Oswego County Today.com routinely publishes reports provided by local police agencies under its Police Blotter category.

The items published in this category come directly from police agencies. Nothing in those reports should be construed to be a finding of guilt; they are a record of the actions taken on a given day by these agencies.

We have a few policies concerning the use of these items:

1. Police consider any incident where a ticket is issued to be an “arrest”. We recognize that people generally believe an arrest is when someone is handcuffed, fingerprinted and taken before a judge. Our policy is to use the word “ticketed”, rather than “arrested”, in instances where police have released a suspect on an appearance ticket.  This is not a perfect process.  If you have been ticketed for an incident appearing in our blotter and the word “arrest” is used, please notify us and we will make the correction.  Exceptions to this policy will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

2. We do not generally publish the names of juveniles involved in incidents, even when police name the juvenile.  If a juvenile suspect is tried in an adult court, rather than in Family Court, we may name the suspect.

3. We will remove a police blotter item from our system only if the person involved has had all charges related to the incident in question dropped, or if the person is found not guilty after a trial.  We do not remove items if the person is granted an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, commonly called an ACD.  An ACD is not a finding of “not guilty”; rather, it is a judge ordering a court record sealed after a period of good behavior.  However, the police record of the initial arrest is not sealed. Furthermore, the incident occurred and it would be wrong to alter the record of an incident in the community if there is no finding that the incident did not occur.

4.  We will, in some instances, remove names and identifying information of people involved in police blotter items if there is a safety or other risk to that person or others under the same roof.

5. We are always happy to amend the record of an event if the information provided to us is deficient or wrong. Notify us.