Early this summer, I reported a theft to the Madison Police Department. I noticed my property had been taken at around midnight on a Sunday and knew that no police officer would take any immediate action. However, I decided to call the non-emergency police hotline and let them know about the crime. I was optimistic I would receive a call back within the next few days. Those days passed and in the meantime, I was able to receive the video surveillance from my apartment complex and had the criminals on tape. With new evidence in hand, I decided to report, again, to the Madison Police Department’s self-reporting hotline. I was confident that with this new evidence the police would, at the least, give me a courtesy call. A couple more days had passed with no response from the MPD so I decided to report the crime once again, this time taking advantage of the online reporting system. No answer. My ultimate frustration led me to the downtown offices of the police department where a smiling officer kindly took my phone number and told me someone would get in touch with me. No one ever did.

This kind of police inaction can be excused when the crime in question is as insignificant as a simple bike robbery — even if the bicycle was a rental worth upwards of $1000 — as was my case. However, several other incidents involving the MPD demonstrate that their faults do not stop with failures to respond to their self-reporting system.

Earlier this month, the Isthmus brought to light something that should seriously shock Madison’s residents and students. In early August a man in his 50s was brutally beaten by a gang of young criminals. A man of modest resources, he got up after the beating and continued on his way to work. Realizing he was missing his keys, the victim returned to the site of the crime to be greeted by Madison’s finest, who had been called to the scene by witnesses. It was there that this man was sent to the hospital only to find out he had several severe injuries — and a hospital bill over $20,000.

Sound familiar? I’m sure it does, given the recent spike in random attacks, but I can be sure most Madison residents never heard about this particular case. Why not? The MPD simply did not report it to the media — they kept it quiet. According to the Isthmus article, MPD spokesman Joel DeSpain “didn’t hear about it,” and that if he did he would have released the information to the media.

This is a massive problem. While members of the media are perfectly within their rights to navigate their way through the airwaves of police scanners and the reports made available to them, if the police department decides to keep something quiet, there is nothing for journalists to do.

One could, in theory, chalk this up to a one-time clerical error made by an MPD staffer. Such a dismissal would be wrong. Last week the Isthmus reported once again that the MPD failed to report another violent crime, this one in June, involving a beating with baseball bats. And where did such a seemingly relevant event show up in the crime logs? Nowhere.

According to the article, Officer Howard Payne, working temporarily in DeSpain’s position, said that there was “no mention in the call log” of the incident.

The violence was only made public because of the investigative work of Madison’s print media. It makes one wonder whether or not there are more crimes taking place that we are not aware of. The crime problem in Madison is frequently dismissed with the argument that Madison’s crime rate is below the national average for a city of its size. But if some crimes are never reported by a municipal police department, what relevance do such statistics hold?

With the well-documented failures of the 911 Center in responding to phone calls placed by Brittany Zimmerman before her murder, we must begin to ask whether or not those empowered to catch our criminals are capable of doing so. I am sure the family of Joel Marino is asking the same questions. In January, Marino was murdered in his apartment, and the police failed to follow up on a phone call a citizen made in regard to a possible sighting of the suspect. In fact, police did not respond until Greta Van Susteren of Fox News came to town to report on — as of then — the three unsolved murders in Madison.

It becomes much harder to prevent criminals when those positioned to stop them are rife with procedural problems. We cannot turn our eye on the crime endemic in our city, and clearly we must now, more than ever, watch the watchers.

Ben White ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.