Cleveland Heights redaction photo (use this one)

This is the Cleveland Heights police blotter, redacted by Deputy Chief Brad Sudyk on Wednesday while a reporter reviewed the information. The city denied access to the report after it was requested.

(Adam Ferrise, NEOMG)

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — Cleveland Heights police, who have a history of concealing crimes from residents, are trying to conceal the armed robbery of a high school student as he walked home from school this week.

As a Northeast Ohio Media Group reporter was examining the department's blotter Wednesday, Deputy Chief Brad Sudyk took the blotter and blacked out all information regarding the robbery. Sudyk then handed the blotter back to the reporter without explanation.

What the deputy chief did not know at the time was that the reporter already had written down some details.

Sgt. Ernest Williams, assigned to provide police reports to the reporter, later refused to provide the media group with a copy of the incident report, citing orders from Chief Jeffrey Robertson. Williams declined to say why the chief had issued the order.

The Ohio Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that incidents reports are to be made immediately available to the public.

The reporter waited four hours to question Robertson about his order, but the chief did not emerge from his office.

The reporter later called the victim's home and spoke with his mother, who explained what happened to her son. The media group is not releasing the victim's name.

The mother said her 16-year-old son was walking home from school with several friends about 4 p.m. Tuesday when a man approached him on Washington Boulevard and Thayne Road.

The man walked up to the group, pointed a gun at the boy, cocked the weapon and demanded the boy's iPhone and cash, which the boy gave up, the mother said. No one was injured.

Cleveland Heights police have a history of concealing crimes from their taxpayers and others. A

revealed Cleveland Heights police had labeled sex crimes as "departmental information" or "miscellaneous reports."

The distinction allowed the city to report 26 sex crimes between 2008 and 2010. But the newspaper investigation revealed the city actually had 88 cases reported during that time.

Robertson at the time defended the practice, saying news of a sexual assault can have a jarring effect on a community. But he denied that officers intended to make the city seem safer than it is.

"I want every rape reported," Robertson said at the time. "I want to know what's going on out there. But take into consideration that in some of those cases probably it's hard to put it out there as a sexual assault. And 'Mrs. Smith' will say, 'Wow, there was a sexual assault on Such-and-such Boulevard,' or whatever. When you take it all in, 'sexual assault' are tough words."

In the most recent case, the department tried to conceal the armed robbery two days after the chief had inquired about a request by Northeast Ohio Media Group for records detailing aggravated robberies in the city in 2013.

The city has had 46 aggravated robberies this year, according to Robertson, including the report that was hidden from the public.