SOUTH BEND, Ind. — REAL News Michiana has learned the St. Joseph County Police Department removed certain crime data from its website, hiding the information from the public. This comes after the St. Joseph County GOP put out an advertisement regarding the rising stats under Democrat Sheriff William Redman.
In a recent radio ad, the St. Joseph County GOP states there are currently more than 4,000 active warrants in the county. At the time of the ad, REAL News Michiana was able to verify that number by visiting the “warrant search” section of the St. Joseph County Police Website. However, in an attempt to check those numbers again, RNM discovered the search option has disappeared from the taxpayer funded webpage.
REAL News Michiana attempted to bypass finding the link on the webpage, since it had been removed, and went directly to the https://www.sjcindiana.com/1205/Warrant-Search URL. The search page is now blank, preventing anyone in the public from viewing the important information.
“This is not right.” A former police officer who worked in St. Joseph County tells RNM. “Even myself, as a law enforcement officer, I would use the website to search for warrants of people that I interacted with.”
It appears that around the time the data was removed, Redman put out a statement claiming warrant arrests are up 43-percent since 2018 — stating warrants peaked under his watch in 2020 with more than 6,800 active warrants. However, the data he is putting out is now nearly impossible to verify with the lack of transparency readily available to the public.
However, Redman has a long history of hiding numbers. In August, RNM published a story regarding Redman’s mismanagement of DARE funds. From 1997 until 2012, Redman put all of the funds for the program into his private account(s) with no oversight and no records showing how the money was spent. According to figures obtained by RNM through a public records request, it appears nearly $100,000 could have simply disappeared.
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I love the pic but I wonder, did the missing Dare money pay for that 8000 calorie breakfast? This pic should be captioned, “There’s where the missing money went, suckas!”
If I had a warrant out for me, this article would be great news. Chow down copper, don’t come looking for me!