911, What's Your Emergency? Public Access to 911 Calls in California and Maine

As California delays public access to prank celebrity 911 phone call records, a court in Maine has kicked things up a notch, pulling from one of over 500 exceptions to Maine's Freedom ofAccess Act (“FOAA”) to block public access to a 911 record in connection with anongoing criminal trial.

In California, public access to 911 calls has caused a stir for news organizations seeking access to 911 records. The public'senduring fascination with celebrity911 calls is nothing new, but a few pranksters in California have taken things to another level. California police have recently been having a lot of trouble with "swatting"-- an inside joke among pranksters, who phone in fake emergencies and bringpolice rushing en masse, sometimes with SWAT team divisions, to celebrityhomes. For example, during a swatting incident in January of this year,pranksters sent over half of the Beverly Hills' emergency resources rushing to TomCruise's house, only to discover that nothing was apparently amiss at hismansion.

The Los Angeles police's response to swatting seems to highlight law enforcement'sreadiness and willingness to rush to a celebrity emergency. This has causedsome to wonder whether the legal system, beginning with 911 emergency calls, treatscelebrities differently than the general public. This concern over differing treatment has prompted some to call for complete transparency of celebrity 911 records, regardless of privacy concerns for the individual celebrities. 

However, the Los Angeles Police Department's embarrassmentat being the victim of frequent swatting pranks has driven them to refuseto release information to the media about 911 swatting calls without a California Public Records Act request, or even to confirmmedia inquiries about swatting. The LAPD cites a need to reduce the motivationpranksters receive from the publicity surrounding their pranks. Instead,themedia will have to file a public records act request to receive informationabout swatting incidents, which can take up to 10 days. Some members of the press are up in arms about this restriction, but there is no right to a faster response under California law.

Luckily, California drew back from the brink of limiting access to 911 calls more sharply last year, when an effort to create a new Section6256 of the CaliforniaPublic Records Act died in committee. This proposal would have placed restrictions on the people to whompublic agencies could disclose recordings of 911 calls, limiting disclosure to a select group of requesters:a court, lawenforcement, attorneys involved in the proceeding related to the call, or thecaller who made the 911 call initially. Missing from the list? The public and the press.

Maine has had a more troubling response to public access to 911 records. InMaineTodayMedia v. State of Maine, a trial court judge allowed the state towithhold phone records of a 911 call placed by Derrick Thompson, who, prior tobeing shot by his landlord, had called 911 concerning his landlord's behavior. The court cited the law enforcementinvestigation exception to Maine's FOAA, which arises under Maine's Criminal History Record Information Act, 16 M.R.S.A. § 614,and permits records containing investigative information to be kept confidential if there is a "reasonable possibility" that that public release of the records would "interfere with law enforcement proceedings." Although the court's ruling appears to be redacted in part, the