Students will get a closer look at the U’s criminal activity.
Beginning this week, the U Police Department will begin posting a list of the previous day’s crimes every morning on its Web site. The new feature was created as a service to the students, Capt. Lynn Mitchell said.
The list will show the report number of each crime, the time and date of its occurrence, where it happened, the nature of the crime and a one-line summary of the crime, such as, “backpack stolen from University Store cubby.” Students can go to the U police station and request the responding officer’s incident report if they’re curious about the crime, or if they know something and can help the police solve the crime.
“It should certainly make things easier for everyone,” said Chief of Police Scott Folsom.
However, not every crime will appear in the daily list. The police reserve the right to delete any crimes they don’t want to broadcast to the whole world, Mitchell said. For instance, they might not deem some homicides as appropriate to report online on a case-by-case basis, he said.
The new feature hinges on two uncertainties.
First, officers would need to submit the day’s reports by the end of their shift. Officers are busy people, and might not always find the time, Mitchell said.
Second, the automated system that will collect the reports and format them for the Web site has not been tested yet.
The daily list of the U’s crimes is the first step toward a completely new Web site for U Police. The revamped Web site is expected to be completed in several phases over the next few months, Mitchell said.