Aug. 17--Officials in the Cameron Police Department are upset over the leak of confidential information in a preliminary investigation.
On Thursday night, Cameron police began receiving calls concerning a post on a social networking site about a suspect in the area deemed dangerous.
While the information on the Facebook post was accurate, it was never meant to be released to the public. Cameron Police Chief Corey Sloan said the post was meant to warn concerned parties about a person being placed under investigation.
The post detailed a report of a white male in the Cameron area that allegedly idolized Aurora, Colo., shooter James Holmes and was thinking of committing a similar crime. Per police protocol, Mr. Sloan said authorities were investigating the claim and notified certain people close to the case.
"We conduct an investigation to determine if that information is valid and if there's any legitimacy to it," he said. "Obviously we deal with truth and un-truths every day."
When police feel a level of caution should be displayed, certain parties are informed of the case as a courtesy and safety benefit. Given the information, Mr. Sloan said the parties were informed it was confidential and not meant to be seen by the public.
"They violated the integrity of the investigation and the trust of the public by releasing that to social media sites," he said.
The posting of the document presents several problems: a complaint without any confirmed legitimacy has been made public, an investigation is made more complicated and a person's name is associated with an alleged mass murderer without proof to support the claim.
"What folks need to remember is that there's other people involved in an investigation ... besides the investigator, (such as) the person in the poster," Mr. Sloan said. "Everybody's so quick to judge and adjudicate and our judicial system is based on we're innocent until we're proven guilty in a court of law."
The Cameron Police Department releases information to the public on several city-sanctioned sites and its Facebook page, as well as media and public information press releases. If it's released by someone else, Mr. Sloan said, consider the source and implications of it being made public.
"We, as a society, have gotten to the point where, immediately, when one piece of information is shown .... it's immediately 100-percent true and 100-percent verified. Even when the law enforcement agencies are in the early stages of the investigation and we're not sure," he said.
This is not the first time the Cameron Police Department has dealt with private information being made public, but they hope it will be the last. No charges will be pressed and the police department will continue to issue releases to concerned parties with confidence that it won't be made public.
"Basically, someone has done something because they thought it was important and not knowing all the facts, they made our jobs very difficult to do," Mr. Sloan said.
Andrew Gaug can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @SJNPGaug.
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