Police hide details of arrested jail guard to "protect the victim"
A county corrections officer in New York faces felony charges but officials won't release any details, and delayed a month releasing the officer's name. The reason for the secrecy? They said to protect the victim (see
story). Interesting how the details of every other felon's allegations are public (regardless of how it might or might not affect victims), but when someone from law enforcement is the suspect then details are cloaked. It's almost as bad as secretly jailing people at Guantanamo Bay and arguing that the secrecy is needed to protect the privacy of those jailed. And if that isn't bad enough, many journalists struggle with getting basic incident reports in a timely manner. The New Orleans Times-Picayune was so mad about it that they sued the police department over the long delays and reached a settlement (see
story). If journalists don't stand up and sue to make sure our criminal justice system remains open then we will have a secret police state.