Newspaper's reporting, police reaction after fire chief's suicide prompts First Amendment questions
By Alan Bisbort
For The Associated Press
09.03.02
Editor's note: This story, detailing a conflict between the Record-Journal of Meriden and city police over the newspaper's coverage of Fire Chief William E. Dunn's June 20 suicide, was written for that newspaper by a free-lance reporter and edited by the Associated Press.
MERIDEN, Conn. — "Deep within all of our hearts, there is that question, 'Why?' "
More than two months ago these words from the Rev. Mark Jette's eulogy for Fire Chief William E. Dunn echoed through this central Connecticut city. Such was the pride with which Meriden greeted Dunn's 25-year rise through the fire department's ranks that when the unthinkable was said to be true — that Dunn had taken his own life at his home on June 20 — a shock wave resonated through many of the city's 58,000 residents.
Though Meriden has begun to come to grips with the loss of Dunn, the story is not over for the city's daily newspaper, the Record-Journal, or the city's police department. Indeed, as a result of the paper's coverage of Dunn's death, these two parties stand on opposite sides of a harassment complaint filed by the Dunn family against one of the paper's reporters, Evan Goodenow.
The legal matter is unresolved. It appears the state's attorney's office has rejected a police application for the arrest of Goodenow, but officials refuse to confirm or deny that.
The newspaper, through its attorney, Ralph G. Elliot of Hartford, insists that this is not a legal matter at all; that its reporters were doing their jobs "providing the public with whatever information we, in our sole editorial judgment, believe will help it understand how and why a highly respected public official took his own life."
And Meriden's attorney, Larry Kendzior, has been instructed by City Manager Roger L. Kemp to render a legal opinion for the city in the event that the Record-Journal sues the police for harassment.
Kemp informed Record-Journal Publisher Eliot C. White that he has instructed Police Chief William C. Abbatematteo to cease any further action until Kendzior renders his opinion. Kendzior declined comment.
In the meantime, the story of how this unusual situation occurred has raised fresh questions about the role of the press in a free society as well as the right of an individual to privacy. It also illustrates how these two cherished rights can sometimes clash.
Angry family
"Bill Dunn was the most accessible fire chief I've ever dealt with," said James H. Smith, the Record-Journal executive editor. "We greatly respected him and he respected the paper and thought that we played an important part in the community. His death was a news event and it was our job to cover it."
The traditional questions that journalists are trained to ask and try to answer — who, what, when, where, how and why — were echoed in Jette's eulogy. Perhaps in the attempt to answer it, Smith reasoned, the paper could help a grieving city make sense of the death of someone who, by all accounts, was a man of distinguished service, great heroism, and loyalty to friends and colleagues.
In the course of reporting on Dunn's death, the Record-Journal published six articles between June 21 and July 25. In order to write these stories, reporters Goodenow and Mark Peters were required to talk to friends, colleagues and, if possible, Dunn family members.
A third reporter, the newspaper's health editor, Jeffery Kurz, assisted in preparation of a story on depression, from which Dunn was said to be suffering at the time of his death. Kurz had no direct contact with the Dunn family.
It is the contact with the Dunn family made by reporters Goodenow and Peters that is the reason for the charge of harassment, though Peters was ultimately dropped from the complaint.
As the newspaper's public safety reporter, Goodenow was responsible for covering both the fire and police departments in Meriden and Wallingford. On the afternoon of the suicide, Goodenow — having picked up a "Signal 12" (dead on arrival) on his police radio and recognizing the address as Dunn's — was the first member of the news media to arrive at the scene.
As police and rescue personnel arrived, Goodenow was instructed to move away from the property while the scene was secured. Goodenow estimated he and a Record-Journal photographer who arrived later were situated about 200 yards down the street.
One of Dunn's two sons, Ryan Dunn, saw them when he arrived at the scene and was upset enough by their presence to be restrained from approaching them.
Goodenow filed the initial news story on June 21, accompanied by a sidebar written by Peters on the reaction at the city firehouses, as well as a tribute to Dunn's hometown roots and stellar career.
The next day Ryan Dunn left an angry message about Goodenow's coverage on Goodenow's voice mail. Goodenow made no attempt to respond to the call.
Goodenow and Peters jointly filed a story on June 22 about how the city was coping with the tragedy. Three days later, they jointly reported on the funeral service and the emotional procession of fire department personnel from the fire station to the church.
"We deal with tragedy all the time," said Smith. "It's difficult talking to families who've been touched by tragedy, but we're duty bound to do it. Quite often, we have learned, family members want to talk about it. In this case, we learned quickly that Bill Dunn's widow didn't want to talk but that his son, Ryan, might talk."
Ryan Dunn did call Smith several days after leaving the message with Goodenow.
