In a recent article on Talk of the Sound, a contributor reported that there had been a “cover up” of a recent auto theft by the New Rochelle Police Department. There was no cover up just a misunderstanding. I want to explain the misunderstanding and express my apologies for any problems or inconveniences that may have resulted from the original article. I am happy to note that the contributor took it upon themselves to issue a retraction.
This all began last week when I was contacted by a concerned citizen upon my return from vacation who wrote “I haven’t seen any mention on your site of the Thursday, August 2 robbery at Pepe Luxury Cars (Mercedes) in New Rochelle. Apparently two new Mercedes were stolen from their building. One of our neighbors heard it on the police scanner, and I confirmed it with the newly hired security guard on Friday morning. He has been hired to work from 9 pm to 7 am. Apparently there has been no reporting of this incident, and we are concerned about the safety of our neighborhood.”
In reply, I explained I had been away on vacation but would contact NRPD and Pepe Motors. I had no way to know why no other outlet had reported on the incident.
I sent a FOIL records request to NRPD based on the information provided: “A reader tells me that on Thursday, August 2 there was a robbery at Pepe Luxury Cars (Mercedes) in New Rochelle. Apparently two new Mercedes were stolen from their building. Can I get a copy of the incident report?”
NRPD said there was no such record. The manager at Pepe did not return my phone call.
At the point I dropped it, figuring that maybe it was a mistake or maybe they chose not to report the incident. As I had not heard anything on the scanner nor talked to the security guard I had no verifiable information about this incident at all. I explained to the reader that since I did not hear it on the scanner myself nor spoken to the guard AND that NRPD had no record AND that Pepe was not responding, that I could not run a story. I pointed out that like anyone else, she was free to write her own story and publish it on Talk of the Sound.
As it turned out, there was a larceny involving two vehicles at the Mercedes dealership but the date was July 30th not August 2nd. This was in the system (more on how I know that below) and had I requested the date of July 30th I would have gotten the report that was in the system the entire time. This is unfortunate because had I been aware there was any doubt as to the date I could have simply requested a date range rather than a specific date — had I asked for any incidents over the past two weeks the the larceny report would have popped up in the results.
Herein lies an opportunity to inform readers on a few points on news gathering with the NRPD.
The New Rochelle Police Department has been, in my four years of experience as a reporter covering them, a model for press cooperation and records access. There has not been a single question I have asked that they have not answered nor has there been a record that they did not provide and provide promptly. There are other agencies that are very good in our area — the DA’s office has been good, the DOJ has been good, the County Police has been good — but I deal far more with the NRPD and they have an exceptionally good track record in my book.
Captain Kevin Kealy handles FOIL requests. He has been helpful not only in providing records but explaining how records are created and maintained, allowing me to make better requests. When I make a request, it typically entails a search of the NRPD database. Captain Kealy has taught me how to make better “boolean search” requests to get better search results. That is what is so unfortunate in this case. If NRPD gets a request for a specific day Captain Kealy punches that in, retrieves what comes up and sends it a spreadsheet format. If there is no match he tells me “no such record” at which point I can refine my search request. to expand the date range, change the incident type, etc. Had I known there was any doubt about the day I would have just asked for a date range, perhaps the last 10 days, and it would have turned up. I did not do that in this case because I knew that calls that go out on a scanner do not always generate an incident report or an arrest; in this case it could have been that someone thought cars had been stolen when they were simply moved or otherwise not where someone expected them to be. In any case, it did not seem like that big a deal to me and I was surprised when it became an issue.
In my subsequent communication with Captain Kealy, he wrote:
Your initial e-mail stated that there was a robbery of two vehicles on August 2, 2012. I assumed you meant a larceny of two vehicles, and I searched the larceny category for the date you supplied (08/02). This search yielded negative results for that type of crime on that date. Thus, I replied to you that there was no such record which happens to be true. A larceny of vehicles did in fact occur on 07/30/12, however this date was not searched. In the future, I believe that it would be in everyone’s best interest to be precise when requesting a record. If you wish a search of a date range to be conducted, I will do my best to accommodate you, as I have done in the past.
This is exactly right.
Captain Joseph Schaller handles media relations. He has been equally helpful. He holds a press briefing every weekday at about 11:30 a.m.. There are four publications that go on any sort of a regular basis: Journal News, Patch, Daily Voice, Talk of the Sound. I go the least because I do not have the time to go every day and do not have the resources to pay someone to attend and do a write up (if a reader wishes to volunteer to take on this role, please contact me). When I go it is usually because I have specific questions to ask regarding my own investigative reporting. Mostly I see Journal News and Patch. Occasionally, I see the Daily Voice. I think these three do a good job on these “police blotter” stories so I just link to them even when I am in the same briefing.
