KCBD Investigates: City of Lubbock working to recover missing body cam, dashcam video files from Lubbock Police Department

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Lubbock Police Department body camera and dash camera videos are gone.

The city’s information technology department said a technical issue with server storage and retention caused them to lose files.

“I have a lot of questions,” said Matt Morrow, President of The Lubbock Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. “When were you made aware of the situation? Two, What is your understanding of how big this goes? How many cases does this potentially affect? How far back does it affect?”

Morrow said he learned of the technical issues from other attorneys, not the city.

“I don’t want to cast aspersions on any one particular agency or group. I know mistakes happen, but the issue that I have is the transparency that goes along with this,” Morrow said.

Lacey Nobles with the City of Lubbock said city staff learned of the issues in December and is now working with a third party to try and retrieve the files.

Nobles said they are still working to establish a timeline and don’t know how many cases may be affected.

“The county has been working with us to determine a list of higher priority cases that they would hope to be able to see if we can recover those files first,” Nobles said.

“This was nothing malicious or intentional. It was not a hack. It was just a technological glitch,” Nobles said.

We relayed this information to Morrow,.

“You have given me more information with that than what’s been addressed. I have not received a phone call or an email or an invitation to any kind of meeting,” Morrow said. “I really think the defense bar should have a seat at this table and be properly informed about what’s going on.”

The city’s chief information officer released this statement, “This is a challenging process but is working as expected. It is our belief that there is more recoverable data and we are committed to recovering as much as is possible.”

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