re: Reporting name of suicide victim on Huckleberries

I have been unavailable all day and most of the night so I am commenting late. I appreciated watching your meeting. It was very informative. As I watched your editors discuss and struggle with what is the right thing to do, I felt a kinship with the media like I have never felt before. My job is to release the facts, not my edited version of the facts. I redact what I am legally able to. I have learned a lot in the last several years about trying to withhold information from the media. What I know to be true is the information contained in police reports belongs to the public, not the police department. Under certain circumstances we withold police reports, but that is always supported by the laws governing public information. Victims of suicide are not exempt from disclosure. I was very uncomfortable releasing the information on the young victim. I knew it would be up to the editors whether it would be printed or not.

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