Shhh! There's a drug sweep going on!

Early Wednesday morning I posted to the Bennington Banner's Facebook page, “Operation County Strike 2 is underway.”

I did this from the back of a police cruiser as the two cops I was with were driving around looking for a suspect. Later I wrote an article giving a full account of my day, but a few minutes after making the Facebook post I noticed someone posted the comment, “Now why would you share this info?”

Following that, “Banner you guys must look at the walls in your office and say, " let's post about the drug sweap,(sic) yeah that's a good idea". Do you ever stop and think?” And following that, from the same person, “And at what point was this post a good idea to display for the drug dealers?”

People have to be forgiven for not knowing how drug sweeps work. I for one knew nothing about them until January when I saw the first Operation County Strike. The Banner kept people up-to-date via Facebook then, too, and over 40 people of the 63 police had on their list were arrested that day. The remainders were picked up later or were already in jail. A handful had left the state beforehand.

Police arrested all 16 of the people they were expecting to arrest on Wednesday, despite the Banner's Facebook updates. In fact, Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette told me a few people turned themselves in who weren't even on the list. The same thing happened in January.

When the cops were going down Pleasant Street asking people if they had seen so-and-so, I had the feeling a lot of text messages were being sent after the police moved on. I'd be willing to bet there had been a great deal of texting once the sweep started, before we posted anything. Give those in the drug trade some credit.

The misconception is that these sweeps are some sort of stealth operation. The fact that police let the media know they're doing them tells me that they're not being viewed that way, and the fact they're arresting the people they're targeting likewise tells me they don't need to be. It could be because the police know who these people are, roughly where to find them, and have gathered all the evidence they feel they need. For at least one suspect, they called the person on their cell phone and basically made an appointment for her to come and be arrested.

Of course, one thing I didn't do was Tweet or post to Facebook where we were, where we were headed, and who the police were after at that moment.

I noticed the same reaction to the DUI checkpoint coverage over the weekend. DUI checkpoints are even less sneaky than drug sweeps. The law requires police to inform the public when they'll be conducted, and the flashing blue lights mean they can be seen from space, so they're not hard to avoid if you're so inclined.

Remote coverage and why search warrants are news.

On Tuesday, I heard federal agents were at Joe Tornabene's Auto Sales & Service in Pownal. How the story played out for the next few days would remind me how nice it is to be within walking distance of the court I usually cover, and how important it is to mind the weather.

I drove down to Pownal to see what was going on, expecting to learn little given how federal agents are. I found them to be quite pleasant, actually. They told me they were from the U.S. Treasury and gave me the phone number for their public information officer (PIO) in Boston.

While I was out of the office, the PIO returned my call and gave the Banner a statement saying that Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents were at Tornabene's in the course of their official duties and they had authorization to do whatever they were doing there by a court.

Not a lot of information, but any time federal agents enter a private business and look through records, it's news. If you feel the IRS should be able to do that with no one watching, I disagree and I'm sorry for you.

Later, I spoke to the PIO directly and she told me which court authorized it. Whatever “it” was.

It was the United State's District Court District of Vermont.

That court has two offices, one in Rutland and the other in Burlington. You can access case files through a web service called Pacer, but only things that have been filed and are public show up.

After the Banner's last experience with search warrants, we came under the impression that a search warrant is public after it's been executed. So, I called the court office to see what I could get.

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. That could mean it doesn't exist, isn't showing up in the system, or for some reason unknown to me isn't public.

The people I spoke to were friendly and helpful, but anytime I've had to call a court or state's attorney's office outside of Bennington, I've felt like it's been more difficult. It's nice to be able to see the person you're asking information from. I feel like they'll go the extra mile for you if they're familiar with you.

Now, the trouble with court being so close to my office is I get a little too brave with the weather. Yesterday the forecast was for severe thunderstorms, and given the weatherman's track record in Bennington I looked at the sky, said “lol whatev,” then took a walk.

Bad move. While I was there the rain stopped fooling around. Our newest reporter, Khynna Kuprian, was kind enough to come give me a ride back, and while we were at court I showed her how to get information from the clerks in the event I'm off or on vacation. The public terminal uses a DOS-like operating system which can baffle the uninitiated.

The Vermont Supreme Court and the Vermont Environmental Court are the other courts the Banner has to follow remotely. They post their decisions online, and the attorneys in question are usually local, but again I feel like it would be better if I could walk in and talk to somebody. Then again, never having been there, maybe it's not so easy.

Changing beats?

With the newsroom losing two reporters in the last month or so, I'm firmly set in “wait and see” mode when it comes to covering courts. I've taken over the Bennington town beat, and until new people get hired I'm doing what I can to cover what I can.

I'm not complaining. For me, the challenging part of the job has always been finding things to write about, so having many beats to cover isn't so bad. What I'm waiting to see is whether or not I can cover both the town and the court and do both justice.

I was told that the town and court beats were once covered by the same person. It makes sense, as stories often overlap. Many times the former Bennington reporter, Neal Goswami, would be following a Bennington story until it went to court where I would pick it up. Most times it's best to have one reporter on a story, but it worked well enough.

The trouble with court is “court time.” One might think a place with a daily schedule of events would be predictable and easy to cover. Just drop in when something interesting is scheduled to happen, talk to who's scheduled to be there, and leave.

Nope.

You have to respect the court clerks and sheriff's deputies who make the place run as well as it does. They're short-staffed, and they manage a lot of people who, because of the situations being dealt with, are low on patience. I've always found the court staff to be as helpful as they can be, but I'm not the highest thing on their list of priorities.

And that means getting the information I need from court often takes a lot of time. Even if I'm covering a hearing where I have the background information and don't need paperwork, that hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. might not happen until 3 p.m., or even 4 p.m. A few times I've waited a few hours for a court hearing only to have it canceled. Stories can fall through on any beat, but most times you know that fairly early and can adjust.

I enjoy covering courts and hope to continue to do it, but if I have to pick between beats, I may lean on the side of change.

Which means I'll have to come up with another blog...I started this court blog with the notion of explaining court things that I couldn't fit into articles. Years ago I tried to get a gardening blog going, but didn't get much support for it (I wonder why?). For me, the trick for reporters and blogging is keeping some sort of distance between you and what you cover. A court blog was fine, because there's a lot that goes into how courts are covered that doesn't have a lot to do directly with the articles themselves.

I cover fish and wildlife, too, but I haven't been hunting in years. There's blog fodder for you, maybe even a series. Who said it was hard finding stuff to write about?