"He apologized for his initial call," said Smith. "He said the family was deeply grieving. He said his father was suffering from depression and he might want to talk to us about his father and depression at some point. I told him to let us know when he would like to do that and that we would be glad to print anything he or other family members wanted to say. I also offered him condolences and told him that many of us over here knew his father and that we too feel terrible, but that it is our job to write what we are writing."
Peters prepared one last story, with Kurz, on Dunn's depression, which ran in the paper July 2. While writing the story, Peters attempted to contact Ryan Dunn. According to both Peters and the police report on the Dunns' harassment complaint, an exchange of messages on Friday, June 28, involved three phone calls to the Dunn house, two of which were returned by Ryan Dunn.
On Monday, July 1, Peters left another message on the Dunns' home answering machine. Ryan Dunn returned the call and, according to Peters, "said he was too busy, but that I should call him back in 10 days to two weeks. That was my last contact with him."
That same morning, according to Smith, Dunn's wife, Jane, called Smith at the newspaper.
"She was angry," said Smith. "I was able to say that people want to know why her husband committed suicide and it was our job to try to explain that to our readers. ... She said we would hear from her lawyer and hung up. An hour later, two police sergeants walked in the newsroom."
Sgt. Michael Lyons and Sgt. Jennifer Shelton visited the Dunns' home to follow up on what was subsequently described in the police incident report as "a complaint of an ongoing harassment problem."
After taking the account of the Dunn family, they proceeded to the Record-Journal office on Crown Street in downtown Meriden.
The police were ushered into Mr. Smith's office.
"They were polite, but insistent, that if our reporters contacted anyone in the Dunn family again they would seek a warrant for their arrest on harassment charges," said Smith. "I told them there is a First Amendment issue and they had better be very careful. They said at one point that they weren't threatening an arrest and at another point they were reading us our rights. I honestly don't know why they were here."
"We take any police matter seriously," said Editor and Publisher Eliot White. "But there is no place in a democracy for the police to decide what's news. The Record-Journal will pursue news as aggressively as we feel we need to."
While White and Smith are both adamant that this is a First Amendment issue, the police have said it is not. In their eyes, it is quite simple: A complaint was filed by a citizen; the complainant was notified.
"What Sgts. Lyons and Shelton did was not out of order," said Abbatematteo, the police chief. "We treated the Record-Journal like any other citizen. Out of courtesy, we went to inform the suspect's immediate supervisor. We assume neutrality both with the Dunn family and with the reporter. We're not in a position to verify or disprove either party. We don't determine if a law has been broken. That is up to the state's attorney and the judge."
"I was in the office next door to Jim's," said Record-Journal managing editor Ralph Tomaselli. "I did not find the police to be speaking in accommodating tones. They did not threaten, but they were not discussing, either. They were not interested in our side of the story. The visit seemed intended to intimidate."
The three-page incident report filed the next day by Lyons detailed what the Dunn family said was their contact with Record-Journal reporters, including contact before Dunn's death. Mrs. Dunn told Lyons that soon after her husband took a leave of absence on May 30 Goodenow visited their home at dinnertime, "wanting a comment from Chief Dunn regarding his current leave of absence."
Though Goodenow said he had no direct contact with Mrs. Dunn on that occasion, or any other occasion, she told Lyons that she "asked Goodenow to leave the property and not come back. Mrs. Dunn stated that Goodenow was still persistent and left only after repeated requests."
Lyons also spoke with Ryan Dunn on July 1.
"He stated to me that prior to his father's death, ... Evan Goodenow had been 'stalking' his father for comments regarding his leave of absence. Ryan stated that Goodenow would drive by his father's house, come to the door on occasion and also call on the phone often, even after repeated requests not to."
Goodenow said, "I made one trip to the house, had one five-minute conversation with the chief and made one phone call to Ryan Dunn. That is the sum total of my contact with the family."
After filing the report on the alleged harassment, the Dunns contacted their lawyer, Andrew Krevolin, of Krevolin, Roth & Connors in West Hartford. Krevolin sent a registered letter to the Record-Journal (which he also faxed) requesting that the family not be contacted.
In the letter, dated July 3, Krevolin wrote, "It has come to our attention that since his untimely passing, the family has been contacted by several different reporters from your newspaper. The family has been contacted in person, by phone, at work and at home. This contact has become harassing. Would you please see to it that all contact with them by your employees ceases."
Krevolin, citing the privacy of the Dunn family, declined to discuss the letter for this story.
A day earlier, on July 2, the Record-Journal printed what Smith said he expected would be the final story about Dunn's death — the story about depression.
"We had the who, what, when, where, and now we had the why," said Smith. "As far as we were concerned, we were finished, unless the police issued a report on the chief's death. At that point, we would file another story. The lawyer's letter had no bearing on our decision to stop reporting the news."
