Apparently, the long arm of the law can’t reach the keyboard.

The University Police, like any other police department – including DeKalb’s – produces a daily blotter listing the criminal and traffic crimes amassed on that particular day.

What sets the UP’s blotter apart from the blotter produced by those other departments – including DeKalb’s – is how often the UP’s blotter doesn’t seem to find its way onto the blotter page of the department’s official Web site.

Though one may find amusement in the misfortunes of others via the blotter, the real reason the public should be concerned is because of the department’s repeated blatant attempts to keep public information from the public.

On more than one occasion, the UP has not only failed to post its blotter from the previous day, but has failed to post its blotter from the previous several days, and rarely if ever has made public the blotter of the present day.

Not only was the Northern Star unable to post a blotter in its Sept. 19 edition as a result of the UP not posting it on the Web site, the Star has also found itself repeatedly jumping through flaming hoops of jargon in an attempt to deliver university crime news to readers in a clear, accurate and timely manner.

The Star has not only had to repeatedly ask the UP to post its blotter in a more timely fashion, but has had to go as far as filing Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain pertinent information on important crimes that would have been – and usually are – made immediately available by the UP’s DeKalb counterparts.

In one instance, the Star was told that once a certain crime pending investigation was closed, information would be made available; when the case was closed, the Star was still forced to use FOIA requests to obtain any information on the crime – outside of the information made available on the blotter, which hardly qualifies as information.

After all, in terms of semantics, “criminal sexual assault” could theoretically range anywhere between a sinful glance and a rape.

The UP has a duty to make this information as readily and easily available to the public as possible, because it is the department’s duty not just to abide by public records law, but it is their duty as police officials to provide the public with the information it needs to ensure individuals’ own personal safety and that of their loved ones.

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