What happens is that who ever is attending will go through the police blotter, sheets of paper listing the various incidents for the past few days. We will skim it looking for anything that catches our eye — mostly felony arrests.
We are then ushered in to the press briefing at which point 2 things happen: (1) reporters ask about incidents that interest them and get details, those that sound like a good story tend to get reported; (2) Captain Schaller has his own list of what he thinks reporters might find interesting.
As to why this particular incident did not get reported I cannot say as I was not there but I would say it is the sort of thing that would have been brought up in the press briefing, especially because of the recent thefts at the Honda dealership.
It may be that no reporters went that day. It is summer. The person from Patch is an Iona student and may be away. Will David from the Journal News does not go every single day. It may just have been missed in skimming through the incidents (there are pages of them). Captain Schaller is sometimes out of the office. In any case, I seriously doubt that this information would have been withheld by NRPD. In fact, quite the opposite.
A final word on crime maps.
Compounding the confusion is that the reader checked the City’s crime map and did not see the incident listed. That the incident was not in the crimemapping.com web site is a function of a simple failure in getting data from NRPD to that company, not a conspiracy.
And now to how I know that the incident was in the system the entire time.
For those recall, the idea of using any sort of crime map software came from Talk of the Sound several years ago. I became interested in crime maps for hyperlocal after admiring the work of Adrian Holovaty who created one of the first, if not the first, Google Map/Crime Data mash up for the City of Chicago. After having met Holovaty at a conference, I began promoting the idea of doing something similar here in New Rochelle with the support of former City Council Member Richard St. Paul.
In 2009, Talk of the Sound wrote an Open Letter to City Hall: How About Crime Mapping Software for the New Rochelle Police Department?
In its recently released Annual Report for 2008, the New Rochelle Police Department announced it had completed its transition to a new police management software system which includes a database for tracking calls for service, incidents and crime reports. With such a system in place, the NRPD is now set up to begin sharing near real-time crime data with residents…These services provide law enforcement agencies with an affordable and easy-to-use Web-based service for managing and controlling the sharing of crime data with the public, in near real-time. Community members can then access their neighborhood crime information for free, empowering them to make informed decisions to help improve the safety of their families, friends, property and the community at large.
The NRPD embraced what I had recommended, using crimemapping.com. Police Commissioner Carroll gave an excellent presentation on crimemapping.com. The Mayor was horrified and did not want the data available. He called it an “anti-marketing campaign” for New Rochelle — apparently a safe and informed citizenry, aware of any crime patterns in their area, is a secondary consideration for Mr. Bramson.
After the Mayor killed the program, he told Sean Adams of WCBS Radio “Crime alert that enables people to get fuller information that’s tailored to where they live and the area about which they’re concerned will be far more useful than a graphic presentation.”
Last December, the City quietly began providing data to crimemapping.com so, despite the Mayor’s statement, the crime map software from crimemapping.com which provides a graphic presentation is in use by the NRPD.
Apparently, the deal was that NRPD could have a crime map but could not promote it. There was no press release or fanfare and no explanation of what data was included and what was excluded. A side-by-side comparison shows that the data is scrubbed before becoming available to crimemapping.com. It is not clear who is doing that work but suffice to say there is a large gap in the number of incidents reported in SpotCrime v. CrimeMapping.com.
When the Mayor rejected crimemapping.com, the CEO of SpotCrime contacted Talk of the Sound and offered to make the same service available for free. I worked with the company to get them all of the data every day with the cooperation of the NRPD. We immediately began posting every incident from every day.
To this day, NRPD provides a complete set of data to Talk of the Sound/SpotCrime and this incident on July 30th was in the data we received. This occurred before any questions were raised about any idea of a “cover up”.
I am a proponent of both companies. They are both excellent. But, for those people interested in getting a complete list of all incidents from NRPD each day I recommend SpotCrime.
You can sign up for a daily alert from SpotCrime, you can specific a range such as within 2 miles from your house or place of business, and, unlike the cservice used by the City of New Rochelle, the data is a complete set of all incidents. Either work well but if want a complete set of data where the Mayor is not trying to control what information goes into the system, then sign up for SpotCrime. It’s free.
RELATED:
WCBS RADIO: New Rochelle Yanks Public Access To Crime Tracking Website
New Rochelle Crime Map Returns, Courtesy of Talk of the Sound and SpotCrime
SpotCrime Map Now Live on Talk of the Sound, Sign Up for Alerts, Get iPhone Map