Suicide-note excerpts
On July 24, the Meriden police department issued its final report on Dunn's death. Since police reports are public records, Goodenow obtained a copy. While the police report offered no new information about the reasons for Dunn's suicide, it did contain a transcript of the chief's suicide note.
The fact that the newspaper chose to print excerpts from this note angered many in the police department. And the fact that Evan Goodenow called Ryan Dunn for a comment about the report rekindled accusations of harassment.
"I had Evan call Ryan Dunn for two reasons," said Smith. "First of all, out of courtesy: We needed to let the family know we were going to write a story about the report. Secondly, we also need to allow them to have an opportunity to comment on it if they chose to. I had no problem with asking Evan to do this. He was the primary reporter and this was his beat."
"As hard as it would have been, I would have called the family for a comment," said Sean Patrick Lyons, former investigative reporter for the Republican-American of Waterbury, Conn., and The Boston Globe who now teaches journalism at Hampton University in Norfolk, Va. "If the family thought a problem existed with the reporter, they should have gone straight to the editor. And if the reporter continued to be a problem, then it is the paper's responsibility to rein in the reporter."
The Record-Journal's decision to excerpt the suicide note was not unusual, given Dunn's position as a public official.
"The fact of the matter is that the people who put out the police report were doing their jobs, just as the reporter was doing his job," said Paul McMasters, First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va.
"In this case, the two parties doing their jobs increased the grief of the family and that is deeply regrettable. But the paper was trying to do its job of informing the public," McMasters said.
"A police report is part of the public record," said Lyons. "Anyone can go in, request and get it. If the police made it public, then it is in circulation. If the police felt it would present a problem, they should have redacted it from the record. No newspaper would win an FOI (Freedom of Information) request for that information. I would have run the note if it was germane to the story. A newspaper has an obligation to report facts."
Goodenow called Ryan Dunn at the firehouse to offer him the opportunity to comment on the police report. When Goodenow identified himself, Dunn hung up.
Soon afterward, Smith received a call from Deputy Police Chief Jeffry Cossette.
"Jeff told me, 'We've got a problem. Evan called Ryan Dunn,' " said Smith. "I said, 'I've got no problem with that. I told him to call.' Jeff told me they would send someone over to talk about it. In the spirit of cooperation, I agreed. He assured me it was not a criminal investigation."
Late that afternoon, Lt. Timothy Topulos and Sgt. George Del Mastro visited the Record-Journal offices. They had come, according to Cossette, "to get the suspect's (Goodenow's) side of the story. We would not just arrest someone without a warrant."
"This began as a more cordial visit than the previous one," said Tomaselli. "The officers were polite and low-key, but at some point they began reading Evan his rights."
Smith said, "When Lt. Topulos started to say that this was a criminal investigation, I said, 'No, this ends right here.' They asked when they could come back and I said I was going to call our counsel. Eliot (White) and I got on a conference call with Roger Kemp and raised hell. We told him, 'If this persists, there will be huge legal problems.' "
At that point, Kemp pulled the matter away from the police department and sent it to the city attorney for a legal opinion.
"We want to research if the press is treated differently than any other person," said Kemp. "I'm optimistic that a reasonable solution can be found."
"Our quarrel is not, and never has been, with the Dunn family or the fire department," said Jim Smith. "Our quarrel is with the police department that believes they can arrest a journalist for doing his or her job in a free country. Reporters calling for information or offering someone the opportunity to comment certainly does not fit the statute (for harassment). So, for the police officers to threaten action under such statutes is actionable."
"We have our side of the story and they have theirs, and ours is that this is not a freedom-of-the-press issue," said Cossette. "We agree that a reporter has a right to call anyone, but when an individual indicates they don't want to be contacted, and this wish has been conveyed by a certified letter from an attorney, and you still ignore that individual's wish, then we feel it warrants our action."
Abbatematteo agrees that the situation is unlike any he has encountered in his law enforcement career, both in the year he has been at the helm of the Meriden force and his many years as a captain in North Providence, R.I.
"I use the word 'anomaly' for lack of a better term," he said. "Not just the death and the manner of death, but the popularity of the public figure. Add to the mix the Record-Journal's insistence of their own rights and the relationship with this one reporter."
Abbatematteo cites the fact that Goodenow had on more than one occasion been found in parts of the police station that were off limits to the public.
"We had to post signs in the back of the station because this reporter would be in a part of the building where he shouldn't be," he said.
Smith dismisses such talk.
"They are manufacturing that," he said. "Evan was looking for Lenny (Public Information Officer Leonard Caponigro) and walked into the back parking lot. Technically, that is a restricted area. They just don't like Evan."
Abbatematteo disagrees.
"The situation with that reporter stands on its own merits. We want a proactive relationship with the newspaper," said Abbatematteo.
