Hmmm. A couple days after we use the sheriff’s online arrest database to report on arrestees who share the same address, the sheriff’s office announces it is pulling precisely that info from its website.
Hmmm. A rather flimsy domestic violence excuse is offered up — the only way friends of bad guys have to get an address is from the sheriff’s website? — before getting to the crux of the matter.
“We’ve had cases where the family was concerned about people looking for their (arrested) relative.” Bingo.
I submit the connected and powerful in town did not want the arrests of their wayward sons and daughters to be readily available for the world to see. This policy change is also a crippling blow to alt-media like bloggers who rely on electronic sources of official information for that official information. But more broadly, citizens in 21st century America have the right to know the details of police actions undertaken in their community — know them easily and in near real time, as the technology permits.
That used to be the case in Mecklenburg County. We’ve turned the clock back and I fear it the first of many such steps to come.
