Cops should not remain silent
Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton clearly didn’t like the implication that he covered up a crime spree at fitness centers to shield gubernatorial campaign declarations that he oversees one of the safest cities in Connecticut.
“A simple phone call asking that we make available whatever info you want would have been a lot easier than reading an article implying we are withholding information,” he wrote to editors Thursday.
That doesn’t quite reconcile that almost 20 car break-ins in May did not become public until a Danbury city council member mentioned them last week.
Try to pinpoint the communications breakdown: Burglar breaks into car. The incident is not shared with the media because Danbury police release information about arrests, but not an activity log listing responses. Since the public isn’t notified, fitness centers and their members have no opportunity to take precautions and the public can’t share information with police. Burglar breaks into more cars.
You may prefer to live in a hearno-evil world, but that won’t keep your window from being smashed in the gym parking lot while you’re working on your lats.
That’s where police reporters come in. Their job is to visit the cop shop on the lookout for crime news or trends. Arrest logs trumpet success by officers. Activity logs summarize when and where crime is taking place.
Reporters who stay on the beat for a spell tend to build relationships and sources that nurture trust. When I did cop checks as a cub reporter, I was too naive to know what to do when various desk sergeants would shoo me away with the words, “It’s been pretty quiet.” I finally wised up and replied, “So, I guess my story should be that this town doesn’t need so many officers.”
I get that reporters can be a nuisance. The late Tobin Coleman worked other beats for the Stamford Advocate but occasionally did police checks. “We’ve been coming (to the police department) for more than 170 years,” he’d grumble. “Every day they seem surprised.”
Stamford police, though, have built a reputation among local agencies for proactively getting the word out about crimes such as sexual assaults. These days, they detail arrests and provide an abbreviated activity log.
The Greenwich Police Department reliably leaves a press packet in a yellow folder and makes a public information officer available for questions.
A decade ago, so many news outlets covered Norwalk that a morning press briefing could resemble that of a much larger city. There are fewer media outlets now, but the city continues to host 10 a.m. briefings. They maintain a sense of control by reading from arrest reports without handing out copies.
Still, the gold badge for transparency goes to Norwalk, whose mayor, Harry Rilling, is a former police chief. Not only is the blotter of arrests published online, but so is the incident log. If you hear sirens in your neighborhood, the reason shows up on the log a few hours later. It should be a model for surrounding communities.
Boughton’s retort explained that Danbury doesn’t provide daily activity sheets like Ridgefield and Redding, which have “a lot less call volume.” Risky words for a candidate who would prefer to boast that Danbury has been cited as Connecticut’s safest city three times since 2009.
He pledged that police Chief Patrick Ridenhour would provide daily documents. In an email exchange I had with Boughton Friday, he dismissed the flap as a minor detour and sounded like a candidate clearing brush to get back on the campaign trail (“thanks for listening”).
“Some of the smaller departments struggle with this stuff, but we will provide whatever you need . ... We will figure it out,” he wrote.
Whether such information comes in the form of activity sheets or arrest logs, it always begs for translation from a police reporter. Someone to press for details, to seek independent sources, to question the reliability of data on the safety of cities.
The ranks of police reporters are thin everywhere, on the verge of anorexia. When fewer watchdogs bark, police procedures can wither. When reporters don’t cultivate sources, trust between police and the media erodes.
The danger is that crime news could vanish. And contrary to the hackneyed phrase people have been taking on faith since King James I of England allegedly uttered it 400 years ago, no news is not good news.