"We have had good rapport with the media in general and the Record-Journal specifically," said Caponigro. "In the time I've been here, the paper has never filed a Freedom of Information request against us. There is not some plot to hide information here. We've never had a problem with anyone, but the Record-Journal wanted to push the envelope."
Smith acknowledges that Goodenow can be "abrasive." And Goodenow acknowledges to being "an aggressive reporter" and perhaps more persistent than the police chief was comfortable with.
"I am not an armchair reporter," said Goodenow. "I can't rewrite press releases. I regularly checked the planned activity log at the police station. The paper has never tried to be sensational in its coverage. ... We don't go out of our way to blow up grisly crime stories or accident scenes. But you track crime in a community by being there every day."
The fallout from the dispute saddens Tomaselli for another reason.
"Most run-ins that reporters have with the police are heat-of-the-moment things," said Tomaselli, a longtime police reporter in Meriden before assuming his current post as managing editor. "They are resolved and the parties move on. But this was planned with the knowledge at the highest levels of the police department. They took their time, and they've taken a petty problem with Evan and blew it up to this."
Again, Abbatematteo disagreed.
"As the new chief here, I recognize the value of the media. It's important to have accurate information in a timely manner. We've allowed the R-J reporter to do `ride-alongs' and to visit the police academy. There are no barriers here, but there are boundaries. We have to follow boundaries, too. There is no malice on our part. In this case, our role has been distorted, and in general the public is confused about our role. We are the public's ombudsmen. We are the report-takers and the messengers. We only get the facts."
The Record-Journal is adamant that it had no intention to harass, which is part of the statute for second-degree harassment.
"In the normal course of doing our job, we call the family in an event of this sort," said White, whose family has owned the 135-year-old Record-Journal for the last 110 years. "We clearly have a stake in this community, and we are often criticized when we don't call a family to get a comment. There was clearly no intent to harass here. We call the family for comment in order to lend our coverage fairness and balance."
"They may not have an intention," said Abbatematteo. "But if I'm annoyed, I'm annoyed, regardless of their intent."
State law requires intent to harass. Abbatematteo gives the example of an ex-boyfriend continuing to call a woman after they've broken up. If the boyfriend is asked to stop and continues calling, then she can file harassment complaint.
"And if the police come to find the boyfriend on her yard at 2 a.m., an arrest is likely," he said. "Don't confuse the First Amendment with diplomatic immunity. Where would that end? Can I break into a building in pursuit of a story?"
Cossette said, "I can see where it might present an interesting dilemma. It's a very interesting case and an interesting situation. Everyone is very passionate about their points. I've been in this police department for 22 years, and for the most part we've had a good relationship with the Record-Journal."
Conversely, Smith said, "In my 33 years in journalism, I have never had police officers come into my newsroom and read a reporter his constitutional rights. I have dealt with no less than six different members of the police department over this matter. I would suggest that the police department's time would be better spent looking for criminals elsewhere in Meriden. There are no criminals in my newsroom."
Moving on?
At this point, the Meriden police department is prepared to move on. Another Record-Journal reporter, Jason Barry, has taken over the public safety beat from Goodenow. According to Abbatematteo and Cossette, the Dunn family has indicated they would not pursue charges if the contact from the paper ceased.
Cossette said, "Hopefully this matter can be settled without the involvement of attorneys."
"That's their out," said Smith. "The city attorney (Kendzior) doesn't have to issue a legal opinion and it just fades away. But that doesn't answer the question. The city manager needs to tell the cops to stop harassing reporters."
State's attorney Jim Dinnan said he could not comment on cases for which arrest warrants were not signed. He did say, however, that "there is no case pending against Evan Goodenow."
Dinnan described the normal procedure this way: "The police investigate, and if they feel there is probable cause for an arrest warrant they send the matter on to our office. We review it and if we agree with the police, we sign the arrest warrant. If a request for a warrant is submitted and we don't sign it, then we can't comment on that case."
Cossette said that they had sent the matter on to the state's attorney's office after determining that "we had found no statutory exemptions" for reporters.
Kendzior would say only that there is no legal case pending against Evan Goodenow.
Smith said the police chief was incensed by articles Goodenow wrote about the chief's wife, Tori, getting into rows with residents over her dogs roaming in a city park, Smith said. One police sergeant called Goodenow and told him if he called the chief's wife for comment again he would be arrested for harassment.
That sergeant, after the second story about the Mrs. Abbatematteo and her dogs was published, issued Goodenow a ticket for trespassing in the police parking lot. The ticket was quashed by the state's attorney's office.
"Those kind of threats — and then carrying them out on a reporter doing his job — have no place in this society," Smith said.
Abbatematteo said, "The Record-Journal may not feel this way, but there is no malice" in the police department toward the newspaper.