State Rep. Maria P. Donatucci (D-Phila.) is defending a bill she says is aimed at protecting the anonymity of 911 callers in dangerous situations.
Her proposed HB 1310 passed unanimously in the state House in October. It may be voted on shortly in the state Senate.
But 23 newspapers across the state editorialized against the bill, claiming it will block the release of incident locations contained in 911 dispatch records and make it impossible for the public to gauge emergency-response times.
Melissa B. Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said the bill also would render it impossible to compare response times among various socioeconomic areas, such as the Gayborhood.
“You wouldn’t know whether responders spent 20 minutes traveling two blocks or 10 miles, or whether response times differ between neighborhoods,” Melewsky said.
But Donatucci insists her bill only seeks to withhold the location of a 911 caller in cases where the caller’s location differs from the location of the actual incident.
“It was never the incident location that we wanted hidden, it was the location of the caller,” she told PGN. “If a caller is calling at the location of the incident, then that location has to be released.”
Donatucci cited a domestic-abuse victim who needs anonymity for safety reasons.
“If a young lady is getting beaten up by her boyfriend and she runs to her sister’s house a few blocks away, where she calls 911, her safe haven shouldn’t be revealed to the boyfriend,” Donatucci said.
Donatucci was asked if her bill could be amended to clarify that incident locations never should be withheld by agencies.
“People are reading too much into this. I don’t think an amendment is necessary [for clarification]. All we’re wishing to do is protect a 911 caller who needs anonymity,” she said, adding citizens may be discouraged from calling 911 without such protections. “I’d hate to have information [endangering someone] on a log that gets released to the public. I want to take all possible precautions to avoid that. I am not trying to hide any emergency-response times.”
Melewsky said safeguards already exist in the state’s open-records law to protect a 911 caller’s personal safety and security. She also said an appeals procedure is in place to handle disputes, which wouldn’t be the case if HB 1310 is enacted.
“HB 1310 needs to be clarified if the intent of the law is to preserve public access to 911 response locations,” Melewsky said. “The bill expressly prohibits the release of address or cross-street information of the caller in all circumstances, even if that is the location for the response. PNA supports legislation intended to preserve public access, but HB 1310, as written, does not.”
Erik Arneson, executive director of the state Office of Open Records, said the agency hasn’t taken an official position on HB 1310. But he personally echoed Melewsky’s call for clarification so that incident locations aren’t withheld.
“This bill is attempting to balance two very important things: the need for the public to be able to review the work of emergency responders, and the need for citizens to feel secure reporting emergencies, crimes, etc.,” Arneson told PGN. “It’s not an easy balance to strike. But I think Rep. Donatucci and the General Assembly are taking that balance very seriously.”