Crime and punishment

Mankato crime has come to the front burner on the stove that is known as my desk.
Myself, crime reporter and assignment editor met with Mankato's two top cops recently, Jerry Huettl and Matt Westermayer. We like to meet every once in a while to discuss issues or iron out conflicts that come up in the all-important relationship between law enforcement in the media.

Generally things are going well. A few squabbles here and there on both sides. Public safety in Mankato is busy. Commanders are often out on calls themselves, on the streets, where Huettl says they should be, helping officers on the beat.

As Friday's front page story suggests, the subject of gangs in Mankato is coming up more. Huettl says there is no concerted effort to form gangs in town, but certain members of certain gangs do make Mankato a stopping off place. To me, it almost sounds like we're a roadside rest stop for some of these folks. The city and area is seeing more drug busts, and bigger drug busts with feds involved from time to time.

City and state budget cuts will likely affect public safety in this town. Already, there is talk of losing the school liaison officers, an all important crime prevention tool. If that happens, teachers and principals can be expected to be the ones breaking up more fights.

Toward the end of the day, took a call from a person concerned their reputation would be damaged from a crime story that posted to the web earlier. This person was associated with the location of a crime scene but not involved in the crime itself. That's always a tough call. We can't control what people will think. The information we publish is from police reports. They give date, time, place of crime. Police are required by law to release certain information. They have no choice.

We're always willing to listen to the other side, I tell this individual. She is stressed but somewhat satisfied after we make a modification in the story on some details that were not clear. She counts as the second person in three days who vowed to "call their lawyer" if we don't do what they want, to write the story the way that doesn't make them look so bad.