Law Enforcement and The Media - Partners in Crime?

The Police and the media are often partners in fighting crime. The media delivers information to the public, which often aids Police in catching criminals.<br><br>But in the case of the Washington DC area

Friday, October 11th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

The Police and the media are often partners in fighting crime. The media delivers information to the public, which often aids Police in catching criminals.

But in the case of the Washington DC area sniper, a clue leaked to the media outraged detectives.

Is this a case where the media has harmed the investigation? News on Six Anchor Scott Thompson files this report.

Chief Charles Moose, Montgomery County Police: "I beg to the members of the media - let us do our job."

Montgomery County Chief Charles Moose made that plea after the media reported a Tarot card was found near the scene of an attack.

This incident underscores how the media and police can work together or work against each other.

Sgt Mike Huff, Tulsa Homicide: "There are certain situations where you must share information with the media when it comes to public safety."

Getting descriptions of suspects, getaway cars, even information about victims out to the public can be a big help to police - like in the recent murder of a woman in North Tulsa.

Sgt Huff: "Where she was unidentified we used the media to publish her very unique tattoos and we used that with the media's assistance to identify her and that was very helpful."

The media can be a key partner in fighting crime - getting a lot of information out to the public - but on the other hand - a lot of publicity - can fuel the ego of a cold blooded killer."

Sgt Huff: "You hate to see somebody glorified by the news media when what they're doing is killing old people and killing kids they're killing innocent people."

Sergeant Huff also says media coverage of certain clues, like the tarot card in the Maryland case, can make it harder to solve.

Sgt Huff: "It could potentially ruin a caseâ€

Because police withhold and use specific evidence like that to interrogate suspects.

Sgt Huff:"Now they've jeopardized that evidence by talking about it so somebody, a copycat person could throw that out there and you wouldn't know if that's true or somebody's playing with you."