Lake County Sheriff's Office improperly redacted 911 call recordings under 7(1)(c)

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Dear Ms. Matthews and Ms. Best:

This determination letter is issued pursuant to section 9. 5( f) of the Freedom of Information Act ( FOIA). 1 For the reasons that follow, the Public Access Bureau concludes that the Lake County Sheriffs Office ( Sheriffs Office) improperly redacted a 911 call recording responsive to ProPublica' s September 8, 2025, FOIA request.

On that date, Mr. Vernal Coleman, a reporter for ProPublica, submitted a FOIA request to the Sheriffs Office seeking "[ d] igital copies of any/all audio recordings of phone calls to the Lake County 911 Communications Center reporting of a possibly suicidal person and subsequent car crash at Great Lakes Naval Station received fielded by a dispatcher between the 15 ILCS 140/ 9.5( f) (West 2024), as amendedby Public Act 104- 438, effective January 1, 2026.

issued a revised response. The Sheriffs Office disclosed the dispatchers' side of the conversation but still redacted the decedent' s statements from the one recording containing them, and asserted:

The United States Supreme Court held that a deceased person's family members have a privacy interest in preventing the disclosure of details related to their family member' s death. National Archives & RecordsAdm' n v. Favish, 541 U. S. 157, 168- 171 ( 2004). The Supreme Court explained that "[ f]amily members have a personal stake in honoring and mourning their dead and objecting to unwarranted public exploitation that, by intruding upon their own grief, tends to degrade the rites and respect they seek to accord to the deceasedperson who was once their own." Id.

at 168, 124 S. Ct. 1570. See also 2010 Ill. Att'y Gen. Pub. Access Op. 10- 003, at 11 the Attorney General concluded that, based on section 7( 1)( c) of FOIA (" the release of the post- mortem photographs" of decedents to newspaper reporters " would constitute an unwarranted invasion of the surviving family members' personal privacy.") Under these precedents, audio of the decedent's words prior to his suicide would constitute an unwarranted invasion of surviving family members' privacy, and is therefore exempt.

In an effort to protect the deceased family members' privacy and to also provide transparency surrounding public employees performing their job duties, we have edited the requested 911 audio. Statements of the decedent remain redacted pursuant to 7( 1)( c), but we have not withheld the statements of the 911 dispatchers. This reflects the appropriate balance between 2FOIAportalmessage from Vernal Coleman to Lake County Sheriffs Office ( September 8, 2025).

On November 19, 2025, Ms. Sarah Matthews, Deputy General Counsel for ProPublica, completed the submission ofa Request for Review contesting the Sheriffs Office' s partial denial. Ms. Matthews argued that the 911 recordings are distinguishable from post- mortem photographs, and that any privacy interests the decedent's surviving family members have in the audio recordings are clearly outweighed by the public interest in disclosure:

D] isclosure of the requested audio is in the utmost public interest, as evidenced by ProPublica' s prior, award -winning reporting on the contents of 911 calls. [ Citation.] Such records are routinely released and for good reason. Members of the public have a vested interest in access to complete information about 911 calls — including statements made by both parties to the call —so they can fully evaluate how first responders react in emergency situations. Information gleaned from actual conversations between callers and emergency response personnel provide a vital oversight tool by which the public can identify issues that may jeopardize public safety and help ensure that governments maintain an emergency system that can effectively respond when citizens need urgent assistance. [6]

Ms. Matthews provided a link to ProPublica' s reportorial series on 911 call analysis and posts about accolades the series had received.

On November 24, 2025, the Public Access Bureau sent a copy of the Request for Review to the Sheriffs Office and asked it to provide unredacted copies of the responsive recordings for this office' s confidential review, and a detailed written explanation of the legal and factual bases for the redactions. In particular, this office asked the Sheriffs Office to explain why the privacy interests here outweigh the public interest in disclosure. The following day, the Sheriffs Office sent this office those materials. As its written answer, the Sheriffs Office simply stated that it had provided its explanation for the redactions in its response to the request. On December 1, 2025, Ms. Matthews replied that because the Sheriff' s Office made no new arguments, ProPublica had no further reply.

All records in the custody or possession of a public body are presumed to be open to inspection or copying. Any public body that asserts that a record is exempt from disclosure has the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that it is exempt. " 5 ILCS 140/ 1. 2 ( West 2024).

Section 7( 1)( c) of FOIA Section 7( 1)( c) of FOIA exempts from disclosure "[ p] ersonal information contained within public records, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." Section 7( 1)( c) defines " unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" as " the disclosure ofinformation that is highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and in which the subject' s right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information." Section 7( 1)( c) expressly does not exempt from disclosure information that bears on the public duties of public employees and officials."

A public body' s contention that the release of information would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy is evaluated on a case - by -case basis. Chicago Journeymen Plumbers' Local Union 130 v. Department ofPublic Health, 327 I11. App. 3d 192, 196 ( 2001). Illinois courts weigh the following four factors to evaluate the applicability of Assuming that the decedent has close surviving family members who would object to the disclosure of the unredacted recording, however, the Sheriffs Office has not shown that the privacy interests are so high that they outweigh any legitimate public interest in disclosure. National Archives & Records Adm' n v. Favish is distinguishable because although that case also concerned a reported suicide, the records were graphic death - scene photographs, the decedent' s surviving family members attested to the harassment they were already receiving and their anguish over a photograph that had been leaked to the press, and the public interest in disclosure was low because law enforcement had conducted an exhaustive investigation of the matter. Favish, 541 U. S. at 162- 67. Moreover, the court' s holding was limited to recognizing surviving family members' right to personal privacy with respect to their close relative' s death - scene images." Favish, 541 U.S. at 170. Similarly, the binding opinion the Sheriffs Office cited Ill. Att' y Gen. Pub. Acc. Op. 10- 003, issued October 22, 2010) concerned graphic and gruesome post-mortem photographs, and the requesting parties did not assert that disclosure would provide any information regarding the causes of death that cannot be gleaned from the documentary records" already disclosed to them. Ill. Att'y Gen. Pub. Acc. Op. 10- 003, at 7, 11.

Unlike the circumstances in Favish and New York Times, which ( 1) were high - profile matters of national interest that had already resulted in significant intrusions of close family members' personal privacy, ( 2) in which surrounding issues had been thoroughly investigated by government agencies, and ( 3) about which documentary records setting forth extensive facts had been disclosed, the information this office has received about the circumstances ofthis matter indicates a lower propensity to significantly invade personal privacy and a greater public interest in disclosure. While the Sheriffs Office did revise its response to disclose the dispatch side of the audio recordings, thus shedding some light on the manner in which the government employees handled the 911 call, the disclosure of the caller' s portion of the recording is essential to ProPublica' s public interest purpose of assessing how the caller' s words and manner of speaking impacted the law enforcement response. Additionally, while close family members might find it objectionable to disclose the caller portions of the recordings given the subject matter and timing, this office' s review did not identify any content of the statements or vocal tones that suggested overriding privacy interests in any particular portion of the recordings.

Lastly, this office has not received any indication that the unredacted call recordings can be obtained through any other means.

On balance, this office concludes that the Sheriffs Office did not sustain its burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that the redacted portions of the recording are exempt from disclosure. The legitimate and significant public interest in disclosure of an unredacted copy of the recording to ProPublica outweighs the implicated privacy interests as articulated by the Sheriffs Office. Accordingly, this office asks the Sheriffs Office to provide ProPublica with an unredacted copy of the recording.