Most of us with newspaper ink in our blood take for granted that the LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will never let down their guard with the public, nor the news media in Los Angeles.
They've been burned too many times in the court of public opinion to do anything so silly as volunteer information on a daily basis about potentially controversial arrests or "dialogue" with Angelenos over department policies and actions unless a Devin Brown-sized crisis is battering their doors.
blogging.la's Sean Bonner can't get behind that: He just posted an open letter to both departments offering to help them set up blogs similar to the L.A. City Fire Department's excellent LAFD News & Information ...
I'm wondering if anyone in those departments even reads this stuff or knows what is going on with it. In the almost 3 years we've been running blogging.la we've never heard from anyone at the LASD or LAPD directly. City Council? Check. Mayors office? Check. LAFD? Obviously check. But no law enforcement at all. Which is disappointing, because there's a major disconnect between the public and Law Enforment and I'd venture to say they need this more than anyone.
In fact, I'm going take this a bit further and ask all the LAFD, City Council and Mayors office people who read this site to pass this post on to any and every contact you have at the LAPD or LASD. I'm volunteering my time and any help I can offer to get you guys set up with blogs. I'll take time off, wave my consulting fee and come in and explain why they are important and show you how to do it. And I won't even beg for a CCW while I'm there.
Really, I'm completely serious about this. What do you have to loose?
Just their entire way of doing business with a persistently distrustful public: They let their guard down, appear to be communicative rather than authoritative, and citizens might respect their authority even less.
That said, even an LAPD/LASD blog devoted to traffic advisories would be welcome. So would a switch to blogging the day's police-blotter reports online instead of scribbling/printing them all into a dead-tree ledger that is read daily but largely ignored by the city's police reporters.
I'd love to see daily web info from both departments on all the little stuff like B&E, minor muggings and car thefts - Posting routine reports online would make Angelenos appreciate the realities of day-to-day cop work, and maybe make them more vigilant and protective of their neighborhoods. We can only dream of a regularly updated, neighborhood-specific small-crime log-map in the mode of IncidentLog.com.
The sweet spot for Sean's invitation will be reaching the right person high up enough in each department's public affairs division.
Until then, we can dream, can't we?
Posted by: Mack_Reed on Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 01:36 PM
