For many people, the idea of making 911 tapes accessible to the general public is repugnant. After all, many of these tapes are made when people are at their most exposed and most vulnerable. They often record scenes that are heartbreakingly sad, horrifically scary or deeply personal.
Without question, the privacy of victims in such circumstances must be protected. And it can be, as Michael Berry, an attorney with Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, L.L.P. in Philadelphia, points out in his thoughtful letter on why 911 tapes should fall under the presumption of openness in Senate Bill 1.
Berry makes three main points: (1) 911 tapes are a critical and powerful way for the public to assess the performance of its government’s emergency services; (2) they can provide important information to victims’ families; and (3) they can document history, as they did after 9/11.
Berry, who has drafted a proposed amendment to SB1 that presumes 911 tapes and transcripts are publicly accessible, subject to specific exceptions designed to protect personal privacy and ongoing investigations, makes a compelling case:
“Disclosing 911 tapes and transcripts provides the public with a powerful check on emergency call centers and public safety personnel. 911 tapes provide a unique view into the performance of public officials in life-and-death situations, situations reflecting the most essential services our government provides. When emergency personnel respond well, disclosure increases the public’s confidence, as was the case when the Lancaster District Attorney released the transcripts from the 2006 Amish school shootings.
“Transparency also permits the public to learn when emergency dispatch systems fail – and to demand change. For instance, in 1994 after Eddie Polec’s brutal beating death, his family learned how miserably Philadelphia’s antiquated 911 and radio systems failed the night he was murdered. Their push for reform led the city to revamp its entire emergency response system.
“Information on 911 tapes and transcripts can also provide important information to victims’ families, as was shown in two other states last year. 911 tapes revealed that dispatchers in Los Angeles brushed aside frantic calls for help as a woman spit up blood and ultimately died in a hospital emergency room, which itself ignored the woman’s pleas for help. Likewise, 911 tapes showed that after a woman died in police custody in the Phoenix airport, a police lieutenant avoided telling her husband that she had died, even as the husband urgently sought to advise a dispatcher of his wife’s fragile mental and physical condition and desperately asked about her well-being. Surely, a victim’s family has a right to know when a 911 dispatcher shrugs off calls for help or a government employee ignores a loved one’s call for information.
“Finally, providing access to 911 tapes and transcripts can be essential for documenting history. The most notable recent example of this benefit is seen in New York City’s release of the 911 tapes from September 11, 2001. Those tapes document the heroic response and sacrifice of New York’s firefighters. They also provide an unparalleled account of what happened that tragic day.
“When 911 tapes and transcripts are kept secret, the credibility of the government’s emergency responses and subsequent investigations always remains open to question. Just as importantly, victims and families of victims are deprived of critical, contemporaneous information about the incidents that prompted the calls and the response from emergency personnel. The public is also deprived of its chance to preserve the historic record of significant events. When only the government has access to 911 tapes, the valuable information they contain might be lost forever. Because most 911 tapes are erased and recycled soon after the incidents occur, under present law, if the government does not make a prompt request to preserve the tapes, the information they contain will not be preserved.
Of course, not all information contained in 911 recordings should be disclosed publicly. The law ought to protect information when its release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy or actually hinder an ongoing investigation. For example, the law should exempt information that reveals an individual’s medical history, discloses a confidential police source, or invades the personal privacy of a victim. In most cases, however, these concerns do not arise – and when they do, they can be addressed by redacting the protected information.”
For a more up close and personal look at why some recent hikers in western Pennsylvania might want an open investigation into 911 tapes, tune in tomorrow.