Another Herald Tribune reporter article accusing VPD of racism again – a response

Francesco Abbruzzino, The Uncensored Report, LLC

 

 

From Venice Citizen

 

Re: “Glossing over a not-so-dusty artifact of VPD racial profiling” April 22, 2021

 

This letter is a response to the above referenced news column written by columnist Chris Anderson and a complaint against Anderson and the Herald-Tribune for publishing a blatantly false accusation of racism and racial profiling against the Venice Police Department.

 

I am personally aware of the “brown binder” referenced in the article. This binder was one of four volumes of information on persons with local criminal arrests. The volumes were for white males, white females, black males, and black females, something conspicuously missing from the article. When these volumes were compiled and used by the department, it was for investigative purposes when attempting to identify a criminal suspect based on their description, types of prior criminal activity, etc. The premise is simple – a victim reporting a white male suspect would have the white male volume utilized to assist in identifying possible suspects. And so forth for suspects identified as white female, black male, or black female. All people included had been previously arrested and convicted of crimes. The books have not been used in decades and were in a cabinet containing other outdated training materials, etc. that had never been purged until the recent move to a new police facility. The books are no longer in use for the simple fact that information on persons with law enforcement contact (including their name, date of birth, race, sex, descriptors such as tattoos and scars, case reports, etc.) are available digitally on searchable databases, available not only locally but state and nation wide. These databases are used, confidentiality, every day to investigate crimes – a fundamental purpose of law enforcement!

 

What part of this is racial profiling? What part of this is racist? How could Chris Anderson get this so completely wrong? Anderson appears to be regurgitating a biased narrative from a local attorney with an active case against the department. This case could very likely be determined to be meritless and unfounded. The decision to accept such a biased perspective at face value is not only wildly irresponsible, but contrary to every principle of journalism. Yet Chris Anderson has publicly accused an entire police department of racism based on this. Once again, under what circumstances could this be labeled profiling? Profiling is defined as “the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense”. This goes beyond a difference of opinion into blatant falsehood by a considerable margin.
 
The current databases, formerly the binders in question, are used for the exact opposite purpose.
 
This is beyond sloppy or ignorant reporting. In this disgustingly false article, Chris Anderson has outwardly presented the dozens of men and women working for Venice Police Department as racists. The fact is the Venice community is extraordinarily supportive of the Venice Police and the agency works constantly to provide the best service possible to citizens and visitors to the City. There is no excuse for this article. It is hard to believe that someone could keep his job after publishing such a completely false accusation of racism against an entire agency. It is honestly difficult for me to determine which is more appalling – either Anderson did such little research into the subject or he was deplorable enough to mischaracterize the Venice Police Department intentionally.

 

Did Chris Anderson even think about what racial profiling and racism have to do with criminal offender databases? There is no relationship! But that didn’t stop him from printing this quote from the attorney, “This is sinister. It’s basically a symbol to the people who see it, and knows what it represents, that these folks are racist”. Of course, he mentions this only after invoking the imagery of a “burning cross”, clearly attempting to drawing a frankly repulsive comparison between the Ku Klux Klan and the Venice Police Department. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t feel the need to explain how unimaginably damaging and offensive this is, yet here we are. This alone should be enough to tarnish the reputation of both the Herald-Tribune and Anderson indefinitely.

 

What a disservice Chris Anderson and the Herald-Tribune have done to the police department and the community. The trust that has been forged locally is critical to the difficult and necessary job of policing. This article reeks of corrupt, greedy attention seeking from an attorney and an unprincipled journalist.

 

I will not sign my name to this letter as I do not trust that you won’t attempt to smear my good name with some twisted and false narrative. Your actions would give anyone reasonable concern for how your institution would react to criticism.

 

I have pointed out in detail how your article is incorrect and malicious and I request that action be taken to issue a correction and expose Anderson for his biased reporting. The Herald-Tribune’s published “corrections policy” states that you will correct and clarify all misleading or unbalanced information in news stories. This news column is blatantly incorrect, misleading, and unbalanced.

 

You owe the Venice Police Department and the Venice community and apology and explanation as to why you would write and publish this nonsense during a time of extreme tension nationwide regarding policing and race.

 

I will continue to follow up on this situation through all available means and urge you to promptly review this internally and issue an appropriate public response.

 

Truth Matters

 

Below is a video The Scoop broke, were the Mayor of Venice interfered with a police stop and essentially accused them of racial profiling, shortly after he attended a George Floyd Memorial in Venice.  So, the VPD is use to being erroneously judge, even by the Mayor who passed judgement on them.