To Serve and Protect.
And Tweet.
That’s the new motto. Well, that’s not what it says on the side of the squad cars belonging to the Denver Police Department. But perhaps it should. Welcome to the new age of law enforcement. No longer is it innocent until proven guilty; it’s embarrassed until anything is proven. Just ask Denver Nuggets guard Ty Lawson.
If you don’t know the story (i.e. – the impetus for this column), here’s the quick and dirty: Last Friday, at approximately 1:23 in the morning, Lawson was arrested by Denver Police on suspicion of DUI. As anyone could have predicted, this news flooded Twitter with tweets from gazillions of tweeps – including the @DenverPolice account.
A couple of disclaimers before we continue: First and most important, this column is not about Lawson, whether he was right or wrong, innocent or guilty or simply not using his noggin. Nobody here is condoning drinking and driving; nor am I here to stand on a pedestal and preach how it shouldn’t be done – very few of us are truly saints. Secondly, the column is not penned to bash the police. By and large – speed traps and photo radar withstanding – the cops serve the people; if they weren’t there, this world would be a scary place.
With that out of the way, let’s continue.
Social media is a game changer. It’s changed the way the world works, where and how we get information, and how fast we get it. It is a tool, for practically everyone, that’s been both good and bad. It’s bad because there are no consequences for anyone saying anything about anybody – there truly are no rules. It’s good because the information we obtain through various forms of social media is instant and unbiased (at least in a cumulative sense). With regard to law enforcement, tools like Twitter or Facebook can be extremely beneficial; posting information or photos of “persons of interests” can and has helped to solve many cases.
In the case of Ty Lawson’s DUI arrest, social media let everyone know what had happened the Nuggets point guard in the wee hours of Friday morning. The news surfaced on Twitter approximately nine hours after the arrest took place.
One fact needs to be pointed out: The Denver Police Department did not break the story. D-Mac did.
D-Mac (aka Darren McKee) is a local sports radio talk show host on 104.3 The Fan. He’s one of the best; he’s funny and thought provoking, but most importantly, he’s informed. And with regards to the Lawson situation, he acted as an old-school journalist would. He discovered a tip, did his due diligence and then reported the story. D-Mac’s tweet went up at 10:25 a.m. on Friday morning; within 45 minutes, the news was everywhere.
At 10:49, Denver’s 9News had its version of the story up on Twitter. At 10:59, the Nuggets beat writer for the Denver Post, Chris Dempsey, posted the news. Hundreds – probably thousands – of retweets and commentary followed.
And at 11:17, a new tweet was posted, an official release from the Denver Police Department’s Twitter account: “ALERT: Ty Lawson arrested on suspicion of DUI. #Denver”
Athletes getting arrested is nothing new. Reports of those same athletes appearing on Twitter isn’t groundbreaking, either. But something felt “off” about reading of someone’s arrest on the police department’s Twitter feed.
Seeing this particular tweet felt like I was looking at a Polaroid of a fisherman holding up his “big catch.”
Was this the role of the cops? Should it be? The police are there to serve and protect, and one would likely argue that busting a driver under the influence falls into both of those categories. But reporting it to the masses? That seemed like low rent to me.
Others on Twitter agreed.
@DrTravisHeath said, “So our PD is turning into TMZ? #Gross”
@MarkDeBaca asked, “@DenverPolice why is this news? #ignorance”
@joshrockies wrote, “@denverpolice why is it the job of the police to publicize a celebrity arrest? Seems like we have enough paparazzi for that already.” He then followed up by saying: “I think it’s the social media aspect, when no other persons were reported, per Mark’s point, that looks horrible.”
To the DPD’s credit, whomever was manning the Twitter account responded to several disgruntled tweeters: @MarcDeBaca – we provide information, as required by law, when asked… @joshrockies @MarcDeBaca – understood, but untrue, WHEN ASKED, this is where we release arrest and mugshot info on high profile cases.
One problem with Twitter, or at least as I see it, is that not everything – particularly important clarifications such as this one – can fit into 140 characters. Information is left out, or sometimes irresponsibly or inaccurately filled in.
To hell with Twitter. Let’s pick up the phone and have a good old-fashioned conversation.
Yesterday, I phoned “down to the station” and was put in contact with Sonny Jackson, director of communications for the Denver Police Department. Jackson was pleasant and accommodating, answering all of my questions.
“It said on Twitter that the DPD will release this type of information when asked,” I told him. “Who asked?”
“We had several media questions about it,” Jackson said.
“But who was it?”
“I don’t disclose that,” he said. “I wouldn’t tell anyone you were calling me. I respect your position and what you’re doing; I wouldn’t disclose your call or what you’re calling about.”
Fair enough – in many ways honorable. Still, though, I needed more information. I wanted to know what factors went into deciding what information goes out on Twitter and what information doesn’t.
Jackson explained: “What we do is we basically figure what’s the most effective way, when we start getting numerous calls, we’ll go ahead and put it out. The first call, you basically have the opportunity to have your exclusive story. When all the calls start coming in, we go ahead and just put it out. That way, we can kind of manage it a little bit better.”
I needed more. How does the man (or woman) behind the @DenverPolice Twitter account decide who is and who isn’t a “high-profile” case?
