News & Articles

A police report comes across the desk of the district attorney.  Fight outside of a bar after a Packers game.  “If I only had a nickel for every one of these I’ve seen in Superior”.  
Resisting arrest, officer assaulted, no major injuries, felony assault.   Lousy job for cops playing babysitters to barroom brawlers.  It’s the lot in life for Superior Police officers.
That was January 5. Two weeks later KBJR gets a tip:  Check out the SPD dash-cam video of the arrest.   They look at it, see a scuffle between a cop and a black woman and at least two closed fists belts to the face of the woman.  After careful consideration, News Manager Barbara Reyelts says they’ve got a news story.
DA looks at the video and thinks this isn’t routine. It isn’t appeared like on paper.  Drop the felony, make it a misdemeanor and hope the city doesn’t lose its shirt in a lawsuit.   
Maybe the DA’s thought process is hypothetical but the rest is very real.  We’ll let investigators decide if Officer George Gothner used excessive force on 27 year-old Natasha Lancour of Superior outside the Key Port Lounge that January Sunday night.  And we’ll let a jury decide if Lancour is guilty of a misdemeanor disorderly conduct and another jury if Lancour doesn’t have to worry about paying for groceries for the rest of her life.   
The life of a cop on the street can turn violent, but anyone who watches the video has to think, no way that should have gotten to that point.   
The fact is, if not for the video, this isn’t a story.  TV won’t pick it up. Another parking lot scuffle outside a Superior bar. Dog bites man, you know?
But WDIO-TV Assistant News Director Jon Ellis says this relatively new technology is a game-changer in the world of journalism.  “If there weren’t the video of the incident, how would we turn it into a news story?  Because we wouldn’t know what happened, we would just have her account, the officer’s  account, maybe a witness. In an incident like this where it didn’t result in any serious injuries, how would it have been newsworthy?  But because there’s video and people are reacting to it, that’s how it becomes a news story.”
And oh, what a reaction.  On Wisconsin Public Radio, we used the audio of the squad car ride to the jail when Gothner and Lancour got down to brass tacks.  He said she scratched him, so he had to use force.  Lancour said he went after her because she’s black, but she’d pray for him.  He said don’t bother. “There is no God”.
Okay. Here’s a journalism ethics question for you. That “no God” stuff has nothing to do with this incident, or does it?  Some newsrooms didn’t use it because it was inflammatory. They have a point.
Others, like WPR, used it, because it showed the intensity of the situation between the two   
And another thing.  Ten people see that video, five think Gothner was within his rights and five people think he was beating on a diminutive woman who couldn’t possibly be a threat to him.
The court of public opinion is important here.   If people believe the SPD isn’t out to serve and protect, they’ve got a problem.  People won’t cooperate, won’t give them tips about crimes, and won’t respect the men and women in blue.  Make no mistake, that has already happened in the people of color community in both Superior and Duluth.    
  In the early 1980’s, Superior Police had to fight disdain and hostility after they misused a K-9 named Lobo to harass people. I was a reporter for KQDS-FM then (remember KQ:  Duluth’s Best Rock?).  An officer by the name of Herb Bergson told me it was hell being a cop during that time.
The SPD turned things around. It was more than just putting a prominent “To Protect and Serve” logo on their black and whites.  They walked the walk and regained the public trust.  It didn’t happen overnight.  We have to hope Chief Charles LaGesse, who appears to be open about this with the press including this reporter, will nip this.   For Duluth Police Chief Gordon Ramsey, my guess is he’ll say that keeping the public trust is an effort that can never stop.
One of our listeners wrote to me that he’s not anti-cop by any means.  But he writes: “My daughter’s fiancé, who is Native American, has been thrown on hoods or to the ground by Duluth police, who always make of point of dropping a knee into his back. This is for big offenses such as driving without a license. They seem to think anything goes.”
This isn’t true among the vast majority of police.  But street cred is street cred and that sticks.  
Back to videos. Superior Telegram Editor Shelley Nelson has been doing some good work, finding a small percentage of arrests are paper-clipped with  a use of force report.  As she says the video isn’t enough.  “You have to weigh all the facts”.  
She’s right.  But dash cams and cell phones and soon Google glasses are changing what is news.