The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada is suing the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) for charging "excessive and improper fees" to receive government records, alleging that it knowingly overcharges in a way that allows it to operate more secretively.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Clark County District Court, is also joined by The Nevada Independent, The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that reports on the justice system, and Edgar Flores Law, a law firm owned by Sen. Edgar Flores (D-Las Vegas).

The complaint argues that Las Vegas' police department openly flouts state law by charging hundreds to thousands of dollars to fulfill requests for public records — official documents held by the government but accessible to the public — using unjust and inconsistently applied formulas.

Some of the fees cited by the ACLU's lawyers were related to requests for arrest reports in homicide cases and for body camera footage of police officers using force against peaceful protesters. 

"LVMPD price gouges the public out of access to public records, allowing it to operate without transparency and accountability to the public they are meant to serve," a briefing accompanying the lawsuit asserts.

Under the Nevada Public Records Act (NPRA), citizens have a right to request materials from the government and to sue if the wait time or the cost it takes to obtain those materials becomes "excessive or improper." 

While the government is allowed to charge fees to fulfill public records requests, those fees cannot be greater than the "actual cost" of producing the records, such as the cost of ink, paper and postage. The law specifically excludes costs that an agency would incur anyways while preserving public records, even if a request for the records is never filed.

The lawsuit claims that LVMPD's fees for various records requests exceed that "actual cost" threshold because the police department demands compensation for the time its officers spend working on records requests. 

The ACLU's lawyers argue that because the police department pays employees their salaries regardless of their tasks, passing officers' compensation onto the public violates the state's "actual cost" rule. 

The police department's officers are "no less obligated" to provide public records than they are to complete their other duties, the ACLU lawyers claim in the accompanying brief.

In one exchange quoted in the lawsuit, police representatives told The Marshall Project that producing homicide investigation files would cost $47 for every hour that LVMPD employees spent on the request "based on the actual salaries and benefits of the employees." The Marshall Project and The Nevada Independent are partnering on an investigative journalism project.

"We joined this lawsuit not only so our reporters can have reasonable access to important police records, but so that anyone among the public can get the records they're entitled to," said Jennifer Peter, editor of The Marshall Project, in a written statement provided to The Indy.

The lawsuit also argues that the department's rules around records requests are applied inconsistently and with little explanation. 

It cites an ACLU request for body camera footage that initially resulted in a nearly $7,000 bill, based on the LVMPD's estimate that officers would need to work over 80 hours to assemble the records.

When the ACLU narrowed its request in an effort to reduce the price, the department issued a new cost estimate, this time based on the number of minutes in the body camera footage rather than the number of hours worked by the officers.

In January, a reporter with The Nevada Independent submitted a request for homicide data that resulted in a nearly $600 bill for "crime analysis research." That was despite the fact that local law enforcement agencies regularly compile such data to provide to the federal government, meaning the information should have already been gathered. 

After the reporter requested a clarification on the price, LVMPD said in February it had forwarded the issue along to its legal counsel. The Indy has not received an update since.

In another instance, The Marshall Project submitted a records request that produced 312 pages of records for a $460 fee. Months later, a records request that the lawsuit describes as similar produced 215 pages of records — but for twice the price, at $940.

"There's no way a right-minded person could read through Nevada's public records law and come to the same conclusion Metro has in these cases," said Riley Snyder, co-editor of The Nevada Independent. "We will not hesitate to remind Metro that these records in almost all cases belong to the public." 

The lawsuit also criticizes the police department's policy of estimating the cost of a records request — and collecting sizable deposits, to be returned later if the estimate was off — rather than more precisely calculating anticipated fees.

"The NPRA is designed to promote transparency related to public records — not leave requestors in the dark as to the hundreds to thousands of dollars they could be charged for their requests," the ACLU lawyers argue.

LVMPD has previously come under fire for the cost of producing its records, including a prior policy where it charged $280 for every hour of body camera footage it released. 

An analysis conducted by The Indy last September found that only 2 percent of the record requests filed in Nevada come with a fee but that when they do charge, the fees can be steep. 

A Nevada public records request that includes a fee costs $3,573 on average, according to the government transparency-focused nonprofit Muckrock. This is mild compared to Alabama's whopping average of $12,287 per request but expensive when compared to Connecticut's average of $157. 

To correct for what it describes as a willful violation of state law, the lawsuit requests that the district court demand LVMPD to fulfill the petitioners' existing records requests and immediately stop overcharging on other requests going forward. It also asks the court to cover the petitioners' attorneys' fees and impose the civil penalties that come with violating Nevada's public records law — a fine of $1,000 to $10,000, depending on the number of violations. 

"It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, Republican, or non-partisan. … All Nevadans deserve open and transparent government," ACLU director Athar Haseebullah said in a statement provided to The Indy.

This story was updated at 5:30p.m. on July 30, 2026, to include links to the lawsuit's opening brief and petition.