Police incident reports made available to the public in Buffalo formerly identified where crimes occur, the address and ages of those arrested and other details. No longer, says the Buffalo News. In the past two months, police officials have started to suppress basic crime information. “This is a clear case of the public's right to know what's going on in their city,” said Buffalo News Editor Margaret Sullivan. “We're prepared to fight about it.” The clampdown on information follows a department edict last year that prohibits all but a handful of police brass from talking to reporters and episodes in which Mayor Byron W. Brown, Police Commissioner H. Mc-Carthy Gipson and their subordinates confronted Buffalo News reporters and editors expressing their unhappiness over the paper's crime coverage.
Department spokesman Mike DeGeorge said less information was being released because “it was felt the department was being hurt for investigative reasons by having some of the information out there.” He also said protecting crime victims was an issue. News police reporters say they honor department requests to withhold sensitive information from stories and take care to not publish information that puts crime victims at further risk. Sullivan said withholding basic information such as the location of crime scenes does not serve the public. “The best way to protect the citizens of Buffalo is to keep them well informed about what's going on in their city,” she said.