Court finds Prescott police failed to preserve dash cam footage, allows adverse inference instruction

In a § 1983 excessive force lawsuit by Dustin Woods against officer Jason Scissons, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona ruled that the City of Prescott failed to preserve dashboard camera footage from the incident. The court found that dash cams in at least two police vehicles would have recorded relevant footage and that the city had a duty to preserve it. It imputed the spoliation to Scissons and allowed a jury instruction that if the jury finds the city destroyed the footage with intent to deprive Woods of its use, it may infer the footage was unfavorable to the city.