Mayor silent on department’s crime report policy
Mayor Byron W. Brown is refusing to comment on his Police Department’s decision to withhold basic crime information from the public, a policy that is drawing criticism from community leaders.
“Every organization has a spokesman, and ours is Mike DeGeorge,” Brown said Wednesday, referring all questions to the police commissioner’s spokesman.
The fact that many police incident reports no longer contain basic information — like the location — that had been made available to the public for many years does not sit well with neighborhood activists throughout the city.
“They have to let us know where these crimes are occurring,” said Marge Thielman Hastreiter, vice president of Iron Island Preservation Society of Lovejoy. “Otherwise, how can we protect ourselves and be aware?”
East Side community activist Darnell Jackson, a former gang member, agreed, saying, “Withholding [crime] information is detrimental to the residents.”
Jackson, who co-founded the Fillmore District Redevelopment Task Force to improve conditions in a high-crime neighborhood, said the goal should be to empower residents to get involved in helping police.
“But if we don’t know where a crime is being committed, we can’t help solve it,” he said.
Brown ally critical
One of Brown’s staunchest Common Council allies said he doesn’t think the Police Department should suppress basic crime information. North Council Member Joseph Golombek Jr. said there might be isolated cases in which some details might not be immediately disclosed. But he said in most instances, the public is best served by the speedy release of crime data.
“I’m very disappointed,” Golombek said. “Citizens, through the media, should be able to know what’s going on in their neighborhoods.”
One Buffalo News reader said she has noticed a pattern in the past couple of months where it appears as if police officials “never give locations for crimes occurring in ‘better’ areas of the city.”
And the state’s top expert on Freedom of Information issues said he thinks the Police Department stands on shaky legal ground in refusing to supply basic information such as where a crime occurred. Laws governing the timely release of information from police blotters and booking records were revised in 1978, said Robert J. Freeman, who heads the State Committee on Open Government.
“Clearly, the revision of the law was intended to broaden access,” he said.
Police Commissioner H. Mc-Carthy Gipson also defended his earlier edict that bars all but a handful of police officials from talking with reporters. Large law enforcement organizations need such a policy to make sure information is accurate, Gipson and DeGeorge said.
Buffalo News Editor Margaret M. Sullivan also questioned the mayor’s decision not to comment on his police commissioner’s limiting access to crime data.
“To me, this is a censorship issue,” Sullivan said.
Meanwhile, Gipson firmly denied that the department has imposed policies that hinder reporters from keeping residents informed of public safety issues.
Gipson acknowledged that in some cases, addresses of where crimes occurred and other details about those arrested and victims involved are no longer being included on a computer in the press room at Police Headquarters. He defended the action, saying the Internet age now allows media to quickly disseminate information that he says could torpedo some criminal probes.
“Times have changed, and we have to change with the times,” Gipson said.
DeGeorge says call him
DeGeorge insisted that reporters can call him when locations of crimes and information about suspects and victims are not provided.
But some reporters say DeGeorge does not always provide a timely response — answering their queries more than 24 hours late, at times, or just ignoring their calls.
A few reporters said DeGeorge responds to their requests promptly, but others estimated that he ignores their requests about half the time.
In October 2007, police officials were irate after a News article used these police incident reports to detail how the department failed to alert the public about Darnell J. Prude, a serial predator who had been terrorizing elderly residents of the Broadway-Fillmore area during a 14-month spree of burglaries and violent home invasions.
Perhaps the most telling example of the police administration’s efforts to censor the media happened in the days following that article when the department temporarily took away The News’ access to the incident reports on the police computer.
During that time of no access, reporters were not allowed to read through the Police Department’s incident reports and instead were forced to rely on DeGeorge to tell them about the city’s most serious crimes.
For example, when a reporter requested on Oct. 16, 2007, to know about all the recent serious crimes, DeGeorge responded by providing details on two crimes — a burglary at a Tacoma Street home and graffiti on a building on Washington Street.
But The News later learned that DeGeorge had failed to inform reporters about many more crimes during that time. Those included: A woman shot in her elbow as she rode in a taxi on the Kensington Expressway near Humboldt Parkway and a home invasion involving four men, armed with one shotgun and one AK-47, who barged into a Humason Avenue home where they confronted a boy and demanded money.
At that time, DeGeorge told reporters that if The News had a specific question about a crime, then he would provide the details about that particular crime. But, he said, he would not be informing reporters about serious crimes in the city, if he wasn’t asked a specific question.
The News’ police reporters later were given access to the police computer after department officials met with News editors.
One activist supportive
One community activist said he understands the Police Department’s rationale. Arlee Daniels Jr. of the Stop the Violence Coalition said the speedy release of “too much” information could be harmful in the long run.
“You have to worry about compromising investigations, even if they seem to be [less serious] types of crimes,” Daniels said.
At a time when Buffalo’s Police Department is imposing new restrictions on the flow of crime data, hundreds of other cities are doing just the opposite.
When residents in many localities want to learn what criminals have been up to on their streets, they visit a Web site, type in an address and scrutinize a map that shows any crimes that have been committed — sometimes only hours earlier.
Since The News wrote about CrimeReports.com in May, the number of municipalities and universities that have jumped aboard has nearly doubled. Web site founder Greg Whisenant, of the company Public Engines, said that as of Wednesday, 246 entities were providing information about crimes. At least 30 additional municipalities are in the process of signing up, and Whisenant said he has had discussions with police officials in Buffalo.
Gipson said the Police Department has recently snared a grant that will enable the city to provide computer access to crime data in the “near future.” Does that mean Buffalo will soon be providing near-real-time computer access to crime information via CrimeReports. com?
“We’ll do something along those lines,” Gipson said, but he wouldn’t divulge details.
Freeman, of the State Committee on Open Government, said the dispute over access to basic crime information does a disservice to all parties involved.
“The news media and the law enforcement community, to be successful, must have a symbiotic relationship,” he said.
News Staff Reporter Vanessa Thomas contributed to this report.
