We contacted Captain Tom Easley last week about wanting the names of the officers to math their badge ID number. He didn't see why we needed that information so we decided to make an appointment to go talk to him about this request. Once we were at the appointment he asked us why we felt that the names of the officers corresponding to the badge numbers was necessary. We explained to him that we wanted to provide the users of our database as complete of information as possible. We also felt that if we could show the officer's names then our database users would think of the cops as people instead of numbers. We also reassured him that our intent with this project was to neither benefit the police force or the journalists but to present citizens with the facts and let them do with them what they may.
After listening to out answer Easley responded with that he felt that there needed to be a bigger reason if he was going to release that information to us.He gave us several hypothetical examples about what would happen if he gave us the information. One of them was that he was concerned that people would be able to see which cops give the largest amount of tickets. He feared that these cops would get harassed more once they pulled someone over because their name was now associated with giving out large amounts of tickets.
Easley counter-offered our request by giving us information on which beats cops are assigned (traffic etc). and we accepted. He told us that we could try the municipal court if we still wanted to match the badge ID numbers with the officer names. Easley made it very clear that he did not want his name associated with the release of this department and that he wanted to protect the men and women within his department.
Lilly and I understand where Easley is coming from and that the release of this information could cause a rise in stress within the Norman Police Department but we also feel that this is a major part of our project and that this information would be beneficial to our users. We have decided to add in the information about what beats the police officers are on and pursue Municipal Court to get the information we still want. We have decided that we will go ahead and obtain the information and decide later whether or not we will use it. We will be away for the Christmas holidays and intend to contact the Municipal Court during the second week of January.