Cop shooting anything but a punch line
It was a story, our managing editor predicted, that would draw intense interest.
An off-duty police officer, Jennifer Marcellis, was shot in the arm by a woman she and her twin sister called a girlfriend. The attorney of the woman accused of the shooting characterized it as an accidental discharge of a gun. Jennifer and twin sister Janelle, both Glendale Heights police officers, were placed on leave while the shooting is investigated by the DuPage Major Crimes Task Force.
Legal affairs writer Christy Gutowski told the story in a straightforward manner, neither sensationalizing nor hiding the gay love triangle that seemed to have gone bad. But the story drew such nasty and mean-spirited online posts that we simply shut down the commenting on that story Thursday morning.
Too bad so many chose to make a punch line out of this. It was anything but a titillating tabloid story; it's a complex and serious story.
It did not come to us via a news release. In fact, we have yet to hear back from the police chiefs of Glendale Heights or Wayne, where the Marcellises live and the shooting occurred. So, Gutowski pieced the story together through court documents (the twins took out a restraining order against the shooting suspect, Maureen Manos, a few days after the shooting) and by using anonymous law enforcement sources to provide some key details.
Use of anonymous sources triggers a policy that requires approval of Editor John Lampinen or Managing Editor Madeleine Doubek. So I wrote them a note explaining that we couldn't get some of the key information from traditional sources. But in our ensuing discussions, they wanted to make sure we had done everything to be fair in a volatile story.
Concern No. 1: Publicly identifying a crime victim. We try to avoid identifying victims of random crime when the perps are still at large and could further harm the victim. Such wasn't the case here, though, as Manos and the officers clearly knew each other. Further, we try not to needlessly invade someone's privacy. But when police officers, who serve and protect the public, are placed on administrative leave and a shooting of an officer is being investigated, it becomes a matter of public interest.
Concern No. 2: By including all the details, are we unnecessarily "outing" these gay officers? I argued that by "protecting" the officers by fuzzing over the details - details that we might not blink at divulging if this were a heterosexual relationship gone bad - were we not ourselves falling into the trap of suggesting that a gay relationship is shameful? That may be true, but as Doubek pointed out, "We live in a society where many, many people disagree, and that forces cops, military officers and many others to guard their privacy."
And, in Gutowski's follow-up story that appears in today's editions, it is suggested by the attorney for the wounded officer that her sexual orientation may be the reason nothing more than a firearms charge is pending against Manos.
"Manos went to the Marcellis residence with the concealed firearm and intentionally shot Jennifer," attorney Laura L. Scarry said in a statement to the Daily Herald. "Her actions constituted aggravated battery or attempted murder; precisely which offense she committed should be decided by a jury. Nevertheless, the seriousness of the offense should never be lessened by the sexual orientation of the victim."
I don't think we've heard the last of this case.
• jdavis@dailyherald.com