Speech 01
Speaker — Jackson Police Chief Martin Guidema
Occasion — Society of Professional Journalists monthly meeting
When —
last night
Verbatim Transcript of the Speech.
You’all know who I am and why I’m here. We’ve had a problem, and I’m
trying to handle it as best I can. I have a responsibility to the residents of
Bryan to maintain law and order. I’ve also got to run my department as
efficiently as possible.
Some unfortunate things have happened during the past year, and they
caused us to take a good look at the information we make available to the
public.
On the first of this month, we instituted a new policy. Before then, we let
any member of the public look at our daily events list, the blotter. It not only
listed the events—the names and addresses of where they took place—but
also included the officers’ narrative.
Since the first, people can still look at it, but the blotter now lists only the
time, case number patrol car number, event and a code for the disposition of
the case. Narratives describing what happened are available to legitimate
news people, but a clerk has to get them from the files for you. We don’t
want other people abusing them. That’s the problem.
About a year ago, we started getting complaints from burglary victims.
Private security agencies were checking our blotter every day to determine
which homes were burglarized and picking up the victims’ phone
numbers—in some cases, unlisted numbers. Then, they would call and try to
sell burglar alarms to the victims.
That’s not all of it. Insurance people were using our blotters for all sorts of
things, and other people, too. A few months ago, we had two burglars who
confessed to a whole string of crimes. They told us they felt safe because
one of their friends had come in and looked at a burglary report for them and
learned we hadn’t gotten their description.
We also suspect that we had some ambulance chasers—lawyers looking for
clients. So, now we limit the blotter to the information required by state law.
I’ve tried to explain that to our regular police reporters, but we’re getting all
sorts of complaints, and one editor called and threatened a lawsuit.
I’ve always thought I had a friendly relationship with reporters. It’s been my
philosophy that reporters have, as their primary vocation, to write a story.
It’s been my policy to do everything I can to help you. That hasn’t changed.
This was something we had to do.
Thank you.