Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown has ordered police to restore the media's access to crime information that had been removed from a police department computer in recent months, reports the Buffalo News. The mayor said he had been unaware the information had been suppressed. He blamed the policy change on “miscommunication” caused by a “poorly worded memo.” Basic crime information – including the location of many incidents – was recently removed from the police computer to which the media have access. Brown said that many more police officials would be made available to the media for comment and information.
Brown promised to speed up a plan aimed at providing crime data that would be easily accessible to the public via the Internet. David Krajicek of Criminal Justice Journalists, commenting on the city’s earlier move to restrict information, said, “The five W's and the H are questions that police reporters have been asking for 200 years or more. For the Buffalo police to deny those answers runs counter to every trend that has been happening in law enforcement.”