To the editor:
Why is it that this paper and the television news jump at the chance to publish the name of a police officer charged with a driving infraction at a RIDE programn but do not publish the name of the 27-year-old who was charged for numerous drug related offences?
The drugs seized were valued at more than $200,000, so to me that's a lot of drugs. Is it to sensationalize that a police officer was charged or is it better news than a drug dealer? The drugs were in Thunder Bay and the police officer was from out of town. What sells more papers? I guess the drug raids are so commonplace that they aren't as important as an out-of-town police officer being stopped at a RIDE program.
Les Austin,
Thunder Bay
Editor's note: There's a pretty simple explanation, actually. The police have not released the name of the 27-year-old. In the case of the OPP officer, they did. It's also likely we'll follow her case through court, given her position and the expectation that police officers should uphold the law, not allegedly break them. Our general rule of thumb is we don't publish names of people who we're not likely to follow their case through the courts, though it's not a hard-and-fast rule and we look at cases on an individual basis.
