To answer Terri's question...we have two 16 channel recorders and record the 911 lines and all the consoles. This is done digitally. The consoles are recorded on recorder 1 and the 911 lines are recorded on recorder 2. This is a duplication, but it has helped us out in the past. Part two of Terri's question about, "How long do you keep the recordings?" Arkansas State FOIA Laws state the recordings must be retained for a period of 31 days. However our Police chief requires our department to keep them for three years. We have a FOIA form that we fill out when we take a request. The citizen is asked to be very specific about the information they want. After the information from our form is filled out, we contact the Police Department Detective Division to see if an active investigation is related to the request. If there is an active investigation the information cannot be released. After that we gather the information and provide it to the person requesting. AR FOIA Laws state you have three business days to complete the task, or if it is a large request, you must provide them a timeline.
Here is the AR FOIA information. Go to the state website and enter this into the LAWS or ACTS and it will pull up the actual law.
25-19-101
The "Arkansas Public Safety Communications Act of 1985" has additional information about FOIA related to 911 Centers. That information can be obtained the same way by searching...
12-10-301
Keep in mind, you cannot release the "911" callers information. That is "subscriber" information and cannot be released. However if a person calls a non emergency number for your agency... that information can be released. Confused? Let me know...
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