Every week, some people who live in and around Towson get an e-mail from their police precinct summarizing significant crimes.
Last month, residents learned that a dozen youngsters had robbed a man at gunpoint on Castle Drive, taking his wallet and two cell phones. Two days later, another man robbed a bank at the Giant on York Road. Eleven houses were burglarized in a week. And a group of kids stole bicycles from the backyard of a house in the Gaywood community.
All useful information provided by the Baltimore County Police Department as a public service to keep residents informed and alert. But it's information the police in the Towson Precinct would rather not spread beyond its boundaries, and certainly not in a newspaper.
Crime news to the citizens can come unfiltered from local commanders.
Crime news to the news media must come through designated spokesmen.
Sgt. Stephen Fink, angry that residents had passed along the Towson Precinct's Weekly Crime Report to The Baltimore Sun (repeatedly, I might add), sent out a stern e-mail warning them to stop, saying the news media is to receive only crime news that is "properly prepared for public information."
Fink's e-mail, of course, was promptly forwarded to me (repeatedly).
The sergeant told residents that if other news outlets learn that The Sun "is getting extra access to police information, they are going to want the same thing" and "will come looking for more." He added, "To keep everyone on an even playing field, please keep this information to yourselves."
If not, Fink warned, "we may have to discontinue this practice."
In other words, the police will only provide the public with information it's entitled to have on the condition that the public keeps it quiet.
Baltimore County police spokesman William Toohey told me the Towson Precinct would continue to distribute the information regardless of what the public does with it. He said the e-mail sent by Fink "does not represent the department's policy, position or practices."
Toohey, a veteran and respected public information official, understands that once information is made public, it is public, and trying to compartmentalize it or persuade others to keep it quiet tends to backfire. It certainly doesn't make crime go away.
My concern is that the sergeant's e-mail could have a chilling effect on residents who might be more afraid to talk after receiving such a blunt warning from a police officer.
