Dillard, Presiding Judge. The Augusta Press, Inc. appeals from the trial court’s dismissal of its complaint against Richard Roundtree, the sheriff of Richmond County, Georgia, which alleged that Roundtree violated Georgia’s Open Records Act. Specifically, Augusta Press argues the trial court erred in dismissing its action when (1) the requested body camera footage was not subject to any exemption under the Act, and (2) the sheriff’s department was required by the Act to release incident-report information. For the following reasons, we affirm. Viewed de novo in the light most favorable to Augusta Press,[1] the complaint shows the Augusta Press is an online newspaper that made an Open Records Act request to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Department on May 20, 2022. The request sought “reports from a call made by the . . . Department to [an address] on May 3, 2022″ and “body-cam video” from that call. But the sheriff’s department refused to provide the information to the Augusta Press, asserting that the requested documents were exempt from release. As a result, the Augusta Press filed a complaint in superior court alleging Roundtree was in violation of the Open Records Act. The Augusta Press attached to its complaint a copy of a Petition for Temporary Protective Order in a civil matter related to the individuals concerned in the May 3, 2022 incident—Whitney and Geoffrey Alls. And according to that petition, Whitney called 911 on May 3, 2022, after Geoffrey punched her in the head and tried to prevent her from calling for help. The Augusta Press sought production of the items it requested from the sheirff’s department in relation to its resulting visit to the couple’s home, requested the award of a civil penalty, and asked for payment of its attorney fees. This action came before the trial court for a rule nisi hearing on August 8, 2022, and the court later dismissed it. In doing so, the trial court concluded the only report in existence regarding the May 3, 2022 incident was a family violence report, which was not subject to release under the Open Records Act. Additionally, the trial court concluded the requested body-camera footage was encompassed by the special violence report and was, therefore, likewise exempt from release under the Act. The Augusta Press now appeals from the dismissal of its action. 1. The Augusta Press maintains that the requested body-camera footage from law enforcement’s visit to the Alls’ residence was not subject to any exemption under the Open Records Act and so it should have been released. We disagree. Georgia’s Open Records Act provides that there is “strong public policy . . . in favor of open government,” and thus “a strong presumption that public records should be made available for public inspection without delay.”[2] Additionally, the Act requires that it be “broadly construed to allow the inspection of governmental records,” and that exceptions to the Act “be interpreted narrowly to exclude only those portions of records addressed by such exception.”[3] Importantly, when we interpret statutory language, we necessarily begin our analysis with “familiar and binding canons of construction.”[4] And in considering the meaning of a statute, our charge as an appellate court is to “presume that the General Assembly meant what it said and said what it meant.”[5] Toward that end, we must afford the statutory text its plain and ordinary meaning,[6] consider the text contextually,[7] read the text “in its most natural and reasonable way, as an ordinary speaker of the English language would,”[8] and seek to “avoid a construction that makes some language mere surplusage.”[9] Simply put, when the language of a statute is “plain and susceptible of only one natural and reasonable construction, courts must construe the statute accordingly.”[10] Looking to the statutory exemptions under the Open Records Act, subject to certain exceptions inapplicable to this case,[11] “[a]udio and video recordings from devices used by law enforcement officers in a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy when there is no pending investigation” are not subject to release under the Act.[12] Even so, the Augusta Press contends that because Whitney called law enforcement for assistance on the date in question, there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the Alls’ home at that time; and as a result, the body-camera footage of responding officers is subject to release under the Act. Under the plain language of the exemption, the body-camera footage is not subject to release. It is undisputed that the footage—which is not contained in the record on appeal—was filmed at the Alls’ home. And although the Augusta Press contends that an expectation of privacy erodes in a home when law enforcement is called to respond to an incident, the exemption explicitly refutes this assertion. Indeed, under the exemption, video or audio by law enforcement is not subject to release when made “in a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy when there is no pending investigation.”[13] In other words, the audio or video is not subject to release if, but for law enforcement’s presence for a pending investigation, it is made in a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Suffice it to say, there is undoubtedly a reasonable expectation of privacy in one’s home, as repeatedly and emphatically established in both federal and state Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.[14] And so, the Alls undoubtedly had a reasonable expectation of privacy at their home in the absence of a pending law enforcement investigation—no matter who called for the police.[15] The resulting body-camera footage from that investigation, then, is exempt from release under the plain language of OCGA § 50-18-72 (a) (26.2). The trial court properly concluded, then, that the Augusta Press was not entitled to review the footage. To be sure, the trial court concluded the body-camera footage was not subject to release because it was encompassed by a family violence report that is exempted from release in this case.[16] But we may affirm the trial court’s conclusion that the body-camera footage is exempt from release if its conclusion is right for any reason, which we have done.[17] 2. Next, the Augusta Press claims the trial court erred in concluding that Roundtree may exempt the narrative portion of an incident report from release. But the trial court did not err in concluding that the Augusta Press cannot obtain a narrative from the incident report because such a report does not exist in this case. The Open Records Act provides that initial incident reports prepared during law-enforcement investigations are subject to release,[18] but “[n]o public officer or agency shall be required to prepare new reports, summaries, or compilations not in existence at the time of the request.”[19] And here, the sheriff’s department did not create an initial incident report and only prepared the aforementioned family violence report, which is exempt from release.[20] Nevertheless, the Augusta Press argues the narrative account of the May 3, 2022 incident contained within the family violence report is subject to release while the remainder of the report may be redacted. This argument is a nonstarter. In making its argument, the Augusta Press relies upon Blau v. Georgia Department of Corrections,[21] in which we concluded that while certain identifying information needed to be redacted from the requested document concerning lethal injection drugs under OCGA 42-5-36 (d),[22] the remainder of the document was subject to release under the Open Records Act.[23] But under Georgia law, family violence reports “where no arrests are made shall not be subject to the provisions of Article 4 of Chapter 18 of Title 50.”[24] So, while Blau dealt with a statute that exempted only particular categories of information from release, we are faced with a statute that exempts an entire document from release when no arrest is made. And although exemptions from disclosure under the Open Records Act are narrowly construed, the Act “obviously should not be construed in derogation of its express terms.”[25] Here, it is undisputed that no arrests were made with regard to the May 3, 2022 call to law enforcement. As a result, no portion of the family violence report at issue—the narrative of which is almost certainly comprised of information that must be included in such a report[26]—is subject to release in this case. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in its conclusion.[27] For all these reasons, we affirm the trial court’s dismissal order. Judgment affirmed. Rickman, C. J., and Pipkin J., concur.
