"Echo Chamber of Delusion, Paranoia and Racism”

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Greensboro Police Department announced today a partnership, short on specifics, with Nextdoor.com, the closed social site/app that requires users to sign up with their real names and provide their verified address.

Out of the currently 123 reviews of Nextdoor.com on Site Jabber, 99 give it one star out of five. Here are some of the most notable, good and bad:

Every person "who looks out of place" walking on the sidewalk gets called out on the app. God help you if you're black and knocking on doors in our neighborhood.

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I signed up for this service because it was recommended by the city that we live in for traffic alerts, street closings, etc. I signed up for the service, began to browse for vital information in my city, and only then found out that this website publishes your entire personal information for everyone in the community to see without divulging this to users before the sign up. Considering we pay for a non-published phone number and address, I was pretty upset to find all of my private information listed. I deactivated my account, and only then did I look for complaints about the company. Boy was I surprised to see the complaints on here.

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The best thing is I feel cool after expressing my opinion there, about environment and things. That's why I don't read free local paper any more.

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The app sends "push notifications" for urgent alerts tagged as "Crime & Safety". This means that every bored, stupid Desperate Housewife who gins up a fantasy of danger now has the ability to push her stupid blather straight to your cell phone.

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I highly recommend this medium, it is a great resource to share emergency news (ie.: missing pets, bears in the neighborhood, theft alerts, odd jobs, yard sales, free stuff, block parties, etc.). A neighborhood is safer when its residents care and keep an active neighborhood watch.

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home to politically correct extremists...

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Continue to be re-registered by either the company or site lead. Have unsubscribed and quit the stupid site three different times only find NEW bat-$#*! crazy posts from "neighbors" I don't know. Ironically, it keeps signing me up for neighborhood I don't even live in. There must be some sort of con / grift going on whereby the company is trying to pump up its user numbers.

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If you like trying to communicate with brain dead idiots this is the website for you.

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This organization sounds like it is run like a Junior High popularity club.

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Nothing has caused more hard feelings between neighbors in my community than Nextdoor.

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This works beautifully. Obviously it depends on the type of neighbors you have, but I have found NextDoor to be a life saver many times.

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I've found this site to be used only to judge and provide nasty comments about neighbors, and not helpful at all. 

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I also love it because the Police Department can post urgent messages to those neighborhoods under their jurisdiction.

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Complete scam. How do I know ? Postal mail has return addresses of non-existent people in our own neighborhood saying we are "invited" to join. Getting them weekly now with fake return addresses claiming to be from neighbors. So folks, nothing free is any good. They are up to something. Pretty sure it will end badly for the investors....

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I feel that in this day and age if you need an app to communicate with your neighbors, instead of going and rining their doorbell, then maybe you should just stay inside.

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What it is is simply a means to locally share information and get to know your neighbors. As with all things that involve people, things can go wrong quickly if people aren't respecting each other and treating each other with kindness and understanding.

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if you are a upscale tight ass this site is for you.

News & Record contradicts itself

GREENSBORO, NC -- This is why reporters should not make assertions without attribution.

From Danielle Battaglia in the News & Record today: "Williams walked off the property only to return to the hospital's entrance"

Yesterday, Sarah Newell Williamson wrote in the N&R: "He [Williams] got within 150 yards of the entrance, on hospital property."

Which is it? If two sources are contradicting each other, that's one thing; but without attribution, the News & Record is contradicting itself. These are the reporters' assertions, the reporters are claiming responsibility for their veracity and one of them must be wrong.

Paper tigers

GREENSBORO, NC -- From the News & Record's digital editor on the refusal of the Greensboro Police Department to make public video footage captured by officer worn body cameras:

"We'll continue to make the requests, and to fight for the information any way we can." 

Two points:

First, I have repeatedly asked the City of Greensboro for copies of the News & Record's requests for these videos and the city's denials. There are none. The News & Record makes these requests verbally and the city, therefor replies verbally. This matters because, without a documented record, it is harder for those of us interested in affecting public policy on this matter to participate. Policy makers, the ACLU or other interested groups or individuals do not have at their disposal a record of the requests and denials they could use to document the circumstances and nature of the City's refusals. The News & Record, ironically, is not contributing to the public record of the City's actions.

