Tuesday, June 15, 2010

WPD posts missing person alert

The Woodstock Police Department has posted notices on its webpages about the disappearance of Beth Bentley, 41, of Woodstock. Beth was reported missing to the Woodstock P.D. on Monday, May 24, at 10:48PM.

In a notice dated May 27, 2010, the P.D. requests assistance of the community.

For whatever reason this alert was slow to reach the Woodstock community. Information about Beth's disappearance was first reported on about May 30 in the Chicago news media and then in the Northwest Herald on about June 1st.

Many wonder why this news did not reach the general public sooner.

The online posting date for the first press release on the City PD's website is not shown, whereas it is for other notices. It was not shown on the front webpage for "Crime Stopper Cases / Press Releases / Crime Alerts" as of June 9th. The usual format of dates is to provide the posting date and the "good-until" date. The missing person report carries only a "to:" date of July 1st.

A second notice appears on the PD website with a June 9th date. Unfortunately, this later notice is posted behind a "See all items" link.

It seems to me that the casual reader would assume that it would only be older notices posted behind a "See all items" link and not important, more-recent notices.

Information carried in the original report about Beth's having been seen boarding a northbound train in Centralia is now believed by many not to be correct. The second notice reads that Beth was dropped off at the Centralia station to board a 1800 hours train. This information may also be incorrect.

The Crime Stoppers Reward of $2,000 is still not shown on the Woodstock P.D. website.

The P.D. could do better...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Woodstock PD is way too busy community policing, which at night consists exclusively of sitting on Rt 47 writing tickets.