Editorial: 911 records should be public

If the Iowa House of Representatives has its way, the public would be denied pertinent information -- audio, video and transcripts of 911 calls -- involving injured victims of crimes or accidents.

Instead, they would be considered confidential medical records and exempt from the state open records law. In addition, any calls involving juveniles younger than 18 automatically would be confidential.

House File 571 was recently approved in the House and by a Senate committee.

Rep. Dean Fisher, R-Montour, said it's a response to an Associated Press and USA Today Network story concerning suppressed reports regarding a series of tragic gun accidents in Tama County that killed two teenage girls and critically wounded another and her mother within a year beginning in late 2014.

The AP/USA Today coverage was part of a nationwide investigation of 1,000 accidental shootings involving minors during a 2 1/2-year period, which included an average of more than one fatality per day. The Tama County incidents were not publicly revealed until the AP made an open records request.

In one of the accidents, a family was preparing for a deer hunt prior to Christmas when their teenage son stumbled and his muzzle loader discharged, fatally hitting his 12-year-old sister.

In the other fatality, a 13-year-old girl died after her father took a rifle from a locked safe, it fell and discharged, shooting her in the head.

In the third instance, days prior to Thanksgiving 2015, a mother was doing dishes when she heard a gunshot, felt a sting in her leg and then saw her 14-year-old daughter bleeding profusely. The accident occurred when a .40-caliber handgun discharged when her older brother tried to remove a bullet from its chamber.

The bullet narrowly missing the girl's spine but left six holes in her stomach and intestines. Emergency responders saved her life, rushing her to a hospital 20 miles away for immediate surgery. She spent 10 days in intensive care.

Charges were not filed in any of the cases.

Tama County E911 Director and Emergency Management coordinator Mindy Benson, who had to release the calls to AP, told Fisher a statewide restriction was needed against making such information public.

"These grieving families simply wanted their privacy," Fisher said. Yet two of the families spoke to The Associated Press hoping to improve gun safety awareness.

In another 911 case, Fayette County recently released calls from last summer in the death of 4-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself. The calls revealed the ambulance was delayed in arriving because the closure of a key road added five miles to the trip.

Randy Evans, director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, called the cases "spot-on" for making such information available in the public interest. While legislators are concerned about medical privacy, he maintained they're ignoring the "unintended consequences" of suppressing the 911 recordings, hampering "the public's efforts to hold government officials or private citizens accountable for their actions."

Fisher, though, maintained privacy should outweigh the public's right to know, that 911 calls warrant the same confidentiality as patients' medical records.

"If I'm laying on the floor with a heart attack and my wife calls 911," Fisher said, "does the public need to know that? No."

However, that example belies the intent of this bill as it relates to injured victims of crimes or accidents.

Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Waterloo, a Cedar Falls firefighter, was one of two senators to vote against the bill in a committee hearing. He believes it will have a chilling effect regarding police accountability to the public. "We should be opening up our decision-making process," he said.

Evans agreed. "Sealing off those records will make it ever more difficult to hold public officials accountable."

That includes incidents involving police body cameras, which shed light on the use of force. Yet the Iowa Department of Public Safety and Burlington Police Department have refused to release body camera video and other investigative records in a 2015 officer-involved shooting resulting in the death of a 34-year-old Burlington mother.

The Iowa Public Information Board, which enforces public records and meetings laws, has sought the release. A hearing is expected within a month.

We believe the public has a right to know about the actions of taxpayer-funded agencies, whether laudatory, as with the life-saving actions in one Tama County shooting, or open to review as in the case of the Elgin detour or Burlington shooting.

When doors are closed to such information, public accountability ultimately becomes the victim.

___ (c)2017 Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, Iowa) Visit Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, Iowa) at www.wcfcourier.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.