Second, it is simply untrue that the News & Record is continuing to "fight for the information any way we can." That sounds good and we might wish it were so, but it's empty rhetoric. The most forceful and definitive means by which the N&R could "fight" for this information would be to sue for it. Under North Carolina law, people or entities denied access to what they believe are public records can take it to court. The News & Record has not done that. They should if they think these videos are public record, but they haven't; so they are clearly not fighting for the videos any way they can. They are, quite contrary to their claims, confining their efforts to the mildest and least effective means: begging and pleading.

Looking before we leap: How to think about surveillance cameras

GREENSBORO, NC -- The city of Greensboro has rejected, for now, a plan to put police surveillance cameras downtown and beyond but those in favor haven't lost their fervor, however impulsive their motivations may be.

Here is how we—our elected officials, decision makers and citizens—should evaluate surveillance cameras:

Need and Effectiveness: An evaluation of the need for surveillance cameras, specifically: the impact they are expected to have on crime and how their effectiveness in meeting those expectations would be evaluated.

Data Collection and Use: Evaluation of the types, storage, public accessibility and use of data that such systems might collect on law abiding citizens, including, for example, license plate numbers, facial recognition information and wireless device (phone, tablet) tracking*, and the purpose of collecting such data on law abiding citizens.

Deployment Criteria: An evaluation of the criteria for deciding when and where to deploy these cameras; considerations of how to avoid arbitrary use; how to avoid unfair or unwarranted monitoring or targeting of certain populations; the circumstances under which a camera would be installed in any given location and under what circumstances would groups or individuals within range be subjected to additional inspection (zoom, tracking, recording) and data collection (facial recognition, wireless device ID capture, locations visited.)

Civil Impact: Evaluation of the social, civic and economic impact of the indiscriminate monitoring, tracking, collecting and storing of data broadly collected on law abiding citizens.

Were we to make these evaluations honestly and unemotionally, we would have a clear understanding of why we should or should not deploy these kinds of systems.

* The system proposed—and thus far rejected—would have had cameras operating with wireless connections, a system whereby they could ping passing phones, tablets and other wireless devices for their identification.

Councilman: Militarize downtown

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record reports district 3 councilman Zack Matheny's ideas for public safety downtown:

“I want there to be an army down here,” he said. “Because I want people who are coming from Winston-Salem, from High Point, from Siler City to know that we mean business. I want cameras downtown. I want people that are loitering to know that we’re watching them.”

Think about a downtown policed by militarized patrols where the city "wants you to know" that lingering a little too long will have you subject to closer secret and remote observation, where all of your movements are subject to being covertly tracked and monitored.

These ideas, were they to come to fruition, would be costly, oppressive, hostile and, worst of all, they would kill downtown.

On Greensboro's next police chief

GREENSBORO, NC -- The City of Greensboro is searching for a new police chief and is soliciting public comments about the traits and qualities they should look for. You can offer your two cents worth with this online form.

Here are parts of my suggestions:

A chief who is sensitive to the problems of technological encroachment on citizens. One who is not enamored with the capabilities of technology to identify, track, monitor and store information about law abiding citizens as they go about their business. One who is confident he or she can provide a high level of public safety while letting law abiding citizens live their lives in obscurity, if that's what they choose. 

and

Transparent. A better understanding of public records law than the previous chief and a sincere willingness to default towards openness on matters where police have discretion on whether or not to make information public. A willingness to be forthcoming with citizens about how they are being policed. 

N&R flubs take on public records law

GREENSBORO, NC -- News & Record editorial editor Allen Johnson is on the right side of the argument over public access to video recorded by Greensboro Police body-worn cameras. The police are wrong to keep them from public view is his take. I agree. For his devotion to the matter, you would expect Allen to have a degree of familiarity with applicable state law that would keep him from publishing a mistake like this:

"Police records that are considered part of a criminal or internal investigation, or that are placed in an officer’s personnel file, can be concealed."

Although that excuse has been frequently deployed by the police as a reason for denying public access to records, it is not what state law says, which is this:

"The use of a public record in connection with a criminal investigation or the gathering of criminal intelligence shall not affect its status as a public record." [§ 132-1.4(f)]  

That makes perfect sense, of course. Public employees do not get special treatment that would allow their actions to be shielded from the same public documentation other citizens endure. If you or I get arrested, the arrest report is public—the same for public employees. An arrest report doesn't become confidential just because it gets put in a public employee's personnel file. Public records remain public records.

The same goes for records used in criminal investigations. A recording of a call to 911 doesn't lose its status as a public record just because it is also used in a criminal investigation. Those are not just examples of good public policy regarding transparency, they are examples of how the law applies.

