The Rest of the Story?

The challenges and stress that face a public information officer for a police department have to be incredible.

That level likely rises exponentially when one of their co-workers, another officer, is shot in the line of duty.  It’s one thing to talk publicly about a crime scene or violent criminal.  It’s another to share details about a police officer ambushed by the worst of the worst in society.

When we hear a reporter say, “The officer is expected to survive,” we don’t hear: “His or her life will never be the same, he or she may be permanently disabled, he or she may not walk again,” and the list goes on.

When we hear, “The officer is expected to recover,” we don’t hear: “He or she may have to undergo weeks, months or years of physical therapy just to regain use of his or her arm or leg, he or she may have to re-learn how to talk or even breathe on his or her own and he or she faces a lifetime of counseling to overcome this trauma.”

Maybe it’s newsrooms not wanting to scare their viewers, listeners or readers.

Maybe it just falls into the category of the line from Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth!”

Or maybe it just isn’t warm and fuzzy enough to qualify for a Paul Harvey-ism, “Now you know the rest of the story…”

I know there are HIPAA regulations and family privacy issues that have to be taken into consideration.  Not to mention the investigation into what lead to the shooting where some such information may compromise the investigation.  There is much that these PIOs have to deal with – but it seems the rest of the story is typically underreported.