To state the obvious, dealings between police and reporters on the crime beat are often complex, defying easy explanation.
At one level, it’s a symbiotic relationship, in the dictionary sense of the word: two independent organisms living together, interacting, usually to the advantage of both.
Often, reporters winkle out information from reluctant cop sources for stories that are in the public interest, holding police accountable.
Just as often, police rely on the media to report crucial information or enlist citizens’ help on tough cases.
In other words, each side has agendas, priorities and, one hopes, independence. But this uneasy relationship is founded on trust.
Trust is hardly fostered when police officers dupe the media into reporting false or misleading information. If a deception is revealed, the public is invited to wonder if the media are little more than police agents.
That’s why the recent testimony of York Region homicide detective Les Young at an ongoing murder trial is so disturbing.
In court, Young revealed that he called a 1999 news conference, and handed the media a fake composite sketch of a suspect in the slaying of restaurateur Maria Wong.
The Star unwittingly published the sketch the next day, June 29, 1999. The sketch, by the way, was a doctored picture of one of four suspects later charged in the case.
In the officer’s opinion, the ruse was “somewhat misleading but not outside the bounds of the law.”
Young said the objective was to “stimulate activity” among suspects get them talking and meeting so that police could gather more evidence.
York Region police chief Robert Middaugh, who took office seven months after the incident, has asked his deputy to investigate.
“I’m always concerned any time when the media have an issue with the integrity of any police organization I’m connected to. That’s a major concern for me,” Middaugh said Thursday. The chief plans a full statement after the trial.
Public Safety and Security Minister Bob Runciman is aware of the incident from media reports, said Bruce O’Neill, a ministry spokesperson. But Runciman’s ministry can’t get involved in what is essentially “an internal” York police matter and a moral (as opposed to legal) issue, he explained.
That’s a pity. Healthy discussion of unsavoury, if not illegal, police tactics seems in order in Ontario.
In March, it was revealed that Waterloo regional police had fed the media false information for a 1998 Crime Stoppers item. Waterloo police have vowed not to do it again.
Two anecdotes involving Toronto police are also worth mentioning.
Crime reporter Michelle Shephard recalls a case in which cops led a homicide “suspect” out of a police garage for the benefit of photographers. A jacket hid the man’s face.
Sometime after the news photo ran in The Star, Shephard found out that the man was another officer, not the suspect. The real suspect was quietly escorted out later.
The media had been deceived. So were Star readers.
Police issues reporter Jennifer Quinn remembers a respected Toronto police contact asking her if The Star would run a sketch deliberately drawn to look like a suspect in a major crime. Lacking evidence, the cops hoped the sketch gimmick would generate enough to lay a charge.
“This officer was totally upfront with me about the sketch,” Quinn said, “and when I told him that was something we just don’t do, completely understanding.”
All in all, the issue bears watching. Media truth does matter. So does police credibility.
