Tell the Police Chief your lawyer is going to subpeona the Department CALEA Standards on the maintenance and disposal of official documents and dashcam videos.
He is sunk either way. He has either violated the standards or his department is run in such a sloppy manner it has no standards.
In any case the patrol officer and in many cases even his supervisor are not allowed access to the video recorder in his patrol car.
Only the crime scene investigation unit is supposed to have access to the bullet/burn-proof steel box that houses the dashcam video recorder in the car trunk.
It may be time to clean house in your Police Department.
Best regards,
The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc.
Actually, they aren’t in a steel lock box. The officers have complete control over their 7 tapes.