The News & Record has the law on its side in these matters, it should get it right when it describes what the law requires, even though—or especially because—it is at odd with what officials assert when withholding these public records.

City panel on cameras informative, but ignores citizen questions

Frayda S. Bluestein

GREENSBORO, NC -- The City of Greensboro sponsored a panel discussion today regarding public access to video recorded by police body-worn cameras, which the City maintains are not public records. It was an informative discussion, but it fell short of its full potential. Despite having previously announced that it would include "time allotted during the panel discussion for questions from the in-person and online audience," according to the City's publicity, the forum was brought to a close without a single citizen's question asked. The City got to ask its questions, but citizen questions were not addressed.

Jan Pritchett

That was a big disappointment, especially since the last half hour or more of the discussion was given over to panelists largely repeating points they'd already made. Nonetheless, there was some very interesting and thought provoking discussion and the video is worth watching if you weren't in attendance and have an interest in these matters. View it here.

Here are the questions submitted by citizens, as provided by the City. Some are just statements and some are off topic, but there are some good questions that, had they been asked, would have made the panel discussion more beneficial.
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Online questions/comments submitted via e-mail regarding panel discussion on video footage:

Why not put the cameras up and make them public access except in emergencies. The resolution could be easily degraded for public access and enhanced for official business. This could be a draw for downtown.

I believe this is a case of BIG BROTHER watching over us and can easily be miss-used for political control. This threatens to be a gross invasion of personal privacy.

Worst idea I ever heard of. "The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions".
We don't need someone making everyone a suspect in a surveillance state

1) Does an actual written policy exist within the GPD and/or City of Greensboro, re: release of body cam video? If there is, what is it? If there is not one, why not?

2) The lack of a concrete written policy and/or guidelines seems to create the impression that any release of video to the public is arbitrary, depending on whether or not the GPD wishes to raise the issue of personnel laws or not. The presumption should be to always release absent a specifically cited exception, not never release unless no loopholes are found.

What is the purpose for this open forum? Are decisions being made or simply discussed? Lastly, what is the potential impact on me as a civilian? Thank you.

Why in the world would you do this? Thank you Mayor Vaughn. If these cameras go up it will be the LAST time I go down town. You will NEVER create a perfectly safe environment. Downtown Greensboro can forget my business coming there if this goes through.period. More reason for malls and outlets to move their business out of the cities.

Please cite for me EXACTLY WHERE in the enumerated powers of the U.S. Constitution, you are given the authority to spy on citizens. We are CITIZENS, not subjects, and the government rules with the CONSENT of the governed. We do not consent to this. If you don't believe it, give us a chance to vote on it!

You would better serve the citizens by providing this panel at a time when most people could attend. That the panelists could not attend at another time tells me you didn't try hard enough to find panelists who could. As for me, I won't be going downtown if the cameras are installed. I view it as a gross invasion of privacy and agree with Mayor Vaughan, I don't want to live in a police state. Thank you, Nancy

Questions/Comments collected during the discussion to be answered by the panelists:

The City records calls to its help line, creating a record that, like body cameras, records interactions between city personnel and the public. The City advises callers that these recordings are public records and has, in fact, released them in response to records requests. How is it that the personnel records exception is applied to body camera recordings, but not help line recordings? Isn’t it just a policy position? (This one was submitted by this blog's author.)

Question for the City Attorney: Has the officer involved in the March shooting of the knife wielding woman, the video of which is being withheld under the guise of personnel records, been asked if he would consent to release of the video?  (This one was submitted by this blog's author.)

If all video is released, how do you prevent a rush to judgment and lynch mob mentality before a full investigation can be completed?

Why should we have to pay or help pay for something we don’t have access to?

Why has the City Council been hesitant on voting for authority over cameras and subsequent footage?

If GPD is adamant about cameras being personnel property, then we must have a citizen review panel.

The personnel argument is weak – just because a record is created with a secondary possible use (officer evaluation) it does not make it a personnel record. How do those advocating this position reconcile that with attempts to apply the exemption in this way completely undermine the transparency objective of wearing cameras?

What is the truth about who funded the camera imitative and whose idea was it to begin with?

The police officers file may not be public information, why not?

