When an emergency requires a 911 call, chances are it won’t end there.

Compiling evidence may be necessary in some cases to prove innocence or guilt. A 911 call recording may provide valuable evidence to support your case, or to refute the case of your legal opponent.

If you have one or more eye witnesses to testify on your behalf, a 911 call recording may corroborate their testimonies. Or, conversely, it may refute a witnesses testimony against you, helping your case.

The content of a 911 call recording can provide valuable information needed to piece together an event or emergency. The information provided can also help in your legal strategy. And finally, hearing the content of a 911 call can help bring closure to emotional events.

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So, if you’re in an emergency that required calling 911, how can you get a copy of the 911 call recording?

You or someone you know may have been in an emergency and you believe 911 was called. You may not have called 911 yourself — it may have been witnesses who placed the call. But now that the emergency part is over, recovery begins, along with any legalities. The challenge now becomes how to obtain the recordings — documentation which can be valuable to you.

Time is critical because some call centers purge 911 audio recordings sooner than others. Coming out of an emergency situation has other critical issues that can occupy your time, and before you know it, the recording may have been purged and unavailable forever.

There are more than 6,000 call centers nationwide. Each facility has their own rules and regulations for archiving and distributing 911 call recordings and transcripts.

The most effective way to obtain your call recording is to use a service or representative to work on your behalf. They should be knowledgeable about the methodology of researching and acquiring 911 call information.

What is the advantage to using a research and acquisition service as opposed to an attorney to get your 911 call recording?

If you are in a legal case, you will need legal representation, however, much of  the procuring of evidence will fall on you. For instance, you are likely the only one who would have access to your emails, phone voice mail, texts, letters, etc. With your attorney’s advice, you will select the documents that will best help your case.

In the procurement of 911 calls, however, if you use your attorney, he will most likely use a court subpoena to request the audio recording. In the case of court-issued subpoenas, your attorney will likely be required by law to submit the recording to your opposing counsel, whether or not you use it in court. Simply put, that means that if the audio recording actually hurts your case, the opposing side will have access to use it against you.

However, if you use a service like Get911Calls, you will be able to listen to the content of the recording — along with your attorney, if you choose — and decide whether or not the content helps your case.  If it doesn’t help you, or even hurts your case, at this point you should be able to opt not to include it in discovery evidence sent to the other side. You should be able to simply discard it as you would an email that might have a negative impact.

It doesn’t mean that opposing counsel might not also subpoena the 911 call, but there is the chance that your opponent may not even be aware that one exists. This is a strategy that might strongly help your case.

How do I get my 911 call recording?