As we have previously noted, the Lexington Herald-Leader is bound by the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, which states that McClatchy publications will not print photos of criminal suspects, unless certain conditions are met. One of the exceptions editors are supposed to consider — and all exceptions to the policy must be approved by an editor — is “Is there an urgent threat to the community?”
On Wednesday, July 28th, Lexington police officers, working with United States Marshals, attempted to arrest Mr Dockery at a home in the 1600 block of Thirlstane Court. The suspect allegedly shot at police, and at least one officer returned fire and wounded Mr Dockery. The Herald-Leader was all kinds of upset that the LPD would not release the names of either the suspect or the officer who shot him.
The Kentucky State Police, rather than the Lexington Police Department, investigates all officer involved shootings. It would normally be considered a good thing that an agency not involved in the incident would do the investigations.
Well, for the Herald-Leader, which is reluctant to print the mugshots of even “armed and dangerous” criminals, not knowing which officer shot the suspect was just too, too much, so the newspaper kept investigating. At least so far, the officer has not been publicly identified.
By Karla Ward | July 30, 2021 | 9:45 PM EDT
Court documents provide a description of what police say led up to a shooting in which law enforcement officers injured a homicide suspect at a Lexington home Wednesday.
The man who was shot is identified as Brandon Dockery, according to documents filed in Fayette District Court in a related case.
Police said in the court documents that when they went to a home on the 1600 block of Thirlstane Court and made contact with Dockery at the front door, he kept “his hand in his pocket as if he had a weapon” and “continued to ignore officer’s commands.”
Dockery can be heard saying “I don’t want to die,” on body camera footage, police said in the documents.
The article continues to note that the police initially used a stun gun to subdue Mr Dockery, and an exchange of gunfire followed when the taser apparently failed to incapacitate the suspect. A jammed handgun was found in Mr Dockery’s possession, which has investigators believing that the suspect shot at the arresting officers until it jammed on him.
While the Herald-Leader does not print mugshots of criminal suspects, The First Street Journal does, if we can obtain them. The mugshot of Mr Dockery is not from any Herald-Leader article, but from the Lexington Police Department’s homicide investigations page. I obtained this photo at the time of June 25th story, when Mr Dockery was still on the loose.
So, how did Karla Ward, the newspaper reporter, find out the name of the suspect shot, a name officials had declined to release prior to the completion of the investigation?
Courtney Jade Brown. Screen capture from WKYT-TV.
The complaint against Brown states that officers and federal agents were doing surveillance at Brown’s residence on Thirlstane Court after learning that Dockery had been in contact with Brown recently and had been “staying there regularly since June.”
When they saw Brown leave Wednesday morning, Lexington police immediately stopped her at the Speedway at New Circle and Meadow Lane.
During an interview with a detective from the U.S. Marshal’s Service at the gas station, Brown said she didn’t know where Dockery was and lied when asked if he was at her home, the complaint states.
After interviewing Miss Brown, the LPD and US Marshalls went straight to her home, where Mr Dockery was found. Miss Brown was arrested, charged and released on Thursday.
Of course, the Herald-Leader did not choose to print Miss Brown’s photo either, even though my source for it, WKYT-TV is the newspaper’s ‘news partner,’ and the WKYT story was published at 4:38 PM EDT, three hours and 7 minutes prior to the Herald-Leader’s story. The Herald-Leader certainly had access to the photo.
Obvious question: if Miss Brown is guilty of sheltering Mr Dockery from the police, is the Herald-Leader guilty of the same thing? The residence in question is on a single family homes street, and if the Herald-Leader had published Mr Dockery’s mugshot, perhaps one of the neighbors might have seen it, recognized him, and reported it to the police. The police clearly suspected that Mr Dockery was at Miss Brown’s residence, as they were keeping the place under surveillance, but must not have had enough evidence he was there to execute a warrant there. Had a neighbor spotted the suspect, and reported it to the police, perhaps the warrant could have been executed weeks earlier.
Yes, I know: that would be a difficult case to make. But the McClatchy Mugshot Policy is clearly not helping law enforcement, or serving what so many media outlets have termed the “public’s right to know.” The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists states:
- Responsibility: The public’s right to know of events of public importance and interest is the overriding mission of the mass media. The purpose of distributing news and enlightened opinion is to serve the general welfare.
- Freedom of the Press: Freedom of the press is to be guarded as an inalienable right of people in a free society. It carries with it the freedom and the responsibility to discuss, question, and challenge actions and utterances of our government and of our public and private institutions. Journalists uphold the right to speak unpopular opinions and the privilege to agree with the majority.
- Ethics: Journalists must be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know the truth. . . . . Journalists will seek news that serves the public interest, despite the obstacles. They will make constant efforts to assure that the public’s business is conducted in public and that public records are open to public inspection.
Can someone tell me how the McClatchy Mugshot Policy and the Lexington Herald-Leader’s adherence to it, even in the case of armed and dangerous suspects, serves the public’s right to know or the general welfare? How does it serve the public’s interest, despite the obstacles? Mr Dockery has been criminally charged with murder, the most serious crime there is, yet the Herald-Leader chose to withhold from the public information which could have led to his apprehension as much as a month earlier.
Perhaps the McClatchy newspapers have chosen instead to adhere to the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journolists.
It’s simple: in their efforts not to “disproportionately harm people of color,”
We have often mentioned the McClatchy Mugshot Policy that the Lexington Herald-Leader is obligated to follow. Of course, the Herald-Leader did not publish the mugshot of the defendant in the following story, despite having published several recently, all of white criminal suspects.
But, all over it or not, the newspaper declined to print the mugshot of the accused, even though it has been freely broadcast all over the area by the local media, by Channel 18, WLEX-TV, and Channel 27, WKYT-TV, among others. Of course, The First Street Journal, which believes in the public’s right to know, does publish mugshots; they are a matter of the public record.
