The Observation Deck

Brian Pedaci wrote:Doesn't the PD and Sun have full access to the police blotter? Is it a Mayor's responsibility to report crime in his city to the newspaper? At what point would over-sharing become detrimental to the image of the community and harmful to property values, as you accused Crimewood.com of doing?

Brian

Not sure who this was a response to. But let me open my big keyboard.

It is the Mayor's job to take care of the city, and in this role he is kind of like a miniature
president, coordinating/heading various services throughout the community. While I
rarely found myself agreeing with Mayor Cain, I could certainly understand why we want
to keep a lid on our dirty laundry.

If you look at the PD and Sun, they have always cherry picked the blotter to provide a
weird almost funny view of "crime" in Lakewood or other cities. Rarely is anything serious
there. That they chose to blow out in larger articles. So you get an almost palatable mix
of stupid crime and crime. One might ask what is their "duty" to Lakewood? One might
also ask what is the Observer duty to Lakewood? Other groups?

Other sites in Lakewood have been mostly started with hatred. Two because of layoffs to
themselves, or family members, the other pure hatred for me started by aka
Madison Drunk. Lakewood had no bigger enemy than Madison Drunk who would spend
his whole day online trashing Lakewood on Cleveland.com. When he was finally
laid off he has channeled this hatred to a full time commitment of bitterness. While hidden
now it will shine again I am sure. Look at his posts here, or at other sites.

I would say the secret is how is the "blotter" presented. When it was presented as
Crimewood it was pretty despicable. When you realize one person hated the department
so much they dedicated their lives to bringing them down, I am sure it made some
wonder, "Why would I move to this city?" Maybe not.

What I do expect the mayor/police to do is warn us if there are serial criminals working
the city. The other night while talking with someone in the know, they said, "They think
it is the guy that has been robbing fast food places all over the westside." To me this
might be something citizens might need or want to know. It is actually safe guarding
us the citizens. But again this is a call of the mayor, and it is his right. I was not calling
the mayor out, but when Ms. Jusko asked, I felt like I should respond.

Then we get into the Lakewood Way, which is proclaim something done like
"Lakewood is safer" only to find out later the comment was actually, "Lakewood is
safer in some categories..."

It should be noted that breaking and entering is up in cities west of us.

Lakewood is very much at a crossroads, and we are not doing anywhere as near good
as we need to. That is a fact.

I would say that applies to all of us.

Me included.


.

Mr. O'Bryan,
Perhaps the mayor should make full use of the reverse 911 system, and we could all cower in our basements when a crime occurs.

Bill

The mayor doesn't need to do that Bill, he already accomplished that during the last election by the constant declarations that crime in Lakewood was up and out of control. Remember, he was going to change all that?

I fail to see the big deal. I do not see any more crime here than anywhere else. I have never felt unsafe in Lakewood. And I lived in a "high crime / standoff prone" area for a while.

The Lakewood cops have never done anything but reinforce this perception of safety. I say perception because at the end of the day the police rarely prevent crime, more they respond to it. And I have been satisfied with the response.

A cop stopped by my house the other night to ask if I had seen anyone running down the street. I had not. I was glad he asked thou.

Anyway, I doubt the lady was going to get a ticket for indecent exposure. I don't think we need to pull a westlake yet an march on city hall. If the officer did say those thing that would be super wrong. But who know how it went down as this is third party information.

As an aside my wife breastfed both our children in public and never had a problem.

I would like to make sure our officers are well informed regarding this particular law as I was one of the people who helped get it passed. In 2004 I went down to Columbus with my then-6-month-old firstborn and testified in support of the legislation (after first breastfeeding him without a blanket over his head in the hearing room ). We then went down again in the spring with some other moms when it was being discussed in the Ohio Senate committee. It has been Ohio law since September 2005. I am also on the board of a breastfeeding rights organization that collects reports of discrimination against families that breastfeed, and we have acted as mediators in a few situations (preventing some "nurse-ins" by accomplishing the education and organizational change without as much embarrassing media attention to the offending organization as a "nurse-in" brings).

That being said, the ONLY time I've ever had a person in authority give me any crap for breastfeeding anywhere "public" was one of the deskjockies at the Lakewood Y pulling me aside as I was leaving and telling me it was inappropriate for me to breastfeed my baby (2nd child) in the WOMEN'S LOCKER ROOM... where I'd done so fully covered and clothed (tho again, no blanket on his head, just my sweater pulled down to cover what he wasn't covering of my breast), while a bunch of wrinkly old women walked around completely naked going to/from their lockers and the scales or showers. What. Ever. I offered them the phone number of the specific Ohio Assemblypeople I had contact with from helping get that law passed.

I have a stack of business cards from my nonprofit with the Ohio law printed on them, if this mom or anyone else needs them. I didn't think I'd have to carry them with me to LAKEWOOD PARK of all places. I have photographs of myself and my 2nd son doing that "indecent act" while my eldest was playing on the swings nearby at that park in 2007. Been a little busy with the new baby, who was just born around the time this particular incident happened (he's 18 days old and sleeping across my lap as I type this).

Ahmie Yeung wrote:Been a little busy with the new baby, who was just born around the time this particular incident happened (he's 18 days old and sleeping across my lap as I type this).

Congratulations Ahmie - trust mom and baby are both doing well

yup, we're doing really well. He's a big boy (9lbs at birth) and sleeps a lot still but so sweet and alert when he's awake. Big brothers Liam & D as well as the rest of the family are totally in love with him. I'm still not walking so well but that's not exactly abnormal for me anyway.

Oops, trying to include a picture but it posts full-size and messes up the width of the forum so instead if you want to see pictures you can view them in my Facebook album here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... 556c089e99

Hey, forgot to ask before and don't know where else to ask off the top of my head - does the Observer do birth announcements?