AI-written police reports? Park County agencies say no thanks

POWELL —  A growing number of law enforcement agencies around the country are using artificial intelligence tools to help write up their reports. Departments in Park County, however, are not. 

“There’s … a lot of agencies that see it as a time-saving mechanism,” said Powell Police Chief Jim Rhea, “but I view it as a report integrity issue.” 

If a document contains information an officer might be called to testify about, such as an affidavit of probable cause to support an arrest, “it needs to be from the officer,” Rhea said, “not something generated from artificial intelligence.” 

In separate interviews, Park County Sheriff Darrell Steward and Cody Police Chief Jason Stafford expressed similar sentiments. Like Rhea, they have no plans to start using AI to issue citations or reports. 

“I’m a little leery of AI,” Steward said. 

AI proving popular elsewhere 

While there’s a negative consensus in Park County, agencies elsewhere have enthusiastically embraced the new technology. 

In interviews with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Policing Dispatch publication in January, leaders with the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Boulder, Colorado, police departments raved about the results they were seeing from AI-generated reports. 

Officers at those departments have been loading their body camera footage to popular tools like AXON’s Draft One and Truleo’s Field Notes, which use the audio portion of the recordings to generate a draft report. 

The officer then reviews and edits the document before submitting it. 

“When your staffing numbers are down, AI reporting helps a lot,” Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn told the Community Policing Dispatch, citing the reduced time spent writing reports. 

Additionally, the newsletter said “many” agencies using AI transcription say the technology “ensures that police reports are clearly written and capture all of the verbal interchange surrounding an incident, even speech that the officer did not notice or does not remember hearing.” 

Redfearn added that his department was doing monthly audits and comparing the AI-generated text to body camera footage to check on the reports’ accuracy. 

One of the lesser-known tools is a productivity app called Enforcer, offered by the Wisconsin-based SimpliWorx, dba Blue Line Logix. 

Launched by a current Wisconsin police officer, the company bills Enforcer as being “built FOR COPS, BY COPS, super-charged with decades of experience and a sprinkle of AI tech magic!” The app’s tagline is, “Less Paperwork, More Police Work.” 

In marketing materials, Enforcer is pitched as increasing the quality of reports while decreasing writing time by up to 90% through the use of AI, templates and preprogrammed snippets. In one promotional video released last winter, a user types “marijuana,” and has Enforcer expand that word into “a green leafy vegetable like substance which based on my training and experience I recognized as marijuana.” 

New scheduling and record software

At a meeting last week, the Powell City Council agreed to let the Powell department subscribe to Enforcer. 

However, Rhea said the department isn’t using or signing up for the app’s AI-driven tools; it’s only using the platform’s records management system to help with the department’s scheduling and field training. 

SimpliWorx says its software can handle rotating schedules, on-call duties and varying assignments while making it easy to document training and feedback. The department will pay SimpliWorx $6,117.96 over the next year — $29.99 per sworn officer per month. 

That’s slightly cheaper than what the city had been paying to Hero Schedule and LEFTA Systems for scheduling and training software, respectively, Rhea said. 

He told the council the Enforcer app works better, is more user-friendly and offers more features, all in one platform. 

At the Sept. 2 meeting, City Attorney Alexa Rolin expressed some concern about a provision in SimpliWorx’s contract that limits the company’s liability. 

With some exceptions, the agreement says the maximum amount of money the city could seek from SimpliWorx in the event of a lawsuit is whatever the city paid over the prior 12 months. 

“These types of clauses are ones legal generally tries to remove, because it's a burden that the taxpayers would take on if we were sued” in connection with the app, Rolin said. 

However, City Administrator Zack Thorington said it’s not the first time the city has gotten stuck with similar wording, and Rhea described the risk as “very small.” 

After some discussion, the council unanimously approved the agreement. During the time that the department is using the Enforcer app — and for 12 months afterwards — it’s barred from making any public statements that could harm SimpliWorx’s reputation, the document adds. 

Abstaining from AI

Elsewhere in the 18-page agreement, SimpliWorx warns that it “makes no representations or warranties regarding the legal accuracy or appropriateness of content provided” by the software’s AI-generated suggestions or drafts. 

“These outputs are intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or operational advice,” the document says. “The Agency and its users are solely responsible for reviewing and validating all outputs prior to use.” 

However, that shouldn’t be an issue for Powell police officers, as they’re not using the AI features. 

One of Rhea’s concerns is that it can become hard to tell whether an officer or a piece of technology wrote a given sentence. 

Steward said he could see defense attorneys raising questions in court about the provenance of AI-generated reports. 

“I don’t even know how you begin to wrangle it, unless you abstain,” Rhea said. “We’re not going to entertain it at all.” 

Cody Police Chief Stafford noted that his department has embraced technology, including electronic citations, but he believes it’s best to have officers write their own reports. 

“AI doesn’t have the sense of smell and you know, just that gut feeling that the officer does on the scene,” Stafford said. “AI’s not going to pick up and add that into a report, where the officer can add that in through his experience …” 

The City of Cody is planning to take a general look at its AI policies over the coming months, Stafford said, but the police department has no current plans to move forward with any AI initiatives. 

The same is true at the sheriff’s office and Powell Police Department.

“Maybe [AI] technology will advance someday to the point to where we can maintain that integrity,” Rhea said, “ut I see it kind of on its maiden voyage currently.”

This story was published on Sept.c 11, 2025.