Joplin city officials should follow the wise example set by officials in another community where the people were interested in knowing how police officers who crossed the line were disciplined.
If you have been following the controversy, you know that two off-duty Joplin police officers removed a student from an elementary school in handcuffs after an off-campus incident involving the student and the child of one of the officers.
City officials will only say that the officers have been disciplined and will not reveal what, if any, type of punishment they received, citing city policies.
An out-of-state community had a different approach.
In that town, two police officers tried to cover up an incident in which one of them kicked a handcuffed man. One officer received a six-day suspension for kicking the man and not reporting what he had done. The other officer received a one-day suspension for dishonesty and for not reporting a minor injury he had received during the struggle. The man who was kicked did not need medical attention, according to the newspaper that carried the story, the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison.
The date on that article is March 22, 2001. The police chief who was totally open with the public and the media about the punishment his officers received for the incident was Kevin Lindsey...who now serves as Joplin's police chief.
In Madison, Lindsey was able to let the community know what steps were taken with officers who broke the rules. In Joplin, he is apparently being prevented from doing so by city officials who have a long history of hiding what they do and insisting that they know what is good for the public.
The only way the public can be confident that rogue officers are being kept under control is for the city to adopt a policy of complete openness and honesty. It's a foreign concept for Joplin officials, but the sooner they do that, the sooner they will bring an end to the controversy. City officials have tried to make it appear to be a battle between them and The Joplin Globe, which has pushed hard to penetrate the veil of secrecy surrounding city decisions. This battle is not limited to the city and the Globe. As the letters to the editor to the Globe and the responses to the articles printed on its website indicate, the public is concerned about this issue and only a small handful take the position that city officials will do the right thing so it is none of our business.
City officials should restore confidence in the police department by being open and honest about the decisions that were made in this case.