GPD wants city-wide surveillance cameras

UPDATE: At the city council meeting, district 3 representative Zack Matheny said, "This is something we should support whole heartedly." District 2 representative Jamal Fox said his only concern was that the program would not be "city-wide" to begin with. Mayor Nancy Vaughan and at-large representative Mike Barber offered the most resistance with other representatives being variably inbetween.

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Greensboro City Council will be asked at its work session today to consider establishing a "city-wide wireless video surveillance camera network" for the Greensboro Police Department. The cameras, described as "patrolling cameras" would have pan, tilt and zoom capabilities and the first proposed locations would include views of single and multi-family residences. Read the proposal.

A proposed location for a GPD "patrolling camera" with pan, tilt and zoom capabilities.

Another proposed location.

The News & Record: safe haven for mediocre journalists

GREENSBORO, NC -- It's one thing if a reporter might not have had an opportunity to get up to speed on a community's history or has yet to develop his own professional standards. It is quite another thing when a news organization coddles those inadequacies. That's an environment for professional decay.

Robert Lopez writes a piece at the News & Record today that is so sub par, it should not have been published -- if the News & Record itself had any standards.

The story, about the City of Greensboro settling a police officer's discrimination suit for $25,000, suffers from two grave deficiencies, both, unfortunately, not uncommon at the News & Record.

The first is the despicable, deplorable, lazy and amateurish deployment of he said,she said reporting in place of the facts. Renowned journalism professor Jay Rosen has referred to this technique of pitting the claims of one person against another without aligning their claims to available facts as a wholly inadequate vestige of the pre-internet age of journalism. It's too easy for such reports to be revealed as deficient on the web—"lame," Rosen calls them—as is happening here.

When Lopez reports that police officers who sued the city said a lineup book containing their pictures was used to "frame" them and that the former chief of police said otherwise, leaving it at that, Lopez is positioning his reporting as nothing more than stenography, a regurgitation of competing claims and not a source for fact-finding despite widespread public knowledge that such facts exist. Lame.

In fact, the use of the line-up book was thoroughly investigated by the FBI, the SBI and the Department of Justice. None found any wrongful use of the lineup book. The City of Greensboro swore in an affidavit it had no evidence of misuse of the lineup book and, indeed, none has ever been produced. Lopez fails to report these salient facts. Lame.

Lopez also lacks a knowledge of local history and, here, his editors should have helped him out. When Lopez writes that the officer who sued the city claimed that a tracking device was put on his car and claims that his picture appeared in the line-up book, without reporting how those claims align with the facts, Lopez reveals himself to be ignorant of the facts found in the history of this matter. It was widely acknowledged and reported that a tracking device was placed on the officer's car. That's a fact, not just an individual's assertion, as Lopez would have it. Lame.

Additionally, city council members, some still on council (Zack Matheny and Yvonne Johnson), saw the line-up book in question. There are two credible sources with first-hand knowledge who are in a position to say whether or not the officer's picture was in the book. Lopez ignores those sources, leaving the officer's assertion unchecked. Lame.

Lopez reports as if there is no truth, no facts; only assertions. The worst part is that his efforts pass muster with his editors. That is not only lame, it's common practice at the News & Record. It's bad business too and it's bad for the professional development of the reporters who work there. A reporter who wants to be a mediocre journalist and stay a mediocre journalist will find accommodation at the News & Record.

The News & Record stinks so bad

From Joe Gamm in the News & Record today, reporting on the City of Greensboro settling a lawsuit brought by former police officers:

"[Former Police Chief David] Wray resigned in 2006. Plaintiffs alleged he maintained a “black book” that was used to unfairly investigate black officers. Wray contended the department used the book to investigate a sexual assault."

The News & Record continues their atrocious willingness to let competing assertions substitute for fact, but the truth is the realities of the "black book" are far different from what the News & Record portrays. It wasn't just Wray who said the book was a legitimate investigative tool, it was the City of Greensboro, in a sworn affidavit, signed by the very city manager who locked David Wray out of his office, who said the book was compiled for the purpose of solving a crime.

Furthermore, the city also admitted in that affidavit, that it had no evidence of the line-up book being misused. Finally, the use of the book was investigated by the SBI, the FBI and the Department of Justice, all of whom found no improper use of the book. Only one police officer was tried as a result of investigations into the "black book"—for improper use of a federal computer—and he was acquitted.

The News & Record ignores the context of these details and reports the purpose of the black book as unknown beyond the competing assertions of two parties. There is no truth here as far as the News & Record is concerned, they are content to commit what renowned journalism professor Jay Rosen calls the ethical lapse of he said/she said reporting. It makes them look incompetent, or worse, contemptuous.

