Search Chattooga County Police Records

Police records in Chattooga County are kept by the sheriff's office in Summerville. The county sits in the northwest corner of Georgia along the Alabama border, and the sheriff's office is the primary law enforcement agency for the area. Incident reports, arrest records, and accident reports are all on file at the sheriff's office. The public can request copies of these records through the Georgia Open Records Act. Whether you need a copy of a crash report from a county road or details about an arrest, the Summerville office is where you start.

Chattooga County Sheriff's Office

Sheriff Mark Schrader heads the Chattooga County Sheriff's Office. The main office is at 533 Underwood Drive in Trion, GA 30753. You can call them at (706) 857-3411 for questions about records, report status, or general inquiries. The office handles all county law enforcement duties including patrol, investigations, and the county jail. Records requests go through the same office.

The town of Summerville also has its own police department for calls within city limits. If the incident you are looking for happened inside Summerville, the Summerville Police Department may have the report instead of the sheriff's office. The same applies to the town of Trion if it maintains a separate police force. Always check which agency responded to the scene before submitting your request. A quick phone call can save you time and point you in the right direction. The sheriff's office can usually tell you which agency handled a given call even if it was not them.

Note: The sheriff's office physical location is in Trion, not Summerville, so plan your trip accordingly if you are visiting in person.

Getting Police Records in Chattooga County

The Georgia Open Records Act under O.C.G.A. 50-18-70 gives you the right to inspect and copy records held by government agencies. That includes police records at the Chattooga County Sheriff's Office. You do not need to explain why you want the records. You just need to describe what you are looking for clearly enough for staff to find it. Give them a date, a name, or a case number if you have one. The more details you provide, the faster the search goes.

Requests can be made in person at the Trion office. You can also call or send a written request by mail to the address above. Written requests are the best option because they create a clear record of what you asked for and when. This helps if there is ever a question about response times or whether your request was received. The sheriff's office must respond within three business days under Georgia law. That response might be the actual records, a cost estimate, or a timeline for when the records will be ready.

Walk-in requests work well for simple reports. If you know the date and type of incident, staff can often pull the record while you wait. More involved requests that require searching through old files or pulling multiple reports will take longer. Budget a few days for those. The staff at the Trion office deals with a steady flow of requests, and they will let you know what to expect once they see what you need.

Chattooga County Records Fees

Fees for police records in Chattooga County follow state law. Copies cost $0.10 per page. That is the standard rate across all Georgia agencies. The first 15 minutes of search time are free. After that, the office can charge based on the hourly wage of the lowest-paid worker who can handle the task. If your total bill will go past $25, the office must tell you before doing the work. You can then decide to pay the full amount, narrow your request, or cancel it entirely.

There is no charge to inspect records in person. You can go to the office and look at records without paying for copies. If you find what you need, you can then ask for specific pages to be copied. This is a good way to keep costs down if you are not sure exactly what you need. Just tell the staff you want to inspect the records first before deciding on copies. They are required to let you do that under Georgia law.

Types of Chattooga County Police Reports

The sheriff's office maintains several categories of records. Incident reports cover crimes and calls for service. These include thefts, assaults, vandalism, domestic calls, and other events that deputies respond to within the county. Arrest records document who was booked into the county jail, what charges were filed, and the date of the arrest. Accident reports cover vehicle crashes on county roads and state highways running through the area.

Under O.C.G.A. 50-18-72, certain records have restrictions. Initial incident reports and initial arrest reports are always open to the public, even during an active investigation. But detailed investigation files can be withheld until the case is closed. The sheriff's office will let you know if any part of your requested record falls under an exemption. Personal details like Social Security numbers are always redacted before copies are provided. Medical records and juvenile records are also protected and will not be included in a standard records release.

Accident reports sometimes need extra steps. If you were involved in the crash, getting your own report is straightforward. If you were not a party to the accident, you may need to provide a written statement explaining why you need the report. Georgia law gives crash reports a higher level of privacy protection than most other police records because of the personal and insurance details they contain.

Note: If you need a crash report from a state trooper, check the EPORTS system first since those reports are filed separately from the sheriff's office records.

State Resources for Chattooga County

Several state-level systems hold records that may relate to incidents in Chattooga County. The Georgia State Patrol files crash reports through the EPORTS online system. If a trooper responded to a wreck on one of the state routes running through the county, you will find the report there instead of at the sheriff's office. Reports cost a small fee and can be downloaded once they are processed.

The state EPORTS portal is a key resource for finding crash reports filed by Georgia State Patrol troopers across every county in the state.

This tool covers all state patrol reports statewide, so any trooper-filed crash in Chattooga County can be looked up here.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation handles open records requests for cases they investigated. If the GBI was called in to help with a major case in Chattooga County, their records go through a separate request process on the GBI website. The BuyCrash portal is another option for finding accident reports from multiple agencies in one place. The Georgia Sheriffs' Association website can help you verify current contact info for the Chattooga County Sheriff's Office.

What to Do If a Request Is Denied

Most records requests go through without issues. But if the Chattooga County Sheriff's Office denies your request, you have options. First, ask for the denial in writing. The office must cite the specific code section that allows them to withhold the records. O.C.G.A. 50-18-71 sets the rules for how agencies must respond, and a vague denial is not good enough under the law.

If you believe the denial is wrong, you can take the matter to superior court. A judge can review the situation and order the records released if the agency does not have a valid legal reason for the denial. If the court rules in your favor, the agency may be ordered to pay your attorney fees and court costs. That said, most disputes are resolved with a follow-up call or a more specific request. Sometimes the issue is just a misunderstanding about what records exist or how to find them.

Nearby County Police Records

Chattooga County sits in northwest Georgia near several other counties. If an incident happened close to a county border, the report might be filed with a neighboring agency. Check with the right office to make sure you are looking in the right place.