There was one more thing I wanted to say about yesterday’s Amber Alert. The police were looking for a missing girl. The media responded in force with photographs and news trucks, keeping the story front-and-center all day long. The media’s wide exposure was needed for the girl to be found, yet police blocked the media from the street in front of her home. The road was open to through traffic but not to reporters. Any reporter who dared venture closer was gruffly told to stay in the “staging area.”

Why? Why treat the media so poorly when went above and beyond to help locate the girl? It was the top story all day yesterday, for goodness sake. I don’t know whether the coverage made the difference (and I’m inclined in this case to say no as I had a strong hunch she was with her boyfriend the whole time), but is this the proper way to treat your partners in a missing-child search?

I’m a staunch supporter of Raleigh Police but at best this looks ungrateful and at worst a breach of First Amendment law. Time for the officers to get some PR training.