Just bustin' bad guys? WTF?!? They have already proven that they were guilty? Hell, may as well kill them right there in the fucking street!

That is why I never vote to increase the funding of police. Until the police start to learn what their fucking jobs are. People are innocent until proven guilty in court you fuck heads!!!

I assume those are dates of birth and... names of suspects?

The obscuring in the photo is pretty minimal.  I can make out some letters, enough that an entire name could be recognizable to a friend of the named.  Is there a potential obstruction issue here?

So, guess I'll be first. Why did you take a picture of the notepad?

hm. I wonder what the probable cause was. Jonah, any follow up would be cool, so we can, you know, avoid this type of thing, if ya nomesayne.

kinda boring, jonah.

a tobacco can, not a coffee can.

Remember when Kerlikowske had his gun stolen in 2005? These guys are geniuses, top to bottom!

now I HAVE to look up incident number 08230706 to see what happened to the people born on 12-23-1984 and 9-7-1984.

Cato @1, way to overreact to a casual comment.  But to humor your objection for fun's sake...

Do you expect police to somehow remain agnostic to all suspects' guilt, regardless of what they see?  I'd think we'd want police to be observant and engaged enough to have a confident opinion of a suspect's guilt before making an arrest.  (It's a big step from a cop calling you a bad guy to being convicted at trial, as it should be.)

The other interpretation I see is that you're suggesting we should eliminate probable cause requirements and have cops conducting searches and arrests without worrying whether there's an actual crime.  Lock 'em up and let the prosecutors figure it out?

drug dealers are performing an important community service. "bad guys" my ass.

Um, if there was in fact no "bad guy" on the scene, it looks and sounds more like they were simply rifling though somebody's car in search of contraband; which clearly they found. So, presumably it was in plain view, which I suppose would be sufficient to establish probable cause.

But still, not really "bustin' teh bad guys" unless an actual arrest results.

Just because the police determine you are bad does not mean they have found you guilty. Guilt is for the courts, but any honest man can know if you are bad. Some guys are just bad. Bad to the bone. They do get busted for it, and so they should.

And a bust is not an arrest.

So what?

So ... how did this help you in your job?

What IS your job, anyway?

I thought Cindy McCain was way older than 24.

@14

I think that he's inferring he rifled through it to get leads.

More crack reporting on the 2 block radius around the Stranger office!

Notebook - notebook!?! I thought for sure you'd find the bag of weed on your roof.

# 10 wins

close 2nd for #18, tho...

So the moral of the story is:

If some smarmy STRANGER reporter asks you to move your car so he can get out, tell him to get fucked, you'll move when you're finished.

Because gods forbid that you go out of your way to minimize the impact of police work on a citizen, and then make a mistake. Why, you might move your car for someone and set your notebook down, and then be mocked for your obliging attitude.

So, asshole, why WERE you parked next to a dope dealer, eh?

Jonah you really pussed out here man. Why did you blur out what you had? That's public record and I don't care what Seattle PD says about it. You got access and that, there, makes it public immediately. Though the names of suspects and DOB are public anyway. Cops are idiots and don't respect the public's right to know.

If The Stranger is going to cast itself as the best paper in town (or, the only) it needs to stand up for the public ... and you didn't do that here.

By the way, Jonah, I can tell the reason why you did this is because, though you work for the hardcore and hip Stranger, you were concerned that if you published the actual notepad that SPD wouldn't be willing to speak with you anymore.

Which is a crock of shit, because they have no right to close you out. If they did, that'd make your stories that more interesting.

Journalists need to not be pussies. That's very important.

This whole "fuck the cops" thing is blisteringly adolescent. All you armchair anarchists should try living in Sao Paolo for a few months, if you're so convinced you don't need an effective police force.

@22, @23
What about respecting the privacy rights of the people whose names SPD wrote on the pad. Do they want Jonah to broadcast their names for no reason other than a cop wrote it down?

wow! congrats on 'reporting' 2 blocks away from the Stranger hipster honeycomb hideout!

Up next: reporting from BROADWAY!!!!!!!!