Posted on 07/25/2005 6:18:27 AM PDT by TrebleRebel
Central Ohio law-enforcement agencies find a lot of people interesting as of late.
But those labeled "persons of interest" can find the attention unflattering and unfair.
Police use the increasingly popular buzzwords when they want to track down people who might -- or might not -- be suspects in high-profile crimes.
The person-of-interest tag is a confusing catchall, critics say, that implies guilt, or at least guilt by association, without the filing of charges.
And the news media, historically reluctant to identify uncharged criminal suspects, have lapped up the phrase to justify naming persons of interest.
"It's being used more and more. It's become part of our vernacular now," said Sgt. Brent Mull, spokesman for the Columbus Division of Police. "We use it because it is neutral."
Police defend the designation, saying it should not be read to suggest that someone is a criminal suspect, but simply that investigators want to learn what information they possess.
"I don't know if it's fair or unfair, but it's a way we can say something" about people deputies want to locate, said Chief Deputy Steve Martin, of the Franklin County sheriff's office. "It has an investigative value."
Joshua Dressler, a criminal-law professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, is troubled by the person-of-interest designation. He said most people believe it signifies a criminal suspect.
"It is a term of convenience that has developed between police and journalists" to stop short of calling someone a suspect in hopes of sidestepping claims of libel and slander if they are not charged, he said.
A person of interest can turn out to be of no interest.
Diallo Hill, a Columbus man already charged in a shooting death outside a nightclub, was named by Ross County Sheriff Ron Nichols as a person of interest in the April 21 slaying of a Chillicothe police officer.
However, Hill apparently was in Florida when Officer Larry Cox was killed. Another man was charged with shooting Cox while Hill surrendered to face the Columbus murder charge.
"He's been labeled a cop killer," Hill's cousin, Christina Hodge, said last month. "The damage has been done. If you say it, you can never take it back."
The Dispatch was among area newspapers and TV stations that reported Hill was a person of interest in the Cox case.
"We assess each situation as it comes to us, but we've become leery of naming 'persons of interest' because they often have no connection to the cases," said Alan D. Miller, Dispatch managing editor/news.
Nichols offered no apologies: "I didn't tell him to get into trouble. He's a wanted man. Don't blame us. Blame him."
On May 23, the State Highway Patrol identified a man being held on a probation violation as a person of interest in the May 13 fatal shooting of a Pennsylvania doctor on the Ohio Turnpike.
"It can be misused," said Sgt. Stephanie Norman, patrol spokeswoman. "It's important to be careful with how you use it and when you use it."
Police agencies surveyed, including the FBI, have no policies on when it is appropriate to use "persons of interest."
The phrase appeared to crop up during the 1970s, but came to prominence during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Security guard Richard Jewell incorrectly was named a person of interest in a fatal park bombing.
Use of the phrase accelerated after Sept. 11, when federal officials flagged former Army bioweapons researcher Steven Hatfill as a suspect in fatal anthrax mailings.
Although federal officials acknowledged they were looking at 20 people as suspects, Hatfill was the only one named as a person of interest.
He was never charged.
Jewell and Hatfill contend their lives have been ruined by what they call the unwarranted label affixed by both police and the news media.
Aly Colon, a journalism ethics expert with the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., said reporters should be careful with such labels.
"Journalists could be taking some pretty dangerous steps in a direction that could be inaccurate, unfair and prejudiced toward an individual who may not have anything to do with what the police are attempting to accomplish," he said.
Stan Sanders, news director of WCMH-TV (Channel 4) calls "person of interest" a gray term. "We are cautious. There has to be some kind of clarification so the audience doesn't assume the person is a suspect if he is not," he said.
Ted Gup, a journalism professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said the phrase is "a way of kind of shaking the trees and hoping something of evidentiary value will fall out."
Gup, a former investigative reporter for The Washington Post, called the media complicit in following the lead of police and using the vague phrase.
"It's pure speculation in investigation," he said, that strips people of the presumption of innocence while perhaps falsely assuring an anxious public that progress is at hand in solving headline crimes.
rludlow@dispatch.com
FBI may have labeled Hatfill a "person of interest", but he was scrutinized as a perpetrator. I find it hard to believe that the FBI has no policy for its use of the term.
Just say suspect and quit torturing the language.
Just another example of PC/Newspeak.
It is just playing with words. No matter what the police say, a "person of interest" is either a witness or a suspect.
A 'person of interest' - someone the Police suspect might be a suspect, or possibly not. They just want to interview them and see if they might incriminate themselves.
Whoever said PC/Newspeak hit it on the head.
Person of interest means "We're thinking of doing a no-knock and/or framing you for something, but we're not sure what".
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