Artificial intelligence software will now help Wheat Ridge Police Department officers save hours on official written reports.

During a 10-hour work day, police officers can spend up to four hours writing out reports based on the day’s arrests, according to Wheat Ridge Police Department’s spokesperson Alex Rose.

Now, with the department’s Aug. 1 adoption of Axon Enterprise’s Draft One program, the time taken to scribe out reports has fallen by 40% to 60% for the department. 

Axon is the producer of the body cameras worn by the department, as well as various other departments throughout the metro Denver area. The company launched Draft One in 2024, an AI-driven software that immediately creates reports based off of what the body camera’s audio and GPS is picking up. 

The software will write up around eight paragraphs in 15 seconds based off what it is hearing and where it is located, including direct transcriptions of conversations, according to Rose.

It also includes detailed timestamps — all details once handwritten by officers. 

Department officials began trying out the software around May and officially began using it at the beginning of the month. It added around $100,000 a year to the department’s current contract with Axon for cameras.

“It’s not perfect, and there are protections behind it,” Rose said. “It is, by no means, a final products. When working with AI, it’s important that we have human oversight.”

Rose added that the department worked in protections and safeguards in consultation with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office.

For example, the report will leave prompts for the officer to describe what they saw. It will also input purposefully incorrect information so the officer has to pay full attention and read over what is written.

“It’ll say something random like, ‘the vampire saw red paint,’ just to make sure the officer is overseeing it,” Rose said.

The idea is not new. Since it’s inception in April 2024, multiple departments around the area have began using the program.

For example, the Lakewood Police Department and Arvada Police Department both use the exact software, placing in similar methods to make sure officers read over the reports and approve them.

The Denver Police Department has looked into the program, a spokesperson said, but are not currently pursuing adoption.

Regarding whether or not AI-written reports will cause trouble in the courtroom for criminal cases, with each report noting it was written by AI, Rose added that it is just a first draft — a way to speed up the writing process that still has to be completed.

“This isn’t substitute for core police work. An officer is going to have to go up on a stand and testify what they saw. It’s also combined with bodycam footage. It’s three different accounts in the legal process,” he said.

Officers who have been using the software since the department started trying it in May have claimed they enjoy it, according to Rose, but officers are still able to write their own reports if desired.

“It seems to be useful for our officers and cuts down on the amount of time it takes for them to write their incident reports,” a spokesperson with the Lakewood Police Department said.