ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A New Mexico law designed to keep government records open to the public is putting pressure on the City of Albuquerque as officials work through a growing backlog of requests.

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Under the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), anyone can request government documents—from traffic tickets and police reports to building permits and police body camera footage. The law requires agencies to respond within specific deadlines, but Albuquerque officials say the sheer volume of requests is making that increasingly difficult.

City Clerk Ethan Watson said the workload has risen sharply in recent months. “Every person in our office is working on a higher volume of cases at present,” Watson said. “And I think that’s being felt by the public.”

Body camera footage from police encounters—videos frequently shown in news coverage—are among the records commonly requested. Many say access to those videos helps hold people accountable, whether they are police officers, civilians, or criminal suspects. But fulfilling those requests often takes time. Sensitive information, such as personal details or evidence tied to ongoing cases, must be reviewed and redacted before records can be released.

Watson said the volume of requests has surged. During July, August, and September of last year, the city received more than 2,000 IPRA requests each month. Requests directed specifically to the Albuquerque Police Department increased by nearly 70%. In total, the city processed nearly 16,000 public records requests last year.

More recently, officials have noticed a new trend: hundreds of requests coming from outside the United States and from other states.

“What’s really been new in this last quarter is we’ve had individuals in our top requester group for the first time, but they’re all individuals out of state,” Watson said. “We have individuals in Bahawal, Pakistan, and then we have another large group in another requester in Arkansas.”

Watson believes many of these requests may be generated with the help of artificial intelligence or submitted on behalf of online content creators. “We’re also seeing references in a number of these requests to YouTube channels,” Watson said. “So we think that people are either directly submitting requests for police video to us for YouTube channels, or they are paying people in other states and other countries to submit requests to us.”

The city is required to process requests in the order they are received. Officials said complex requests—especially those involving large amounts of video that must be reviewed and edited—can slow down the process for others waiting on records. “And most of the time we are able to resolve those requests pretty quickly,” Watson said. “But there are just requests that do take longer.”

Currently, Albuquerque has more than 1,700 IPRA requests in its backlog. While still significant, that number has improved from more than 2,000 pending requests in 2024.

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