When a rental house west of Martinville caught fire on Jan. 27, it took 32 minutes from the time the blaze first was reported until the Browntown Fire Department arrived on the scene.
A gap in technology handling 911 calls from cell phones and human error caused much of that delay. A Green County dispatcher initially, and mistakenly, sent the Brodhead Fire Department, on the other side of the county, to a wrong address. It took a second 911 call for the right department to be dispatched to the correct address.
Without hesitation, the Green County Sheriff's Department released audio copies of the two 911 calls to The Monroe Times. Those calls were posted on the Times' Web site, and used by reporters and editors to help write a news story discussing the technological and procedural issues that led to the delay. There was a definite public benefit to the audio release of the calls.
There is legislation being formulated that would cut off public access to the audio versions of 911 calls. It should be defeated.
The law currently allows the release of audible recordings of 911 calls. It also allows the custodian of the recordings to withhold public access under a "balancing test" that weighs the public interest in restricting release against the strong public interest in providing access.
But Rep. Amy Sue Vruwink, D-Milladore, is proposing a bill that would limit release of 911 calls to written transcripts. As Vruwink wrote in a memo written Tuesday seeking bill co-sponsors, "the advantages gained in releasing such information in audio format, as opposed to written transcripts, are far outweighed by the sensationalism caused when the media uses these calls to sensationalize the story, not to mention the pain and suffering such exposure causes the families of potential victims of the emergency."
While Vruwink's argument is understandable on an emotional level, it fails logically because 911 calls are public records. Citizens and the media have every right to have access to these public records, and legislation should not be used to restrict access.
While a written transcript of a 911 call may be sufficient in some instances, in many others the ability to hear voices, inflections and background sounds in the audio version will provide much more insight and impact. In the case of the Martintown fire, it was much easier to determine how difficult it would have been for the dispatcher to understand the address he was given in the first call. The audio files also provided additional insight into some of the procedural glitches the county needs to address
Yes, media have and will used 911 calls to sensationalize news reports from time to time. But that is no reason to restrict public access to public records. Vruwink's bill should be opposed.
A gap in technology handling 911 calls from cell phones and human error caused much of that delay. A Green County dispatcher initially, and mistakenly, sent the Brodhead Fire Department, on the other side of the county, to a wrong address. It took a second 911 call for the right department to be dispatched to the correct address.
Without hesitation, the Green County Sheriff's Department released audio copies of the two 911 calls to The Monroe Times. Those calls were posted on the Times' Web site, and used by reporters and editors to help write a news story discussing the technological and procedural issues that led to the delay. There was a definite public benefit to the audio release of the calls.
There is legislation being formulated that would cut off public access to the audio versions of 911 calls. It should be defeated.
The law currently allows the release of audible recordings of 911 calls. It also allows the custodian of the recordings to withhold public access under a "balancing test" that weighs the public interest in restricting release against the strong public interest in providing access.
But Rep. Amy Sue Vruwink, D-Milladore, is proposing a bill that would limit release of 911 calls to written transcripts. As Vruwink wrote in a memo written Tuesday seeking bill co-sponsors, "the advantages gained in releasing such information in audio format, as opposed to written transcripts, are far outweighed by the sensationalism caused when the media uses these calls to sensationalize the story, not to mention the pain and suffering such exposure causes the families of potential victims of the emergency."
While Vruwink's argument is understandable on an emotional level, it fails logically because 911 calls are public records. Citizens and the media have every right to have access to these public records, and legislation should not be used to restrict access.
While a written transcript of a 911 call may be sufficient in some instances, in many others the ability to hear voices, inflections and background sounds in the audio version will provide much more insight and impact. In the case of the Martintown fire, it was much easier to determine how difficult it would have been for the dispatcher to understand the address he was given in the first call. The audio files also provided additional insight into some of the procedural glitches the county needs to address
Yes, media have and will used 911 calls to sensationalize news reports from time to time. But that is no reason to restrict public access to public records. Vruwink's bill should be opposed.
