Police Can’t Afford to Jump to Conclusions

. . . but reporters apparently can. I’m going to embed the fox video that set this off. I saw it on the TV while eating my lunch, and then looked it up for your viewing pleasure (or not).

I’m pretty tense about any government official overstepping the bounds of their authority. Police face great danger for our sakes, but they also receive great trust, and they should be careful to merit that trust. Most of the time they do. When they don’t, I’ll speak about that.

But very often I think the media doesn’t take the time to determine facts before they start pushing. Now the video I’m embedding isn’t horribly offensive. It’s just a reporter trying to push a spokesman for the Phoenix police department to say more than he knows. The death in question is very suspicious. But you see, I can afford to jump to conclusions and decide that a college professor in whose home an unconscious teenager was found is a pervert and possibly a murderer. I can, even though I won’t. If I did, however, the consequences are very minor, because I lack any form of authority to act.

The reporter has more power than I do, based on the size of his audience. In my view, that should make him more responsible. Why should we come to conclusions before we have all the facts? Of course the answer is “ratings.” It’s much better for one’s ratings to announce the actual result first.

The police spokesman, representing the Phoenix police department, has a much greater responsibility, one that he is carrying out quite well. He and his department can’t afford to jump to conclusions, however obvious those conclusions appear on the surface. He and his department are quite right to wait till they get all the facts, such as the coroner’s report and the tox screen. That is the best thing for justice. They’re doing that, as far as I can see. If the reporter had any evidence available that was not made public, he failed to make use of it, thus I would say that the “I don’t know” and “wait until the evidence is in” approach is the correct one.

I feel for the police and prosecutors in a situation like this. If they go too far, too fast, they face the possibility of lawsuits, they ruin reputations perhaps needlessly, and they may muddy the waters so that justice will never be done. If they hold back, they face accusations that they aren’t working hard enough or are missing the obvious.

I’m firmly on the side of caution. If we think things go too slowly in investigations, perhaps we should remember this at election time when tax issues are voted or candidates are elected who will decide on the budget. We must hold public officials, including police, accountable, but accountability minus appropriate resources is just bullying.

I’m firmly on the side of letting them have the time to do their job. I sympathize with a family that is hurting. But the course of action that will most probably result in justice is to let the facts come in, be sorted out, and be taken care of. I certainly cannot be certain that their choice to hire a detective is wrong. I’m commenting strictly on the interview between the police spokesman and the Fox interviewer and their respective attitudes.

And the interviewer should realize that when he jumps to conclusions, the worst consequence is a retraction by the network. If the police jump to a conclusion, many lives may be irreparably harmed.