Greensboro Police Department public records malarkey

UPDATE (June 13th): The GPD has released a version of the accident report.

UPDATE II (June 13th): In reviewing the history of this request with city staff, it appears as if some confusion was caused by the request for an accident report being translated into a request for an incident report along the way. City staff explain that the accident report was begun on June 8, completed on June 11, and made public after review and approval by a supervisor.

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Greensboro Police (GPD) reported by press release of a collision between a pedestrian and a vehicle on Bryan Boulevard on Sunday, June 8th. As I wrote yesterday, the accident report was missing from the GPD's online database of accident reports so I requested it directly from the city.

Yesterday, I received a document specifically manufactured to respond to my request. It is not an accident report and was created an hour after yesterday's blog post wondering where the accident report is. Now we not only continue to wonder where the actual accident report is but we also need to know why it is being withheld and whose idea it was to fabricate a record in response to my request for it.

Here is a real accident report, from another accident on the same day as the Bryan Boulevard collision. You will notice it is three pages of great detail on a standard form (click to enlarge):

Here is the "report" the police created in response to my request for the Bryan Boulevard accident report (click to enlarge) :

Where is the Bryan Boulevard vehicle/pedestrian accident report?

UPDATE: As of 6:30 P.M., the report has still not been provided.

UPDATE II: An hour after this post, the city fabricated a record to provide instead of the accident report. See it and a real accident report here.

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Greensboro Police reported via press release a vehicle/pedestrian accident occurring on June 8th on Bryan Boulevard. According to the press release, the pedestrian was taken to the hospital where he died from his injuries. From the press release:

"On June 8, 2014, at 3:45 p.m., Officers responded to the Joseph M Bryan Boulevard and Brassfield Road in reference to a traffic accident. A collision occurred between an Acura sports utility vehicle and a pedestrian." 

Usually, accident reports are posted online within hours and, indeed, there are several reports from other accidents just before and after the Bryan Boulevard collision posted online. There is, however, no accident report online for this collision, as you can see:

I formally requested the accident report from the City of Greensboro Monday night (which they acknowledged Tuesday morning), but I still have not received it.

Authorities will often withhold the identities of the deceased pending notification of the next of kin but the city has not said that is what is happening here nor, if that is the case, is it a reason for withholding the entire accident report.

Cheese eating results in bedsheet entanglement deaths

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Greensboro Police Department (GPD) and the regurgitating News & Record, have been saying that police data shows the GPD's program of intensified traffic patrols made streets safer and reduced crime in the areas of their deployment despite the fact that police data shows a mixed bag of increases in some accidents and crime during such efforts.

Still, that hasn't stopped News & Record police stenographer Joe Gamm from drawing an unjustified straight line of causation: "That campaign resulted in a 16.9 percent drop in crime," he writes of last year's campaign on Wendover Avenue.

Gamm and the GPD should take a look at Spurious Correlations, a website that crunches various datasets to illustrate the reasoning mistake of, well, spurious correlations (although the GPD and News & Record take it beyond correlation and actually proclaim a cause and effect). Did you "know," for example, there is a "correlation" between per capita cheese consumption and the number of deaths caused by people becoming entangled in their bed sheets?

If the News & Record were to receive a press release with the claim, it would report: Cheese eating results in increased entanglement deaths. 

Here is more about the site from Popular Science:

"Data suggest: marriages in Alabama are causing deaths by electrocution, divorces in South Carolina are causing bees to produce more honey, and Nicolas Cage movies are saving thousands of lives each year. 

"Tyler Vigen created a program, appropriately titled Spurious Correlations, that finds correlations between random data sets and produces a chart every minute. Thus, the .95 correlation between mozzarella cheese consumption and civil engineering doctorates is finally uncovered. The sets appear to use easily available information, including loads of statistics about deaths, which lends the correlations a hilariously dark humor.

"Funny? Yeah. Clearly it's a sendup of the sometimes dubious findings of certain studies. But, hey, good time for a reminder: we know "correlation is not causation" but don't immediately dismiss every correlation as irrelevant. Otherwise how will we recognize and stop the swimming-pool-related deaths caused by The Wicker Man?"

Records contradict police P. R.

