Police Report: How to Get a Crash Report from CRIS, an Incident Report, or Bodycam Footage

Texas runs its crash reports through a single statewide purchase system, TxDOT's Crash Records Information System, known as CRIS. That is a different channel from a local incident report, which still has to come from whichever city or county department responded, under the state's general public information law.

Texas also has one of the more explicit correction models in the country: a mistake on a crash report does not get silently fixed. It gets supplemented. That distinction matters in any insurance or injury claim that depends on the report's accuracy.

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

Getting a Copy of a Texas Crash Report

Texas crash reports are purchased through CRIS, the Crash Records Information System run by the Texas Department of Transportation. A standard copy costs $6 and a certified copy costs $8, figures TxDOT confirms directly on its own crash-reports-records page and that trace back to Texas Transportation Code § 550.065(c)(4). The report is delivered electronically once the purchase goes through.

Access is not open to anyone who asks. Texas Transportation Code § 550.065 makes crash report information "privileged and for the confidential use of" the department and agencies with a legitimate collision-prevention or criminal-investigation use, and it lists who else can obtain a copy: a person involved in the crash or an authorized representative, the vehicle's owner or operator, the employer or guardian of an involved driver, the insurance company covering an involved vehicle or person, an FCC-licensed broadcaster or qualifying newspaper, and government agencies. A requester outside those categories will typically receive a redacted copy, or be denied.

CRIS covers crash data for the prior 10 full calendar years plus the current year. One detail worth knowing if a crash was minor enough that no officer investigated: TxDOT stopped retaining driver self-report forms, known as CR-2 forms, as of January 1, 2019. Those older self-reports are not something CRIS can produce.

Correcting a Texas Crash Report

If something on a Texas crash report is wrong, the fix runs through a specific statutory process rather than an informal edit. Texas Transportation Code § 550.068 treats a correction as a supplement or addendum filed alongside the original report, never a silent rewrite of it. That structure matters for anyone using the report in an insurance claim or a lawsuit: both the original report and any later correction remain part of the record, rather than one replacing the other without a trace.

Getting a Copy of a Texas Police Incident Report

An incident report, covering an arrest, a burglary, or any other non-crash police response, is requested from the records division of the city or county department that handled it. Texas has no single statewide portal for these the way it does for crash reports through CRIS. In Texas's largest cities, that typically means the police department's own online records request system or public information request process; in smaller jurisdictions, it means contacting the department directly.

These requests fall under the Texas Public Information Act. Texas Government Code § 552.108 gives a law enforcement agency or prosecutor an exception for "information held by a law enforcement agency or prosecutor that deals with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime," where releasing it "would interfere with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime." As in most states, that exception is applied case by case: a closed matter is far more likely to be released in full than an open investigation.

Texas Body Camera Footage

Texas has a dedicated body worn camera framework built into its Code of Criminal Procedure, covering everything from grant funding for departments to activation and release rules. The specific release provision, Article 2B.0112, states that body worn camera information held by a law enforcement agency "is not subject to" the Public Information Act's general disclosure requirement, with an important carve-back: information that "is or could be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution is subject to" that same disclosure section. In practice, that means whether footage is treated as generally available or as a criminal-investigation record can turn on whether the recorded incident is connected to a pending or possible prosecution.

Because Texas has periodically reorganized its law-enforcement statutes between the Occupations Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, confirm the current citation and process directly with the agency's records unit or the Texas Attorney General's Public Information Act resources before relying on a specific section number. For the general request process and a state comparison, see How to Request Body Cam Footage and Texas 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?, Texas Body Camera Laws, Texas Car Accident Laws, Texas Public Records Laws, and Texas Court Records.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about how to request police crash reports, incident reports, and body camera footage in Texas. It is not legal advice. Fees, portals, and statutes change; confirm current details with TxDOT, the responding agency, or a Texas 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.