Richardson: Police PIOs should give facts, not spin

4 comments:

• chatmandu002 posted at 9:25 am on Fri, Sep 7, 2012.

  Posts: 1005

  Bill,
  You spin the spin story. Blaming officers making public information releases that may not be true before an investigation is complete, then turning around and saying the investigation could take months, then turning around again and saying the people need the information about their police departments. Public Information Officers, PIOs are just that, public information spokesman. They can't wait for the final report, the public and press want answers now. A preliminary record may contain information about the suspect, weather, wind and other factors about the incident. The PIO has to work with what they have to satisfy the public and press's need for information. You comments about embellishment by the PIOs is wrong in the fact that the news sources may have done some of the embellishing.

  Again you attack the Tempe Police Department, I wonder if there some kind of revenge or payback between you and the Tempe Police Department. The statistics you refer to is about a decade of crime statistics reduction in Tempe and then you report about a FBI statistic for one year. Are you implying that Tempe Police Department is lying in their decade report? One or two incidents can affect the statistics of a city police department for a year, but a decade report shows a better pattern of just what crime levels are.

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• Dale Whiting posted at 9:32 am on Fri, Sep 7, 2012.

  Posts: 3705

  Bill,

  Perhaps police PIO's are the worst. But government PIO's in all branches are covering thinigs up too. They are as bad as are political campaign managers and their communications directors on both parties.

  "Spin" is the name of the game. "Truth will out" is a lost concept! Just look at how well Karl Rove burried the truth about the war in Iraq, weapons of mass destruction and the alleged connection between al Qaeda and Saddam. Police PIO's could not look to any better examples. In shame, Colin Powell quite after four years of B.S.

  Perhaps ASU ought to offer a new major?

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• billrichardson posted at 10:12 am on Fri, Sep 7, 2012.

  Posts: 110

  Chatman,

  Tempe's Part 1 crime level in 2011 is almost 60 per 1,000 residents. Part 1 crimes are serious felonies. In Gilbert the number is 19, Chandler and Scottsdale are around 32 and Mesa comes in at 36. Wild West counties like Maricopa and Pinal come in at below 30. Phoenix is 46.

  Those number are from what the cities and counties report to the feds and state.

  At one time Mesa's crime rate was at 100 per 1,000.

  It looks to me like Tempe has a very serious crime problem and they can't seem to get a handle on it for whatever reason.

  PIO's can to wait for the facts. The public doesn't need to be entertained. They need to be told the simple facts at the time of an incident and full disclosure when an investigation is complete.

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• Leon Ceniceros posted at 7:11 pm on Fri, Sep 7, 2012.

  Posts: 2542

  Richardson is so good at "dissing" other Police Departments. I have asked him over and over and over to tell the readers of the EVT what the "solved" rate was of the over 1500 rapes cases committed in the City of Mesa. Almost the exact same number of rapes (in a couple years it was "EXACTLY" the same, 124) year in and year out for the past decade. I didn't make these "Rape Numbers" up. These were the number of Rapes reported to the Arizona Department of Public Safety by the City of Mesa Police Department.

  1500 Rape Cases in the past 10 years = how many were solved, how many of the rapists were convicted.......simple questions needing simple answere......we're waiting.

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