GREENSBORO, NC -- At the conclusion of a months-long intensive traffic enforcement campaign on Battleground Avenue earlier this year, the Greensboro Police Department announced that a "benefit" of the campaign was a decrease in "part 1 index crimes"—the worst offenses, like murder, rape, robbery and auto theft—during the period of the patrols compared to the same period the previous year. Records contradict the claim that crime decreased.

From Greensboro Police Department press release.

It is ludicrous to claim that because two things correspond to each other, one caused the other. Without including other factors that influence crime, such as population and demographic changes, weather, economic conditions and other crime-fighting efforts, it is impossible to credibly say that increased traffic enforcement caused a decrease in crime. It's even worse when the numbers used to come to that conclusion are wrong.

Faulty logic did not stop the media from dutifully regurgitating the claim, however. No surprise there considering local media's lazy preference for stenography over journalism. Nonetheless, it turns out that the claim of a reduction in crime during that period, no matter its cause, is actually contradicted by police records.

Information provided by the police in support of their press release said that there were 24 part 1 crimes within a 1/4 mile of the traffic enforcement area in 2013 and 22 during the same period in 2014.

GPD's list of crimes

Among the crimes in 2014, the GPD said there was one motor vehicle theft. Police records contradict that representation. A search of crimes just on Battleground Avenue alone (not even including the 1/4 mile radius the police said they included) in the confines of the enforcement area (Cornwallis Drive to Horse Pen Creek Road) and only during the hours of operation of the campaign showed there were actually four reports of motor vehicle theft during the period of the enforcement campaign, not one.

They were:

01/16/2014 17:09 Incident Case #: 20140116343
Primary Offense: MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT - AUTOMOBILE 2906 BATTLEGROUND AV

01/30/2014 12:00 Incident Case #: 20140227146
Primary Offense: MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT - AUTOMOBILE 2605 BATTLEGROUND AV

02/12/2014 12:00 Incident Case #: 20140227152
Primary Offense: MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT - AUTOMOBILE 2605 BATTLEGROUND AV

03/03/2014 07:00 Incident Case #: 20140317073
Primary Offense: MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT - AUTOMOBILE 2630 BATTLEGROUND AV

When asked about the discrepancies, Captain John Wolfe, the officer in charge of the enforcement campaign said in an email:

"I can't speak to the numbers specifically as they are generated and reported through our crime analysis unit. I can speak to the methodology but not in this format. I will look into the discrepancies you've noted to determine how they occurred."

With four auto thefts instead of one, the total number of Part 1 crimes actually increased year over year, from 24 to 25. If the correlation-as-causation thinking still applies, one would say that as a result of the traffic enforcement campaign, serious crime rose 4 percent. Of course, the enforcement campaign no more deserves such sloppy blame as it deserved the sloppy credit assigned to it when the numbers were thought to imply something positive.

More fact avoidance at the News & Record

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record features, from time to time, "Ask a reporter," in which people submit questions and a reporter answers them... or not. As I was just writing yesterday, the News & Record and, by extension, Greensboro, suffers from a preference to rely on the pronouncements of authorities instead of its own research. Today's "Ask a reporter" is another such example.

A reader asks for the number of traffic accidents within a half a mile of the intersection of Pleasant Garden Road and Liberty Road. Reporter Joe Gamm begins his reply with " We don’t have specific data on accidents at that intersection" and proceeds, in typical fashion, to turn to a spokesperson for a less than precise characterization.

Whatever Gamm meant by "we don't have specific data," the fact is the specific data is readily available online at the City of Greensboro police department's website, with the ability to provide exactly the kind of information the reader asked for, right down to the half mile radius. One would think the News & Record's crime reporter would be aware of this.

It turns out, with five minutes of effort, I was able to determine a precise data-specific answer to the reader's question.

Accidents within a half mile of the intersection of Pleasant Garden Road and Liberty Road
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Past 12 months: 21

April, 2013: 0
May, 2013: 2
June, 2013: 1
July, 2013: 4
August, 2013: 1
September, 2013: 1
October, 2013: 4
November, 2013: 3
December, 2013: 2
January, 2014: 0
February, 2104: 0
March, 2014: 3

Greensboro hypnotized

GREENSBORO, NC -- This city would be a lot different if we had a decent newspaper, a place where reason and intellectual rigor prevailed. Instead we have a marionette dancing at the ends of strings pulled by entrenched interests, sometimes for good, sometimes not, but rarely independently challenging what it is told with skepticisms and a will to find the empirical truth.

