Watchmen Watch

Should we ignore what happens in our front yard?

by Brian Howard

In the mid-'90s, City Paper's music department got letters from time to time that went something like: "Great job covering the bar across the street from you. Anything going on in the rest of the city?" These came from people who thought our critical scope included only venues we could see from our window. But the facts are these: Back then, the Khyber (whose front door, yes, I could hit with a rock from my desk) was one of the best and one of the few places to see local and national indie rock acts in a small club setting; we certainly weren't going to ignore a good show because it was happening in our front yard.

This week's investigation of the police oversight system by contributor Andrew Thompson might raise some eyebrows because it centers on an incident Thompson witnessed while standing outside City Paper's front door. The day of the Phillies' World Series parade, Andrew saw what he described (and later testified in court) as a brutal arrest of a guy who was, indeed, drunk and belligerent. Some people may ask, "Do you get all your news by looking out your window?" I'd reply, "Should we ignore what happens in our front yard?"

Yes, this fell into our laps. Yes, our reporter was a witness and was called to testify in the case — a fact which we've been careful to fully disclose.

While the story does revolve around an incident between Officer Kevin Corcoran and drunk reveler Michael Foley, at the heart of the piece is the always-tricky business of police accountability — the old trope of "Who watches the watchmen?"

Jeffrey Billman, City Paper's news editor, at his previous gig at the Orlando Weekly wrote a piece called "Might Makes Right" which looked at a number of instances "in which Orlando cops — many of them on videotape — had flat-out flipped their shit and gotten away with it. And then I found out that Orlando, between 2003 and 2008, had never, not once, disciplined a cop for using excessive force, out of 98 complaints."

Was he concerned about Andrew's involvement in this case?

"Well, yes and no," says Billman. "I mean, on the one hand, the fact that your reporter saw this happen, rather than having a reporter talk to someone who saw this happen, can bring readers a bit closer to the action. On the other, if Andrew had any personal involvement with Foley — he doesn't — or if there weren't another, on-the-record, in-court witness who fully corroborates what Andrew saw — there is — then I might have had reservations."

Ultimately, we feel it's a piece of utmost public interest.

"I think that police accountability is always, always something newspapers should look into — if only because more often than not, nobody else does it," figures Billman. "Politicians are too scared to take on the unions, and the unions exist to protect their members, and nobody wants to be seen as soft on crime, so if the news media doesn't go after this stuff, who will?"

(bhoward@citypaper.net)