Westchester Police Department Sued For Outing Gay Park-Fornicators

I don't really see why this is a big deal. If you commit a crime even as small as DWI, your name gets published in the police blotter. These people were committing sexual acts in public (a crime), and now they complain they are being "outed"? They did it in public! And just because they plead guilty to a lesser crime (i.e. a "ticket"), doesn't make them innocent.

The bigger question up for debate that I see, is should any crime should be published until a person is proven guilty. I think there's arguments to both sides of that, but in reference to this specific article, and how police handle any other crime, I don't see how these people have a case.

 

OK, if you are having sex in a public place, and you know that it is illegal, and you still do it, then being arrested and outed is your fault because you were incredibly stupid.

 

Except that publishing their names violates the court's order to seal the records. And releasing a press release stating the committed a certain crime when those charges have been dropped is defamation and/or libel. And singling out gays with press releases of their exploits is unfair bias and animus. All of which are big no-no's for the police department. Yeah if you commit a crime, there's a public record of it and you should have no expectation that your crime will remain private. But that isn't the whole story there.

 

Ya, I am really not understanding what part of sealed is so difficult to understand.

 

I dont know. if you are going to go to public places for sex, and get caught being lewd in public like that, they should put your pictures up on billboard. if your going to troll public places for sex, fine, but then go somewhere private to do it.

 

From what I saw in the article, it looks like the police weren't technically wrong for releasing the info, however I must agree that issuing a press release indicating someone has done something (unless they are actively seeking the arrest of this person) is not proper until after the person has been thru the court system. Criminal cases aren't suppressed until at least sentencing, on a normal basis.

 

the police released the info before there were court orders to seal the records. it's also not libel to publish that someone was arrested for X crime because that is actually true - the person WAS arrested for that particular crime. as long as the press release doesn't say so and so committed the crime, but keeps to "arrested for X" or "charged with X" there is nothing wrong with it. this doesn't seem to be any different than the typical police blotter that i see in local papers for all sorts of crimes. i don't see any problem here. it had the unfortunate consequence of outing people who preferred to stay closeted - but if you're having sex in a public place, that's a risk you take.