The article on East Niagara Post on 7/9 saying the city needs a Bat Signal

Yes, I saw the whole “Lockport Anonymous” thing and no, I don’t feel responsible for it.

The people, or person, who started Lockport Anonymous had their hearts, or heart, in the right place. They care about Lockport and they want to make Lockport safer for future generations. I want that as well. But there is a right way to do it, and then there is a wrong way to do it.

The right way to do it is to create a Facebook page that gives Lockport citizens a way to send anonymous email tips to the police. That means creating a go-between that keeps the sources anonymous and the people protected. The page would also publish only the text of recent arrest reports and then perhaps publish pictures of properties that have proven to be part of criminal activity. The police can process the email tips and the citizens can keep an eye on those properties. When something suspicious happens at a property, then call the police.

That is the right way.

The wrong way is to get email tips and then publish those tips as though they were facts. Putting up a person’s name, their place of employment, and their picture because someone thinks that they once saw that person smoking weed is illegal and in poor taste. Posting arrest records and then making opinionated comments on that information also does not help. There are many reasons why people get cited for drug violations. Not every person cited for drug violations is a pusher or a user…at least, not currently.

It is also extremely dangerous to scour Facebook pages and associate a person’s printed criminal record with pictures of that person holding guns, waving 20 dollar bills, and smoking what could be a joint. There is such a thing as context and when something is used out of context to help people draw a conclusion about someone, then that borders on being illegal as well.

While Lockport Anonymous took my intentions and twisted them around, there was some benefit brought from the short life of that Facebook page. Almost 2,000 people showed that they care about Lockport enough to join and follow the page. But yet only two people ever came to the defense of the page when the accused, their families, and their friends started an all-out assault on the page’s owner, or owners.

Lockport is filled with enablers. In the history of man, there are plenty of dangerous drug dealers and criminals who were surrounded by an army of supporters who would never believe that the accused was actually a criminal. There have always been parents who refused to believe that their child could ever do such a thing and friends who act as character witnesses to even the most heinous criminals.

Those were the people who were heard from on Lockport Anonymous. In its short existence, Lockport Anonymous became a sounding board for the criminal element in Lockport to boldly claim their innocence and for their enablers to join in and shout down the page administrator. It was a very revealing two weeks, at least for me.

There were people unjustly hurt by the actions of Lockport Anonymous. That is because the approach used by the page administrators, or administrator, was the wrong one. The citizens can get involved in this fight and they can do it in legal ways. Someone suggested the LPD or the NCSO should start a page similar to Lockport Anonymous, but done in the proper way. That is a great idea, but no one would ever use it. People with that kind of information want to offer it to the police in an anonymous fashion, which is why Lockport Anonymous had nearly 2,000 followers in only two weeks – and the number was growing when the page shut down.

Did the criminals win? No, not really. We got to learn a lot about Lockport’s problems from Lockport Anonymous. But we also know that there are plenty of people in Lockport that want to see the city survive and get cleaned up. There are more quality people in Lockport than there are criminal types.

So what do we do? The citizens must work with the police. The people of Lockport must become active in taking back the streets. We must work with the police to develop neighborhood watches that alert the police to suspicious activity. Remember that many of these criminals are armed, which is why neighborhood watch groups should be advised by the police on how to approach situations.

It can be done, but it needs to be done right. What would Batman do? He would collect the facts, alert the police, and then hold off the criminals until the police arrived. Batman would become a citizen’s arm of the police force that would help to keep criminals under surveillance and the police informed. That is what Batman would do. And we need to do the same thing.

Nick Oliver is a Niagara County resident and not a role model for anyone. His column appears every Wednesday, but you shouldn’t use it as a blueprint for your life.

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