Readers, we need your help policing our communities.
About a year ago, the Free Press took part in a project called the National Credibility Roundtables. The idea was for U.S. newspapers to discuss with their communities issues that mattered to journalists and readers alike.
Some newspapers chose to deal with schools, race relations, gun control or senior citizens issues. The Free Press chose to deal with police and public safety.
The discussions, held with law enforcement personnel, prosecutors, anti-brutality advocates, juvenile justice experts and others, were fruitful in two ways.
First, they offered the Free Press a chance to ask what it could do in addition to routine crime coverage. Secondly, they gave those involved in law enforcement a chance to tell us directly what they thought of our coverage and other important public safety issues.
Participants from law enforcement agreed that they wanted information on the most-wanted criminals back in the newspaper. It had appeared weekly in the Free Press from 1990-1995.
Newspaper editors wanted more information that could help people directly, such as crime trends and personal safety checklists.
So that’s where we are. We are working on prototypes of ideas, and how they might work in the newspaper.
I’m not promising a thing, but I want to hear from you about what information the newspaper could publish that might be useful in increasing the safety of our neighborhoods, our schools, our streets and our businesses. Call me, write me or e-mail me.
The newspaper covers only a very small percentage of the violent crimes, accidents and court cases that happen every hour of every day.
Reality for people working in law enforcement and public safety is more than that. I know that but saw it firsthand last week as part of Leadership Michigan, a Michigan Chamber of Commerce program in which business people see how industry and government work by visiting cities, companies and organizations and talking with experts.
During more than eight hours riding with Jackson police Officer Craig Edmondson, I witnessed him trying to reunite a runaway daughter with her familyafter spending hours searching door-to-door for a dangerous suspect.
I saw him book and fingerprint the 18-year-old daughter of a mother who said she’d had enough abuse from the teen.
It was all routine but never a comfortable routine.
“Public safety is awareness of what can go wrong and right,” Edmondson said. “If you can avoid a bigger problem down the road, then do it, now. Help out, now. Otherwise, at some point, it’s going to be too late.”
