Good job to Chief Col. Dotson getting out front with the LEO side EARLY, and explaining WHY you did so (transparentcy). Weve gotten to a place where accessibility of media, social, and mainstream, has taken away from law enforcement the traditional, responsible choice to withhold comment until a thorough and quality investigation can be done. St. Louis Chief Col. Dotson gives me hope with his early, detailed, statement, and deliberate mention of transparentcy, that the LE community is recognizing that, unfortunately, the policies regarding professional, methodical information release ref: critical incidents must, out of necessity, simply be a thing of the past. LE is accustomed to completing investigations prior to making detailed disclosures. As we have seen too frequently lately, this has served to render the collective public opinion the one that the victims family vomits into the media, mutating and spreading virally through social media, to everyone with a phone, inevitably including a huge segment of the population who never watches the news or reads a newspaper. Law and government tends to lag behind technology. This is one place that we cant. What one agency decides across the country can get my friends hurt or killed here, due to misguided national public opinion. I doubt many people outside of LE realize how VERY many LEOs through the NATION have found themselves of late on the receiving end of LEO-directed violence, where the name Ferguson is brought up... I applaud Dotson for also referencing video, and damn, I wish there was one. Sounds like he wouldve produced it. Sure that raises issues, but it is time to abandon the over-cautious police legal advisor advice in favor of transparentcy and immediate response. Its out of our comfort zone, but its a balancing test: What is more important? The possibility of an early factual error that has to be corrected and could be used by legal opposition in the future, or a misinformed public perception that directly impacts the safety of those who serve and protect? (And after that positive statement: may I now request that all members of the media who question numbers of return-fire rounds, please immediately kill themselves? (and preferably in any way that requires no report or response by our emergency personnel). Thank you.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 12:41:50 +0000
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