You can decide for yourselves what "properly prepared for public information" means, but to me it means a sanitized news release limited to information the department chooses to tell you and how they choose to tell you about it.
Last year, Baltimore police hid information about a serial rapist in Mount Vernon, arguing that making it public would hurt efforts to make an arrest, even though outraged residents complained that cops had put public relations ahead of public safety. And in North Baltimore, a community group that got crime stats from the city police threatened to take legal action against a blogger who posted them on the Internet where people who didn't pay dues could see them, as if public information was a proprietary commodity.
People living in a neighborhood want to know when and where crime occurs, but they don't want outsiders to see their community as troubled. Many communities are reluctant to add my name to their listserves for that very reason.
The Baltimore Sun has tried for more than two years to get police departments to feed a crime map and provide regular updates, but thus far, only Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties have agreed. Other agencies balk, some noting the political pitfalls of allowing raw data to be scrutinized by the news media and the public.
The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington puts its raw numbers on its official Web site and allows residents to map their own crime, which has cut down on requests for information and puts the numbers out there for everybody to see.
Baltimore County's Weekly Crime Report contains a date, time, report number, offense type, location and a brief synopsis of various crimes, barely more than is contained in The Baltimore Sun's regular Police Blotter feature and nothing, despite Fink's argument, that could be considered investigatory and thus compromise a case.
What cops don't like is ceding control of how information is interpreted. It's better for them if they tell us they've arrested a suspect in six break-ins on York Road than for us to piece the attacks together using lists like the Weekly Crime Report and write an article before detectives have caught someone.
Back in the old days, when reporters actually visited police stations and precinct houses, they were able to thumb through daily tabulations of crime logs and reports and ferret out entertaining and newsworthy tales to offer their readers. Smaller staffs, less newsprint and the demand for instantaneous coverage have ended that kind of shoe-leather news-gathering.
But the same information that could be gleaned by standing in front of a grumpy desk sergeant can now be delivered easily and more efficiently online, such as the Towson Precinct's Weekly Crime Report, which is nothing more than an e-mail version of the old handwritten log.
The department could publish this report on its Web site and then work to solve and prevent crimes instead of worrying about the gossip mill and placating competing news outlets.
Apparently, the cops in Baltimore County got the message.
On June 29, I got an e-mail from Fink adding my name to his e-mail distribution list and informing members of the public that they "can continue to forward the information to everyone you always do."
