EDITORIAL: From the Publisher | A bad reaction

Aug. 10—Let's give the benefit of the doubt to the police chief in Junction City. Maybe he just had an immature personal reaction to a difficult situation. I'd certainly prefer to think of it that way, and not that he wants to run his department in a manner opposed to the spirit of Kansas law.

Either way, it's not a good look for John Lamb, the city's top cop. But the latter is way worse than the former.

I'm talking about his reaction to the Junction City Union's request to begin providing arrest report information about people who get arrested who are age 14 to 18. That request, for reasons that I'll explain, came on the same day that the newspaper asked Chief Lamb if he would like to comment on the arrest of his 17-year-old son on a sex-related charge.

Surely his reaction to one was colored by his reaction to the other.

But first, let's walk through the background. In the mid-1990s, the Kansas Legislature changed state law to essentially treat the arrests of people 14 and over as public record. Previously, the cutoff was 18; people younger than that were usually handled as "juvenile detention" cases, and the names and details were not necessarily public. The state, in its infinite wisdom, changed its mind.

At The Manhattan Mercury, we simply continued what we had been doing for decades — we continued to publish every arrest in Riley County. The police department was obliged after that law change to make public the arrests of the younger offenders, and we put them all in the paper. That's still happening to this very day.

I cannot speak to what the Union did at that time. We took over the paper just a few years ago, and frankly left many of the policies and practices in place, in deference to the wisdom of our predecessors. I was not acutely aware of the practices of obtaining arrest records, but — as I came to learn last week — it turns out that both the sheriff's office and the Junction City Police Department had simply never started releasing arrest information for people younger than 18.

This came to our attention because a citizen alleged that the arrest in question was being covered up. Obviously, that is something a responsible newspaper needs to check into. Turns out that, in fact, there had been an arrest on July 4, but that had never been made public because the sheriff's department did not routinely do that. We got the records last Friday.

There was no cover-up. There was just the following of standard procedure. It took the newspaper pointing out to the authorities that the law had changed in order to get ahold of the public record. And so, learning of this gap, we asked to begin routinely providing such information.

And now, as journalists, we were in possession of knowledge that we could not in good conscience bury. The son of the police chief being arrested for a sex-related crime by the county sheriff's office is a newsworthy matter, and so we published it. To be fair to the chief, we asked him to comment before publication. He said what you would expect, which is that the family had faith the judicial system would handle it appropriately. All well and good.

But then he also said that his department might stop sending arrest information to the media at all. That's because he disagrees with the state law, evidently. Or maybe he was just angry at the newspaper for reporting about an embarrassing matter for his family, and that was his way of retaliating.

Look, everybody makes mistakes. It's wise for readers to remember that the young man in question has not been charged by prosecutors, and certainly not convicted. He's innocent until proven guilty. Meanwhile, the police chief maybe was just mad and wasn't thinking clearly. Can't say I blame him. "Son of newspaper publisher arrested for sex-related crime" is a nightmare of a headline. But I think I would have the good sense to not threaten the cops with, oh, I dunno, stopping delivery of their paper.

The county sheriff had exactly the opposite reaction, by the way. Upon finding out that past practice had been contrary to state law, he resolved to start sending more information so as to be in compliance.

That's the right response. Here's hoping the police chief will come around to that one, too.