Sentinel staff report–
Three years after police made a decision to stop publishing daily incident bulletins about crimes and police activity in Citrus Heights, the city’s police chief says the department may begin publishing logs again.
From 2019: Citrus Heights PD won’t be posting police logs anymore. Here’s why
In November 2019, the Police Department stopped posting daily incident bulletins, with a spokeswoman telling The Sentinel that the reports had “become too cumbersome and time consuming for staff to continue to produce.” That decision prompted several letters to the editor from disappointed residents who found the logs to be a valuable source of information about local crimes and trends.
An additional letter to the editor about police logs was published two months ago, authored by a resident who said the city is in a different financial situation now and should resume publishing logs.
“Now that Citrus Heights is receiving my property tax, I believe they have enough money to get the Police Logs going again,” wrote resident Leon Barrow in his letter, published Dec. 10, 2022. “I don’t believe it’s too cumbersome and time consuming for somebody to publicize the crime reports for Citrus Heights.”
LETTER: It’s time to bring back police logs in Citrus Heights
Following the publishing of Barrow’s letter, The Sentinel reached out to Police Chief Alex Turcotte to inquire whether daily incident bulletins were being considered for publishing again. Turcotte said he was reviewing the matter with his staff and said he was hopeful that an automated solution could be found. He also said releasing unredacted raw data would “likely violate” rules regarding the release of sensitive information.
In a subsequent email on Thursday, Turcotte said he is hoping to see some draft reports next week, with the possibility of the department publishing them later this month.
Want to share your thoughts on police logs? Click here to submit a letter to the editor for publishing.
