SIUC Police Chief Sam Jordan is following a trail of paperwork to determine the validity and circumstances of an allegation made by a Carbondale resident who claims she found SIUC crime reports lying on a table at the SIUC and Carbondale Police auction last month.

“They were lying with all the other items at the auction for people to look at,” Georgiana Hoffmann said. “I decided it would be best to take them somewhere where someone would be forced to take responsibility for them.”

Hoffmann took the documents them to the Carbondale Police Department because she said that she hoped someone there would be more responsible.

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“[Hoffmann] dropped them off, and we contacted [the SIUC Police Department]. I don’t know who picked them up from there,” said Carbondale Community Resource Officer Jeff Vaughn.

Jordan said that he is doing everything that he can to find out what exactly happened and who is responsible.

“It is difficult for me to deal with a situation when I don’t know all the facts,” Jordan said.

Jordan said that he is unsure what documents Hoffmann was talking about, and until he can get that information, he cannot find out who was responsible for them and what reasons there would be for the papers to be in the auction.

“We may have some idea of who’s responsible based upon the location that the letter says, but we’ve got to verify this and find out who’s doing what and why did that person have those particular documents with them at the time,” Jordan said.

The SIUC Police Department will investigate the situation.

“If it did happen, it shouldn’t have,” said Dr. James Tweedy, vice chancellor of administration. Tweedy’s administrative duties include overseeing the operations of the department.

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The investigation began after a letter to the editor written by Hoffmann about the incident was published Jan. 13 in the Daily Egyptian.

“That’s the first that I was aware of what was going on as far as what the documents were what the allegations were in the letter,” Jordan said. “What we’re doing now is looking at it and trying to find out what exactly did happen and what this person is talking about.”

In her letter, Hoffmann said that among the documents were detailed descriptions of recent crimes, including a sexual assault, along with names, addresses and statements of victims, assailants and witnesses.

Jordan said that while the police try to file and secure these kinds of documents, that is not always possible because of Freedom of Information Act discovery motions.

“To say that they’re totally confidential is probably an error because there are ways to obtain police reports, but they have to be done through a certain process,” Jordan said.

The Freedom of Information Act allows any citizen or any foreign national resident in the United States to request any documents, papers, reports and letters from all Cabinet agencies, independent agencies, regulatory commissions and government-owned corporations.

A discovery motion is an option that lawyers have to request more evidence and information before a trial.

Campus police departments have been under fire since the passage of the Student Right-To-Know and Campus Security Act in 1990. That act required each federally funded college and university to compile, publish and distribute annual campus crime statistics.

SIUC does not have a problem with crime reporting, but more recently, colleges and universities across the country have been accused of not being accurate with their reporting of crimes. The Accuracy in Campus Crime Reporting Act is a proposed bill that plans to eliminate any inaccuracy with the reporting that was made mandatory in 1990.

With regards to any alleged inaccuracy in crime reporting, Jordan does not feel that this plays any part in this occurrence.

“Those reports are such that we have to file our reports through the State Police. We give them our information, and then they in turn file it with the FBI. We also have to report that to the Police Department and Campus Crime Reporting Act, so we file our statistics and information there, which is available to the public. That is not what I see here as being compromised,” he said.

Jordan said that he cannot speculate on what will happen to whoever is responsible, or how the department will be affected, until he knows more about the circumstances surrounding the situation.

“I think that we would be concerned more so with trying to find out what the facts are, and then from there I’ll know what my concerns are in relation,” Jordan said.