Sharing information with the public is part and parcel to the
mission of public safety. Let’s make sure this scenario is not
repeated
The first duty of any police officer is to protect public safety.
That’s why we’re so concerned that a brutal crime – a rape in the downtown Gilroy area – was not reported to the public by the Gilroy Police Department for several weeks.
A woman was raped in downtown Gilroy on Oct. 2, but the incident wasn’t made public until Nov. 17.
For six weeks, residents didn’t know about this vicious attack, weren’t on higher alert to protect themselves and couldn’t be on the lookout for a suspect.
Police Chief Gregg Giusiana has made it clear that no attempt was made to keep anything secret, but the slip through the cracks is a serious problem that demands corrective action so that it never occurs again.
Public safety is often dependent on the police department getting the word out to the public through the press. Everyone wants to catch the bad guy, but it’s just as important, if not more so, to alert the public so that the bad guy has real difficulty repeating a violent crime.
It wasn’t until police shared a suspect sketch a month and a half later that the public, and the newspaper, learned about the attack.
The police department and the newspaper have an established procedure to disseminate information about crimes big and small. Yet, somehow this crime, which should have warranted an immediate press release, didn’t even rate a mention during the GPD-Dispatch routine round-up of crimes like auto break-ins, vandalism, drug possession and DUI arrests.
What happened is water under the bridge, but everyone agrees it should not have happened and should never happen again. The City Council should actively engage Chief Giusiana on the subject now and again at the next Council-PD retreat. A departmental review has already taken place, and procedures and clarity about the responsibility of the dissemination of information and protocol should be reiterated.
Residents have a right and a need to know about threats to the their public safety.
In the case of this brutal sexual assault, clearly the public’s right to know, its need to know and the protection of public safety were not served by the six-week delay in notification.
Every police officer’s first duty – whether a manager, a beat cop, or a public relations officer – is to protect public safety. That’s what this community expects, and that’s what the Gilroy Police Department strives to do. Sharing information with the public quickly and efficiently is part and parcel to that mission.
