Should Journalists Cooperate With the Police?

FOUR TIMES THE number of expected revelers showed up at an annual outdoor party near James Madison University last week. When police tried to disperse the crowd, a riot broke out. Around 40 people were injured, mostly from flying beer bottles and other thrown objects. Around 30 arrests were made.

Local police asked the JMU newspaper to provide their images of the event, ostensibly so that the police could identify suspects. The newspaper editor declined.

"I said that the only ones that we were going to release at this time were the ones that were on our Web site and the ones that were already published," the editor says she told police, according to the Roanoke Times. "I didn't feel like it was our responsibility to give information to the police and be the investigators for them."

On Friday, police arrived at the newspaper office with a search warrant and downloaded all of the newspaper's images.

Should the editor and staff have cooperated from the beginning? Or were they right in telling the cops they should do their own dirty work?

(The image above was shot by the local police department. They had their own photographers on the scene as well.)