“Basically, if you’re getting a lot of phone calls about it, a lot of inquiries,” Jackson said, explaining the determining factor – volume of inquiries – that determines whether or not something should be considered a “high-profile” case. “It’s a situation where we really felt we (should) put out a press release and we released it social media. Anymore right now, the way the world is changing, social media is the place where people are going to get a lot of their data, a lot of their information from. So therefore, we’re basically trying to provide it where they want it. And we have to provide it as effectively as possible, so that we can continue operating our office, and get them what they need in an expeditious manner. Often times, it’s best to put that on social media.
“It’s based on community interest, obviously. Most press releases go out on social media, as well; that way, we’re being transparent to everybody.”
It should be noted that the Denver Police Department sends out a report of all of its arrests each business day to various media outlets. That list typically goes out between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. A DPD representative told me the list was released at approximately 9:30 a.m. on the morning of Lawson’s arrest. It should also be noted that D-Mac did not develop his breaking story via that list; in fact, he didn’t know such a list existed.
Everything Jackson told me adds up. The Denver Police Department did not “break” the Lawson story via Twitter. Per Jackson’s stated protocol, it’s safe to assume they had several inquiries about the situation (D-Mac being the first, presumably followed by several other credible media outlets) and then decided to post the tweet.
But that leads to another question: If the information is already out there – via the Twitter accounts of various media-types, and by the time the DPD decided to launch its tweet, several credible web sites – why is there still a need to tweet it?
That’s the part that still feels dirty. That’s where it looks more like “look who we got” than “service and protection.”
It’s not as if this situation is unprecedented, though. The Denver Police Department handled situation similarly and consistently when Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov was arrested in October of 2013: “BREAKING – Colorado Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov turned himself in to Denver Police detectives for domestic violence related charges,” tweeted @DenverPolice.
Breaking. Seems like a word that should be reserved for Walter Cronkite, not Officer Friendly.
In Arapahoe County, Sheriff Dave Walcher handles these types of situations very differently.
“Who doesn’t matter to us,” Walcher told me yesterday over the phone. “What matters is the nature of the crime.”
Suspicion of DUI, in this case, is not a crime that Walcher or his staff would deem “tweetable.” When Broncos linebacker Von Miller was arrested in Arapahoe County for an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court for a traffic violation, there was no tweet from the @ArapahoeSO account.
When asked how the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department would handle the dissemination of information surrounding a situation like Lawson’s, Walcher’s answer was simple: “We would do nothing.”
All police departments, including Denver and Arapahoe County, are required by law to respond to inquiries. But Walcher’s stance on the handling of “high-profile” cases would appear to be drastically different from the Denver Police Department policy.
“A Denver Nugget is just John Q. Public,” he said. “A Broncos player driving down Arapahoe is no different than you or I.”
I think I like that approach better. It seems to allow a little less room for interpretation and judgment calls. Because here’s the thing that kept entering my mind: Inquiries or not, I still wondered how the Denver Policed Department would handle the distribution of information if the tides were turned – let’s say a police officer was arrested on suspicion of DUI.
“It depends on if we got a lot of calls about it,” Jackson said.
But who would call about police officer whose name nobody recognized? Sure, a cop might not be a household name, but he’s held in the highest regard – by the public. Whose responsibility is it to report that kind of news?
What about government officials? There was the story back in January of 2012 where Colorado lawmaker Laura Bradford was suspended from her position as chair of the House Local Government Committee after apparently using a “get out of jail free” card to avoid a possible DUI.
“The officer smelled an alcoholic beverage on her breath,” Lt. Matt Murray of the Denver Police Department said at the time. “She admitted to have been drinking.”
According to a Fox31 report, Bradford reportedly did not pass a roadside sobriety test, yet she was not arrested because of an antiquated state law that allows lawmakers a level of immunity from police arrest during the legislative session.
A stroll back through Twitter around that time reveals hundreds of tweets surrounding the situation, none of which originated from @DenverPolice. Clearly there were inquiries, but even more clearly, the situation was handled differently.
Following that incident, the Denver Post reported: “Denver Police pointed to their own policy, which says a lawmaker can be arrested for drunken driving, but only when there is an accident with serious injuries or a fatality. In other situations where a police officer believes a lawmaker is driving drunk, they can simply send the legislator home in a cab.”
“It depends if we get any calls,” Jackson reiterated when I asked about public officials. “If we didn’t get any calls or anything like that, it would be just like anybody else. But when people call and ask, we have to respond. It comes down to, you as a journalist, you’re calling, you’re asking the question, so we are obliged to answer your question. We have to be able to be able to manage that, as well. So it comes down to a case where, if I’m getting just you calling me, that’s a one-on-one question and we move on. But when I start getting four and five calls, then it’s best to go ahead and get the information out as deliberate as possible, so we can manage it.”
And “managing it” essentially means putting information on social media. The question remains, at least for me, is that the role of our law enforcement officers?
On the homepage of the Denver Police Department’s web site, there’s a message from Chief of Police Robert C. White: “In partnership with the community, the Denver Police Department strives to operate a police agency focused on preventing crime in a respectful manner, demonstrating that everyone matters.”
In the case of Ty Lawson, it feels like some folks might matter just a little bit more.
At least on Twitter.