Little Rock police are addressing how they release information about major crimes, a spokesman said, as the department faces mounting questions about transparency.
"We have to get better -- and we're working towards that -- about information we put on social media," Mark Edwards, a spokesman for the Little Rock Police Department, said during an interview Thursday.
While details remain sparse, police will focus on posting emerging details about investigations on social media, the department's website and a mobile app currently in testing. By using these channels, officials will be able to broadly release vetted information to the public and media, said Edwards.
The strategy continues the department's transition away from news conferences at crime scenes where reporters can ask questions.
Residents have also raised concerns about the timeliness and amount of information released online by police.
After the shooting death of a 7-year-old girl over Memorial Day weekend, police released few details even though the killing occurred on busy section of Fair Park Boulevard. Patrons of the nearby Little Rock Zoo described crowds racing for the exits after hearing rapid gunfire. Despite the apparent panic, police didn't offer details on the cause of the shooting in two tweets posted the day of the killing.
At least two members of the Little Rock City Board of Directors have expressed dissatisfaction and heard from constituents who are dissatisfied with how the department is releasing information to the public.
After a homicide that occurred early Monday near Pleasant Valley Drive, City Director Capi Peck of Ward 4 said residents called her, assuming she would be able to shed light on the incident.
But the absence of prompt information from authorities meant Peck could not until Thursday afternoon, more than 72 hours after the incident, she said.
It was strange how quiet everything was, Peck said.
"That's too long to keep people in limbo when a homicide has occurred in their neighborhood, I think," Peck said.
At that time, Thursday afternoon, police identified the man shot and killed three days earlier; police also named another individual who was questioned but did not face charges in connection to the killing.
At one point, Peck called a major in the department regarding the May 30 incident. He seemed exasperated himself because of the lack of information forthcoming at that time, Peck recalled.
She hesitated to describe it as "secrecy," adding, "I don't really even know how to articulate it, except that I'm frustrated. My constituents are very frustrated because they feel like I should know and I should be able to answer questions, but I can't."
According to Peck, no system is in place for city board members to receive information about critical incidents.
When officials publicly or privately implore the mayor to keep them in the loop, things seem to get better for a while, Peck said, but circumstances appear to go back to the way they were before, she suggested.
Kathy Webb, who represents Ward 3, said some constituents feel they are "not getting information that people should have in a timely manner."
Webb, who has served on the city board since 2015, said she did not have a quarrel with authorities holding back information during an ongoing investigation.
Nevertheless, she suggested there might be "a happy medium -- I think we need more timely information, and you can do that without sharing information that would compromise an investigation."
Asked if the city or the Police Department has operated differently in the past, Webb said, "I think the perception is that it's less information, less timely and I think we all know that the perception is important."
Luke Kramer, the president of the Hillcrest Residents Association, said that even as a neighborhood association, "the only thing we hear is what we seek out on social media or maybe a news article."
He suggested some people might have limited access to online media.
Kramer said "there's not a clear line of communication between our law enforcement and our residents on criminal activity that's happening in and around Little Rock."
The way people receive information from the city needs to match how they receive information in general, Kramer said. He said that "doing a newsletter that may go out to a limited number of emails and doing a Zoom call once a quarter, or even once a month" may be not enough.
Last week, the agency drew criticism after officials offered little information about the killing of Chloe Alexander, a 7-year-old from Pine Bluff.
The shooting occurred over Memorial Day weekend near highly-trafficked areas including War Memorial Park, the Zoo and the city's main swimming pool. While Zoo patrons took cover and ran for exits, social media posts from the department didn't include information on whether the shooting posed a danger to the public.
The department's initial posts didn't mention the possibility of an active shooter, Edwards said on Tuesday, because it didn't occur to him to include this detail. People only asked police if the shooting involved an active shooter in the days after the killing, he said.
