addicts can’t control their emotions. I hope the station has her drug tested before they put her on the air again.”
Just then my cell phone rang and my parent’s southern Minnesota phone number came up on my screen. That particular radio signal could be heard all the way down to the farm. So, certain that they were listening, I let their call roll to voice mail. Besides needing a break from my news cohorts, I couldn’t face my family at that moment.
The host kept up more of the same, so I reached for the radio knob to find another station. Music, not talk. Suddenly I stopped because the next voice I heard sounded very familiar.
“You people have got nothing better to do than criticize other people who are doing the best they can. Well, I’m Riley Spartz’s mother, and I want to tell you that she’s the finest daughter any parents could ask for. And we are so proud of her. Why, when she was a little girl—”
I hit the radio Off button. Burying my face in a newspaper I found on the backseat of the car, I closed my eyes and tried to cry for Kate. But couldn’t.
I honked my car horn twice and saw the geese scatter, but got no real satisfaction from their bewilderment. I had even more of a reason to avoid returning to work now, because if Malik knew of the radio broadcast, so did the rest of the newsroom.
I needed space, not hooting.
To kill time, I drove toward Kate’s neighborhood—the opposite direction from Channel 3. I was hoping proximity might bring answers, but the street seemed quiet and ordinary except for the plywood still nailed across the front window of her house.Then I played back events from the day of the murder and got an idea for a follow-up story. This would give me something to talk about when Noreen brought up the radio show.
“I’ve requested the 9-1-1 call from the homicide, Noreen. The transcript might yield something.”
“Hardly,” she snorted.
Broadcasting 911 tapes used to be routine for Minnesota news organizations and added drama to a story, be it a murder, tornado, or bridge collapse.
“If you’d checked with me first, Riley, I’d have told you not to even bother.”
She was referring to a law change fifteen years earlier that made the actual audio portion of 911 calls private. The change was due to local news stations’ repeated broadcasts of a father’s distraught call after discovering his son had murdered their entire family. The audio was uncomfortable to hear. But that didn’t stop radio or TV channels from playing it over and over.
Callers now need to sign media releases before their voices can be aired. Even if they say yes, by the time all the details are sorted out and permissions granted, the news value is usually nil.
“I’d still like to learn more about the circumstances of how her body was discovered, Noreen. The cops are keeping quiet about that.”
As soon as I got back to my desk after being reamed on the radio, I had emailed a formal release application to the Minneapolis police public information officer. “Under the Minnesota Data Practices Law, I am requesting the 911 records regarding the murder of Kate Warner.” To speed things up, I included the date, address, and approximate time the homicide was reported.
It was all I could think of to take my mind off Buddy. An hour later, I called the police PIO to make sure he’d seen the 911 request.
“Yeah, I have it right here, Ms. Spartz, but you know we have ten days to respond to any public records request.”
His smart-aleck tone made me want to throw the phone against the floor, but I stayed cool. “That may be the letter of the law. But you and I both know it’s not the spirit. The ten-day clause was designed for onerous demands seeking hundreds of pages of documents needing to be redacted. What I’m asking for is simple, and clearly public.”
“Yes, but someone needs to listen to the call and transcribe it. That takes time on our end. And may well cost you
Just then my cell phone rang and my parent’s southern Minnesota phone number came up on my screen. That particular radio signal could be heard all the way down to the farm. So, certain that they were listening, I let their call roll to voice mail. Besides needing a break from my news cohorts, I couldn’t face my family at that moment.
The host kept up more of the same, so I reached for the radio knob to find another station. Music, not talk. Suddenly I stopped because the next voice I heard sounded very familiar.
“You people have got nothing better to do than criticize other people who are doing the best they can. Well, I’m Riley Spartz’s mother, and I want to tell you that she’s the finest daughter any parents could ask for. And we are so proud of her. Why, when she was a little girl—”
I hit the radio Off button. Burying my face in a newspaper I found on the backseat of the car, I closed my eyes and tried to cry for Kate. But couldn’t.
I honked my car horn twice and saw the geese scatter, but got no real satisfaction from their bewilderment. I had even more of a reason to avoid returning to work now, because if Malik knew of the radio broadcast, so did the rest of the newsroom.
I needed space, not hooting.
To kill time, I drove toward Kate’s neighborhood—the opposite direction from Channel 3. I was hoping proximity might bring answers, but the street seemed quiet and ordinary except for the plywood still nailed across the front window of her house.Then I played back events from the day of the murder and got an idea for a follow-up story. This would give me something to talk about when Noreen brought up the radio show.
“I’ve requested the 9-1-1 call from the homicide, Noreen. The transcript might yield something.”
“Hardly,” she snorted.
Broadcasting 911 tapes used to be routine for Minnesota news organizations and added drama to a story, be it a murder, tornado, or bridge collapse.
“If you’d checked with me first, Riley, I’d have told you not to even bother.”
She was referring to a law change fifteen years earlier that made the actual audio portion of 911 calls private. The change was due to local news stations’ repeated broadcasts of a father’s distraught call after discovering his son had murdered their entire family. The audio was uncomfortable to hear. But that didn’t stop radio or TV channels from playing it over and over.
Callers now need to sign media releases before their voices can be aired. Even if they say yes, by the time all the details are sorted out and permissions granted, the news value is usually nil.
“I’d still like to learn more about the circumstances of how her body was discovered, Noreen. The cops are keeping quiet about that.”
As soon as I got back to my desk after being reamed on the radio, I had emailed a formal release application to the Minneapolis police public information officer. “Under the Minnesota Data Practices Law, I am requesting the 911 records regarding the murder of Kate Warner.” To speed things up, I included the date, address, and approximate time the homicide was reported.
It was all I could think of to take my mind off Buddy. An hour later, I called the police PIO to make sure he’d seen the 911 request.
“Yeah, I have it right here, Ms. Spartz, but you know we have ten days to respond to any public records request.”
His smart-aleck tone made me want to throw the phone against the floor, but I stayed cool. “That may be the letter of the law. But you and I both know it’s not the spirit. The ten-day clause was designed for onerous demands seeking hundreds of pages of documents needing to be redacted. What I’m asking for is simple, and clearly public.”
“Yes, but someone needs to listen to the call and transcribe it. That takes time on our end. And may well cost you
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