These were among the Albany police patrol vehicles parked on Takena Street and 15th Avenue on Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 2, 2023.
On a bike ride it’s not good to be distracted by every little thing you see. But when you come across what looks like a big police response, curiosity gets the best of you and you’d like to know what happened.
About 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon, I counted six Albany police cruisers — can we still call them that? — parked on Takena Street and 15th Avenue. A couple of officers were standing on Takena. I asked them what was up, without luck.
I sent an inquiry to the police department. This got a reply from Laura Hawkins, whose job title is community engagement specialist, which includes being a public information officer for the department.
“I just read the narrative,” she told me by email, “and it looks like the house was broken into and someone was inside when the realtor arrived. Officers located a female inside and she was taken into custody. The report is not complete so this is just what I read in the narrative.”
That explains why more than two or three officers responded to the call. They could not know what they would find inside a house, so they responded in force.
Maybe there is more to this story, and maybe the police will share it.
Almost every day, on NextDoor and other social media, someone will report seeing some action by police or others, and they ask if anyone knows what’s going on. Clearly there’s interest in this sort of thing, but unless it’s a really big emergency, the public rarely finds out what was up, even after the fact.
I’m thinking back to when I started in the news business nearly 60 years ago.
At the subuurban paper where I worked in those days, reporters would make the rounds of the Los Angeles police stations in the San Fernando Valley. They would go through boxes full of paper slips set out for them.
The slips were filled out by officers and would contain names and addresses, and a shorthand summary of each call. We would sift through the slips to see if anything was of interest. And if there was, we’d follow up.
All that seems like the middle ages now. For one thing newspapers are on their last legs, and the ones that remain don’t have enough reporters to do this kind of grunt work. And anyway, reporters wouldn’t be allowed inside police stations to look at officers’ notes.
Things are much more regulated now. And we have the Internet. But unless it’s an exceptional case, the public rarely knows what’s going on. (hh)
60 years Hasso????
You must have been in knee pants!
Sadly time marches on, and sometimes it is hard to know if that is a good thing or not. There is a lot to be said about the old ways of doing things that were good, and vise versa. Some things were better left alone to continue the way they always were. The world is in such a mess now, that I think going forward, we need to go back to the simpler times anywhere anytime we can, and leave this insanity and the behavioral attitudes of so many who want to see the world as we once knew it crash and burn.
Thank you for keeping us up to date.
There is danger in not being informed.
Information drives our society.
Without knowing what is happening we won’t know what to watch for.
Those who are on the other side of the line have the opportunity to act without concern because no one has information
Yes – Hasso – many thanks for keeping us informed. I agree with Carol that there is a danger in not being informed. Community newspapers used to have police logs and it would be nice to see that again.
Hasso, thanks for doing such a great job of helping us be significantly less under-informed than we otherwise would be.
The Press is the 5th estate, and the founding fathers (who were deeply, flawed…yes, like all of us, but they were still the architects of our system) deemed it absolutely necessary for the citizenry to keep informed in order to intelligently vote and the press to be a watchdog over government and government officials. But, today a lot of people only read social media and listen to conspiracy theorists.
It would be nice if PulsePoint would include local law enforcement.
Will never happen for very obvious reasons…
The city doesn’t want the citizens to know how bad crime really is and the areas to avoid. The local news won’t cover it either. Typical. “If we don’t publicize crime, it doesn’t exist.”
What scares me is that you might actually believe that…
Why in the world would the PD (or any law enforcement) broadcast in real-time, exactly where the incident is, which vehicles are en route, on site, or have left an incident. That is seriously dangerous to the officers involved and only benefits the miscreants, looky-loos & voyeurs out there…
And it’s different than with firefighters and EMT’s? Get real! You’re just giving excuses for the lack of transparency.
APD’s 2022 annual report is on the city website, along with use of force, crime analysis, and pursuit reports. Well worth reading.
Feel free to call the PD, County Sherriff, State Police, and ask them if its cool to show real-time happenings during calls. I’ll abide their answer. There’s a huge difference between law enforcement actions and fire-medical calls. I stand by what I said…
Benton County Sheriff posts their reports on their website.
http://www.lebanonlocalnews.com Posts police reports monthly.
There are other crime maps online that you can see what types of crime have taken place; murder/shoplift/domestic/etc.
Drive by the helping hands shelter where crimes happen 24 hours a day and are not acknowledged. The people that live in the areas where most of the crime happen wish that your “ignorance is bliss” was their reality. It amazes me that the powers that be seemed to act like people are negative when they voice what is actually happening, not what is on paper! The more fortunate have a delusional idea that everyone that has suffered any form of struggle has brought it upon themselves. If you want a true, positive reality, recognize the problems and take the “bull by the horns”, express some humbleness and make a sincere commitment to making the world a better place for everyone.
A few years ago I was teaching at a college in Lincoln, NE. A reporter came to interview is about something and I asked her why they weren’t reporting the drive-by shootings.
Her eyebrows shot up. “What drive by shootings?!” She was surprised.
I told her they’re in the news constantly, but not identified as such. She explained how they met with the chief regularly and he “keeps them informed on crime.”
I could only shake my head. “So your only source is the chief?”