We’re sitting here aghast over an article the Southern Illinoisan has produced for today’s paper about the public’s perception of police.

This is one of those feel-good articles that, for those who really know what’s going on and the dire situation many downstate cop shops are in as it comes to dealing with crime in their town, is apparently designed to be the right hand waving in the air while someone’s shouting “OVER HERE!!” as the left hand is elbow-deep in ineptitude, corruption, graft, or whatever else makes some police departments run these days, as opposed to merely enforcing the law and dealing with crime.

Molly Young

Pravin Varughese

While not focusing on them, the article brings up the deaths of Molly Young and Pravin Varughese as examples of recent criticism of Carbondale police. Carbondale police chief Jody O’Guinn says the department CAN’T respond to criticism because the cases are “ongoing investigations”:

“The fact is we have not been able to clarify our side of those cases due to the fact they are still under investigation,” he said. “It kind of hamstrings us on what we can and can not say because we do not want to jeopardize any further prosecution that may result from it.”

This, folks, is UTTER BULLSHIT. Molly’s case was CLOSED at about this time in 2012, with all investigative material forwarded to her father, Larry, under a Freedom of Information Act request. It was only REOPENED when public outrage over her death was sparked by a coroner’s jury finding of “unknown” manner of death as opposed to suicide, in late January 2013. Since then, they’ve been dragging their feet on anything resembling “investigation,” which has forced Larry Young to file a Wrongful Death suit against the last person to see Molly alive, Richie Minton. So to whine about “ongoing investigation,” especially when there are other circumstances that should ALSO have been investigated and dealt with long before Molly’s death…such as the “theft” of O’Guinn’s gun from his vehicle and the subsequent murder that occurred with it, is disingenuous at best.

In a separate article, apparently published as a sort of ongoing series, the Southern goes on to offer some significant, yet subtly veiled, criticism of social media and social networking sites as a cause of criticism generation:

The rise in social media, especially with high-profile cases, can put the pressure on local police departments. Information, whether it is correct or not, can spread around the Internet at the click of a mouse, which can cause the public to demand information from the police.

“Social media can really spread a lot of incorrect information and police departments may often be in a situation where they can’t combat against that when it’s an ongoing criminal matter,” (Joseph Schafer, chairman of the Criminology Department at SIU) said. “Because their ultimate concern is that they want to clear a case with a successful conviction.”

Ongoing investigations sometimes make it difficult for police to fully communicate with the public.

“If we have documentation or information available, we will give it out, but we can’t always because of statute, or if it would affect an ongoing investigation,” said (Murphysboro Police Chief Brian) Hollo.

Schafer said because of social media, agencies must be more willing to share information quickly.

“They can’t just sit and let things ride like they could maybe 10 or 20 years (ago) and hope a situation will die off,” he said. “They have to really work as much as they can to be out in front of the message about those types of high profile incidents.”

Somehow, I get the feeling that this was gently inserted in there so that police could maybe start making a tangential argument for “policing” the internet…but then, that’s just me…probably.

The bottom line is this: If a department (Or a city. Or a county. Or a water district. Or a township board) wants people to have a better PERCEPTION of them, they need to take care of that before the “perception” descends into something as abysmal as Carbondale has. Murphysboro doesn’t have that problem; honestly, Jackson County as a total doesn’t. We’ve dealt with both those agencies, and they’re about as up-front as can be imagined; helpful when we call, they don’t take days and days to get back with us, or with any other media covering their area. Carbondale…not so much. And then they make egregiously false statements, as they did in both Young’s and Varughese’s cases, and wonder why people are CRITICAL of them?

I’ll reiterate here what we said when Monica Zukas was getting threats and complaints over her coverage of the Varughese case.

It. Is. Our. RIGHT. As citizens, to criticize.

The First Amendment ensures it. Our tax dollars pay for it. These public officials seem, at every turn, to forget that their lives and livelihood are supported by OUR tax dollars, taken from us by force via threat of prison time and losing everything we own. If you think that’s not true, try not paying taxes for awhile and see what happens.

Scott “Google It” Rice, at the August 22, 2013 press conference held by Jackson County prosecutor Mike Carr at the Illinois State Police District 13 headquarters in DuQuoin.

If public officials can’t handle the criticism of the public, they need to not be public officials. Go get a job in the private sector, boys. Oh wait. That probably wouldn’t fly for someone the likes of “Anna chief of police” Scott “Poacher” Rice, who is, amusingly enough, quoted in this article in the Southern. The man can’t even hunt turkeys right. Or mushrooms, for that matter.

We love ya, Southern. We like sharing your work. But this is over the top. We’re wondering exactly who conned you into doing this fluff piece. Get in there and dig, like we and Zukas and the Carbondale Times have done on these issues. Public perception is only a PERCEPTION because people know what they see and what they live. And when people around them are DYING…and there’s no resolution, meaning a murderer or murderers are still on the loose…there’s no comfort in fluff pieces, no matter how authoritatively they are presented.