Rusty Marks, Staff writer, Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)

Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper wants state lawmakers to open up the rules regarding the release of 911 tapes.

In 2001, the Legislature passed a law making 911 recordings confidential under many circumstances. Many states hold that 911 recordings are matters of public record, as radio traffic travels over the public airwaves.

The 2001 law says 911 tapes can be released only under court order, although the law states that transcripts of the recordings may be released under some circumstances.

In Kanawha County, emergency officials have generally released 911 recordings to the news media. Carper argued that the recordings of the actual emergency radio traffic are themselves a transcript of the original broadcast.

Many counties say they cannot release 911 tapes.

“Universally, it’s kind of a hodgepodge thing,” Carper said. “There’s a veil of secrecy around it. I would like to have the Legislature review that [law] and what is kept secret.”

On Wednesday, Carper wrote a letter to Kanawha County’s state senators and delegates, asking the Legislature to take another look at the 911 law. In most states, copies of 911 tapes are readily available to reporters.

“It seems, almost every day somewhere in America, the audio from a 911 call is aired from an event that happened just hours earlier,” Carper wrote. “I understand that different states handle the release of these records differently, but it strikes me as unfair to say the content of these calls is nobody’s business, particularly the business of the people who are paying for them.”

Last month, audio from a 911 call concerning actress Demi Moore was all over national media within days of the incident. The public also quickly heard details of 911 calls from the overdose of pop singer Michael Jackson.

Carper agrees that some information contained in emergency calls should be redacted or edited out. Calls also should not be immediately made public if the release would jeopardize a criminal investigation.

“No one wants to compromise a criminal investigation,” he said, “but, somewhere in the middle, there has to be a way [to release information to the public].”

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