A case in point comes today in an article by police reporter Joe Gamm "reporting" on the results of a period of increased traffic patrols on Battleground Avenue by Greensboro police. Gamm reports:

"The data from Battleground Avenue also showed a drop in crime, with the seven types of crimes tracked — murder, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft — decreasing by 8 percent during the campaign, (Greensboro Police Captain John) Wolfe said."

This paragraph is problematic in a number of ways. First of all, it purports to characterize empirical data and yet it is attributed only to a police spokesperson. That's nothing new, unfortunately; the News & Record is loath to check the facts against the pronouncements of authorities. Parroting assertions is one of the least valuable services journalists can perform. Making sure those pronouncements align with the facts is the value the News & Record fails to provide.

Second, it is woefully unclear whether the police are making the claim that each of the types of offenses declined by 8 percent individually or whether that is overall, with some crimes increasing and some declining. A curious reporter would have wondered himself and clarified.

Finally, and most importantly, is that attributing an alleged change in crimes to increased traffic patrols is such sloppy reasoning, the News & Record should decline to report it to begin with. That two things — increased patrols on a particular street and a vague description of a decline of certain types of crime in a unspecified surrounding "area" — imply a cause and effect is not reasonably justified. It is a failure in critical thinking.

Any serious examination of the factors influencing crime cannot examine one possible factor in a vacuum. Weather, economic conditions, population changes, even other public safety efforts such as neighborhood watch efforts, all may have an effect on crime. Correlation is not causation. To attribute a decline in crime to a single particular factor without considering others is a crock.

Here's why it matters. When the police officer in charge of these intensified traffic patrols offers the opinion, as he does, that, "people go back to their old habits after police are gone," he is not only implying that people, by nature, are prone to criminal activity (an insulting and disturbing view of the citizenry), he is also, not so subtly, arguing that we are better off with the intensified patrol efforts he oversees and, thanks to the sloppy and unskeptical reporting of the News & Record, that appears to be so.

Should we, as citizens, support the allotment of police resources for these kinds of traffic enforcement crack downs? Absolutely, I read in the News & Record that they make crime go down!

Without end, we, as a community, are offered these unthinking and doubtful reflections of our community by the News & Record. Although they look like reporting, they are crafted messages intended to manipulate public opinion by self-interested parties using the obliging News & Record as an authoritative conduit to give them a stamp of approval they don't deserve. The result is Greensboro is a community deluded by fictions. The repository of what should be truth and accuracy instead offers us figments and confusion that we mistake for an accurate representation of our reality.

How can a community possibly thrive under the spell of such an illusionist? How can it even survive?

Under cover brother

GREENSBORO, NC --

"Only two people are certified to work at this location and one of them is a man. I was given the choice of three different ladies."

The Troublemaker is at it again, exposing Greensboro's accommodation of the sex trade.

Guarino's dishonesty

GREENSBORO, NC -- How does Dr. Joe Guarino respond to getting the facts wrong about the City cutting the police budget? (Writing at Triad Conservative, Guarino had mistakenly said the City cut $1 million from police funding, when there was actually a small increase.)

Scrub the record.

Without acknowledgement of his previous error, Guarino just changes his post, replacing his error with another un-sourced assertion.

The original:

The surreptitiously changed current version:

I missed something important

GREENSBORO, NC -- Earlier this week, I wrote a post faulting some unsubstantiated and incorrect information in a report News & Record reporter Joe Gamm wrote about the fights that occurred downtown last weekend.

I missed something important though. In a sea of hyperbole and what appears more and more to be fabricated stories of hundreds of teens brawling downtown—as reported by WGHP and WFMY (and unchallenged by Mayor Robbie Perkins)—Gamm got the central fact of the size and scope of the fights correct. Gamm did not hyperventilate the story beyond or in contradiction to available evidence and into the type of falsehoods reported by WGHP and WFMY of hundreds of teens fighting in a massive brawl. Gamm correctly reported, "a series of small fights" for which 11 people were arrested.

In my focus on the mile-wide holes in the local media reports of the events (and Gamm's quick pass at previous downtown violence), I missed Gamm's simple but exceptional oasis of accuracy amid the sea of panicked untruths. He got the core facts right. As remarkable as it might seem, he deserves credit for that.

[This post originally had "Gamm did hyperventilate..." That is not what I mean to write. It has been corrected: "Gamm did not hyperventilate..."]