The agency's social media posts immediately after homicides or shootings rarely specify whether the crime posed a threat to the public. When asked about the department's policy for including details in online releases, Edwards said police would immediately notify the public if any threat existed.
Three days after Chloe was shot, Interim Police Chief Crystal Young-Haskins held a news conference to announce a reward for a suspect in the shooting. After less than five minutes, Young-Haskins left the podium without taking questions. Details about the killing, including what kind of firearm was used or how many shooters were involved, remained unclear.
Edwards last week said Young-Haskins would be unavailable for an interview on Thursday or Friday.
When asked why police officials didn't set aside time for questions at the news conference, Edwards said the department scheduled the conference to announce the reward. Police were only able to share limited information because of the ongoing investigation.
In years past, police officials would often coordinate news conferences at crime scenes within hours of homicides.
After the shooting death of a 3-year-old boy on a Saturday evening in 2016, then-Chief Kenton Buckner organized a news conference that night. Speaking near the car in which Acen King was shot, Buckner gave a brief account of the killing and took questions from reporters.
The chief was unable to comment on some questions, but the discussion allowed Buckner to clarify details -- including Acen's relationship with the person driving the car.
Edwards described the shift away from crime scene news conferences as an effort to modernize the department. By releasing information on social media, police could efficiently disseminate information to the public and avoid having to hold multiple interviews with different media outlets.
Taking questions shortly after police open a crime scene could also lead to officials releasing unverified details, he said. Edwards pointed to the muddled response after the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, as an example of officials divulging information that wasn't vetted.
In the days after the massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead at an elementary school in Uvalde, law enforcement officials provided conflicting accounts of how peace officers responded to the shootings.
As part of efforts to modernize the agency and keep residents informed, police are working to release a mobile app currently in testing, said Edwards. The app, which will be called YourLRPD, will offer "real-time crime notification," according to police officials who teased it earlier this year.
During a January meeting, Little Rock police Maj. Casey Clark said the app will allow users to input their locations and see crimes reported nearby. The software would provide basic details about the crimes reported by the department and allow users to make online reports.
Edwards could not provide a firm timeline for the app's release, but said officials hoped the software would go live this month or July.
Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. supports the department's decisions on "what information it releases and when it does so," according to Aaron Sadler, spokesman for the mayor.
"In an effort to ensure transparency while not compromising ongoing investigations, Mayor Scott has discussed with LRPD ways it can use social media to keep the public updated," Sadler said in an email on Friday.
When it comes to deciding what information gets released during an ongoing homicide investigation, officials will defer to the detectives working the case. Edwards declined a request to interview a Little Rock detective about practices surrounding the public release of information for this article.
Tommy Hudson, a former Little Rock police detective, said officers make decisions about which details to release on a case-by-case basis. In several instances, Hudson said the department compromised investigations by releasing too much information.
"That happens all the time," he said. "That's one of things that's the nature of the beast. You have got so many people in the chain of command. You have people that understand how an investigation works, you have some people that don't."
In some cases, detectives may even need to withhold relatively minor facts -- including what type of firearm a shooter used or how many shots a killer fired -- Hudson said. Keeping these details under wraps can help officers when questioning subjects.
Sometimes releasing too many details about a case can have deadly consequences, according to Hudson.
While he was working a homicide case, Hudson said killers were able to identify one of his witnesses based on information included in news reports.
"They put two and two together and they killed a guy that wasn't even the main witness in the thing," he said.
In other cases, however, releasing information can be beneficial to investigations. After providing a vehicle description following one homicide, someone called the police saying they had spotted a vehicle matching the description.
"That was the car used and we were able to identify the suspects," Hudson said.
Recently, the department has done a good job of controlling information, he said.
While deciding which details to release might vary depending on the case, Hudson said didn't see a problem with allowing reporters and members of the public to ask questions about ongoing investigations. Police, he said, should also be able to release information about whether a recently committed crime indicated a threat to public safety.
Information for this article was contributed by Grant Lancaster of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.