Beyond No Comment: Speaking with the Press as a Police Officer

There are good ways of handling the press and bad ways of handling the press. Even the professionals sometimes make mistakes and sometimes those directly influence the cases they're talking about.

Solid, practical advice about dealing with the media for the law enforcement professional. How to handle taking questions from the press, when to enlist their aid in searching for information, how to focus your message to advance your case. Illustrative examples from mainstream media cases to show how law enforcement correctly handled and mishandled the flow of information that helped make and break the cases.

The purpose of this book is to provide guidelines and act as a handbook on law enforcement dealings with the media.  The need for good police-media relations is stressed.  The book discusses plans on how to go about building positive associations with the media, along with what can and can not be shared in the media.  Different schools of thoughts as to what should and should not be shared with the media are explored.  Extensive case studies will be examined.

Patrick Morley is a prosecutor for the Cook County State's Attorney’s Office, where he is assigned to the Cold Case Homicide Unit. He has been a prosecutor since 2000, and has worked in the Complex Narcotics Litigation Unit, Narcotics Special Prosecutions, Felony Trial Division, Homicide/Sex Unit, and Felony Review. He was a Chicago police officer and sergeant for 7 years (1993–2000). He is an adjunct instructor for Northwestern University’s Center for Public Safety, and teaches for their School of Police Staff and Command. He has also been an adjunct instructor at Kaplan University since 2005. He is an instructor for North-East Multi-Regional Training, where has also taught over 200 seminars to Chicago area police officers, on search and seizure, criminal law, and other legal issues. He was an adjunct instructor at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), from 2000–2008, teaching Criminal Investigations and Criminal Law. He has also taught criminal justice related classes at Loyola University Chicago, Harold Washington College, Calumet College, and at the Chicago Police Academy. He is the author of the textbook, Report Writing for Criminal Justice Professionals: Learn to Write and Interpret Police Reports, (Kaplan Publishing, 2008).