Warren County Sheriff’s Office posts blotters online, honors past FOIL requests
After much cajoling and numerous back-and-forth exchanges, the Warren County Sheriff’s Office has honored our Freedom of Information Law requests for copies of the daily police blotters.
But the department has also taken its response further, by agreeing on its own to post the daily blotters on the Sheriff’s Office’s Web site for all citizens to see.
About a month ago, Sheriff Bud York, upset over some unflattering reporting, told his officers not to give any information to The Post-Star other than what the department normally would issue in a press releases. That information blackout included the daily log of police activity and arrests known as the “police blotter.”
Under the state’s Freedom of Information Law, blotters are public documents and must be released to the public. So we sought the blotters by making Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests. The sheriff responded that the blotters weren’t readily available and would take as long as 35 days for his staff to prepare. Since many police agencies routinely produce blotters in a matter of minutes, not weeks, we found this to be another example of the sheriff trying to punish the paper by withholding public information.
In the meantime, reporter Don Lehman has been in regular contact with the department over the blotters and filing daily FOIL requests for them. Today, in an unexpected turn of events, we learned that not only would the Sheriff’s Office provide the blotters we had been seeking dating back to Sept. 21, but that the department would also begin regularly posting daily blotters online at the department’s Web site, http://sheriff.co.warren.ny.us/.
To access the blotters, go to the site and click on the tab marked “Blotter.” The top portion of the blotter is the arrest report, listing all those people arrested by sheriff’s officers during the designated time period. The information includes the date and time of the incident, the name and birthdate of the suspect, the location of the arrest, the specific charges, and a case number the public can use to get more information. The second portion is a listing of all the calls that deputies responded to in that time period. Most of this information wouldn’t show up in a press release, but it could alert the public to incidents in their neighborhoods or to trends in crime.
In the Warren Pieces blog today, Don credits Chief Deputy Shane Ross with fielding our FOIL requests and for setting up the blotter on the department’s Web site.
This is an unexpected and welcome development for your right to know. Not only is this public information being made available to the media, but also to every citizen who might want to know what incidents are being responded to by the Sheriff’s Department. Kudos to the sheriff and his staff for honoring the FOIL requests and for going the extra mile to open the records to all citizens.
– Mark Mahoney
You’re seriously focusing on copyright for a government site than access to public records? As I’ve said three times, the Sheriff’s Department posted that information specifically for us and the public to access. It’s a convenient way for them to distribute the information to the biggest audience without us having to call every day and request it. It was a win-win for both the department and the public. And they haven’t complained to us about violating the copyright (which we didn’t do — read the law), so obviously, they don’t think we’ve done anything wrong. Move on, people.
I guess copyrights and bold red print to not use certain images mean nothing to the post star. Sex Offender Registry
Warning: All Images on this site are property of the Warren County Sheriff’s Office.
They may not be copied, reproduced or used without the express written permission of the Sheriff of Warren County.
Copyright © 2004 – 2009 Warren County Sheriff’s Office
At least change the filename of the picture you stole for your blog post!
The Sheriff’s Office, to its credit, specifically posted this information on its public Web site as a direct result of our efforts to obtain the police blotter through the state Freedom of Information Law. I seriously doubt they’re going to turn around and sue us for copyright infringement. Information subject to the Open Meetings Law and posted on a government Web site is not protected by copyright.
“edith ann” needs to go sit in the corner!
we all know you think you know it all and actually you show your ignorance more everyday. Your new website stinks as does your “newspaper”. You’re wrong about copyrighted images though.
I wonder for the hope of humanity.
Edith ann. Your comments are utterly ridiculous. First off, the government can’t copyright public information. You paid for this information with your tax dollars, you own it, and anything produced by the government and posted on a government Web site is in the public domain. Secondly, the information was put up there specifically to be distributed to the public. Are you saying that the press releases posted on the site also are copyrighted and cannot be printed? Also, our position on the blotters was simply that the public should know what the police are doing. If you think that position is way off base, then you live in a different country than the rest of us.
Looks like you have a problem reading. It’s clearly stated on the home page for the sheriff’s website that the image is copyright protected. You didn’t receive permission to use it. Not only don’t you get the facts right but now you’re engaging in copyright infringement. You’re spin on the blotter issue is way off base too.