The lead story in this morning's SE, by Victoria Johnson, is well worth reading. It painfully illustrates the extent to which Ogden's Police Chief is engaged in the Godfrey re-election campaign, particularly in shoring up the Mayor's claim that violent crime in Ogden has declined dramatically during his term in office.
First, the story documents that reported gun shots in the city have increased significantly over the last couple of years. The story reports that, according to Greiner, Police dismissed 257, or 52 percent, of the 490 calls from this last year as "unfounded," meaning police said they investigated and found no evidence of a gun being fired. They say this does not mean it didn't happen, but that officers found no proof.
OK, got that, now? Clear? If police investigate and find no evidence they don't write it up as a gunfire incident; if they do find evidence of gunfire, they do write it up. But wait, Chief Greiner also says, in the story, "In the remaining 233, or 48 percent, the officer wrote a report, but Greiner said this still does not mean officers found evidence of a shooting."
Huh? If no evidence is found, its not written up as a gunshot incident. But it doesn't mean shots weren't fired. But if Ogden police do write it up, that doesn't mean there was evidence of shots fired either. And this man is a State Senator? Writing our laws? And enforcing them? Naturally, he's a Godfrey supporter. God help Ogden.
But it gets even better... or rather, worse. Ms. Johnson, reports the following:
However, a shooting where someone is hit will usually be classified by dispatch workers as an assault or something else, potentially taking the most serious shootings out of the "shots fired" pool, meaning the number is actually higher than that given by police.
Such was the case in September, when Jesus Aparicio, 22, was shot and killed in the parking lot of the Phillips Kicks 66 at 30th Street and Washington Boulevard. The report was classified in the dispatch center as "call type not found," instead of a "shots fired" call.So it goes into the records as a gunshot incident if nobody is actually shot? And if someone is shot, it doesn't? That's the kind of record keeping Chief Greiner has to do to preserve Mayor Godfrey's claim that violent crime in Ogden has seriously declined during his term in office.
But wait, there's more. Ms. Johnson, breaking with the SE's recent tradition on reporting related to the Mayor's race, actually checked the Chief's claims, and actually called outside experts, who aren't backing either side in the Mayor's race, to analyze the numbers.
Ms. Johnson reports: Salt Lake City Police Department, which uses the same dispatch program as Ogden, reported 799 "shots fired" calls for the same period of Oct. 1, 2006, to Oct. 1, 2007.
The data provided by Salt Lake City police also includes instances where someone was hurt or killed, unlike Ogden's data.
With Salt Lake City's population being more than twice that of Ogden's approximately 80,000, the data points to a higher rate of "shots fired" calls in Ogden.
But Greiner is unconvinced. "I don't know that that means anything," he said. "There's no way to really compare because we don't know what their criteria is."
Haven't we heard this before from Greiner? The FBI doesn't know what it's doing, his statistics on Ogden crime are better than the FBI's and better than the Utah State police figures. They're manipulating their numbers, but he's not. You can't compare the numbers. Etc. etc. etc.
So Ms. Johnson asked a WSU criminal justice professor what he thought about the comparison between SLC reported gunshot incidents and Ogden's reported numbers being comparatively high. Here's what he had to say:
Weber State University Professor Scott Senjo, however, is not so quick to discard comparisons between police agencies.
"Comparisons are useful and often effective, because a lot -- but not all -- a lot of criminal justice policy is the same from one department to the next."
Senjo said with a universal issue, such as gunfire, basic comparisons can be helpful in guiding lawmakers and law enforcement.
"Statistics can be misleading with some criminal justice policy but not with certain policies, such as discharging a firearm," he said.
I sincerely hope Ms. Johnson, having committed journalism in a story related to the Mayor's race, will not find herself in trouble with her editors.
