First, let me say that my commenting on the Haines Borough Police Department’s decision to no longer provide the police report or “blotter” may be perceived as a double conflict of interest.
I own the Chilkat Valley News, which publishes the blotter as a regular feature.
I also serve on the Haines Borough Assembly, and among my duties is voting on the borough’s budget, which includes the police department.
I’m sure some people will say, “Sure, Tom Morphet wants the police to provide a blotter. That’s a regular feature of his newspaper. He makes money on it.” Or, “Which hat is Tom Morphet wearing at this moment?”
I understand those concerns. I’m commenting on this website – rather than in the Chilkat Valley News – in an attempt to separate my opinion as a citizen and assembly member from my occupation as a newspaper owner.
Also, I’m making comment because I have some things to say about this issue that I’m not sure would be heard otherwise. I have first-hand knowledge of the 25-year history of the blotter, as it’s been published in the newspaper. (As I am no longer involved in day-to-day management of the CVN, I’m not aware of anything in this week’s paper about this issue.)
Also, the Chilkat Valley News was obligated to write a recent story about discontinuation of the blotter because the report for decades was a public document provided by police, who most recently published it on the department’s Facebook page. Even if the blotter weren’t published in the newspaper, its discontinuation would be a matter of public interest to the community and for that reason, newsworthy.
Now, for a little background on this issue. Newspapers around the country publish police reports, informally called “the blotter.” The Skagway News publishes Skagway’s. I believe the Juneau Empire publishes Juneau’s. My first reporting job at the former Anchorage Times in 1986 involved combing through the Anchorage “blotter,” which was provided as a stack of reports on a clipboard made available to the public in the lobby of Anchorage police station.
The published “blotters” in small-town newspapers are always of interest, including because they include interesting reports of small-town life: Maybe firemen rescuing cats stuck up trees or reports to police about missing children by distraught parents who later find their child in some improbably place – like sleeping in their own beds in the middle of the afternoon. (This one occurred in our family when I was growing up.)
(The Anchorage Dispatch News has regularly published sections of the blotter from Dutch Harbor, only because that town is a colorful place and its police calls tend to be unique. A Haines woman a few years ago published a book about items appearing in the Haines blotter. The Skagway News also published a book of humorous blotter items.)
The CVN started publishing the Haines blotter in the early 1990s. For years, the reports were compiled on a clipboard at the town police station, including names of individuals. Reporters went to the station, combed through the reports and re-wrote items, removing names. Sometimes reporters would ask police for additional information, or used information from reports to write separate news stories. The system generally worked well.
About 10 year ago, former borough police chief Gary Lowe discontinued allowing reporters to see original reports. He instead had staff write up a “sanitized” blotter for the newspaper, eliminating not only names but sometimes also important facts, such as the locations of reports. Instead of, “A caller from the vicinity of Third and Union called reporting a prowler,” items might read, “A prowler was reported.” This caused unnecessary work, as reporters would have to meet with police for additional facts that would make the report helpful to the public.
But we soldiered on.
A few years ago, police decided that instead of providing a written report, the department would publish the blotter on its Facebook page. Well enough. The public was doubly served.
New borough police chief Heath Scott recently decided to no longer make the blotter available. His reasons include that the report sometimes includes seemingly trivial matters – diminishing the perceived role of the police.
I believe the chief’s decision was misguided. The things that people report to police are sometimes silly. (A person calls to report their neighbor is snoring.) They’re sometimes mundane. (A car was reported speeding on Small Tracts Road.) And they’re sometimes grave. (A man was found dead at Third and Union streets.)
But those items are a measure of what people are concerned about in a community. They’re also a public account of what police are doing, and an important notice to the public of crime, safety and other issues.
Let’s start with the blotter’s role in public safety and crime. The blotter routinely includes reports of items like bears getting into people’s garbage, prowlers in the middle of the night, and phone scams. It’s important for people in the community to know that information. Reading those blotter items, a resident might decide to be more careful with their trash, or to lock their doors at night, or to beware of suspicious phone calls. In these instances, the blotter protects citizens. That’s a vital role.
Now let’s consider more minor calls. Say a housewife driving her child to the dentist passes a car parked on Mud Bay Road that has smoke coming out of its engine. The mom may be a bit startled and curious, but she doesn’t have the time to stop. The ensuing blotter item might read. “A car with a smoking engine was reported on Mud Bay Road. An officer responded and talked to the vehicle’s owner, who said it just overheated.” The housewife picks up the paper a few days later and learns about the matter and how it was resolved. In this case, the blotter provides resolution.
Say someone in your neighborhood is playing music too loudly at night, keeping you up. Not wanting to alienate the music player, you live with it, then read in the blotter that others in your neighborhood complained about the noise. Maybe you start talking to your neighbors and agree that you all need to talk, in a friendly way, to the person making the noise. You weren’t the only neighbor concerned about the noise. In this case, the blotter provides helpful information.
Now occasionally, the blotter may include something like a report of a call from a person that their cat is stuck up a tree. And, being that officers are sworn to protect and serve, police respond only to report they can’t find the tree or the cat. Funny, but maybe not flattering to the caller or to the image of the police.
This cat-tree story is the blotter item that people may remember, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of the other items in the police report that helped inform people about what was going on in their community, and told them how the government – in the form of the police department – responded to it.
The blotter is sometimes trivial, but it’s also helpful and sometimes vital for keeping citizens informed on what’s going on in their community. The report should be public information, provided regularly by police.