John Hult

jhult@argusleader.com

Sioux Falls police will no longer share with the public the addresses where criminal behavior takes place.

All crime locations will be noted only as occurring in one of 17 "district beats" within the city. If a business is burglarized, it will no longer be identified by name. If a homicide occurs in a victim’s home, the exact location of the home will be hidden.

The Sioux Falls Police Department is making the change in response to the Nov. 8 passage of Amendment S, commonly known as Marsy’s Law.

State law allows for the release of crime information to the public, but Police Chief Matt Burns said Amendment S overrides state law on public disclosure of crime information.

“Our job is to look at the new Marsy’s Law and where the conflicts are, because constitutional amendments trump state law,” Burns said.

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The constitutional amendment has a provision designed to prevent “the disclosure of information or records that could be used to locate or harass the victim or the victim’s family, or which could disclose confidential or privileged information about the victim, and to be notified of any request for such information or records.”

Changing to a system that identifies only the zone of a crime is meant to protect the privacy of crime victims and their families and to prevent lawsuits over unauthorized disclosure, Burns said.

Addresses of all criminal incidents involving victims will be stripped from both the public call logs and the media call logs used at the daily briefings.

The move comes less than a week after the South Dakota Department of Public Safety removed all state accident reports from its website and ceased the practice of releasing the names of fatal crash victims.

“I know that’s going to be unpopular, and I totally get it, but we have an obligation to uphold the law,” Burns said.

Even if a casino is burglarized, the location is protected, Burns said.

“The victim is the business,” Burns said. “Marsy’s Law does not distinguish between a corporate entity and an individual victim.”

The change has already led the state Department of Public Safety to pull accident reports from its website, and the agency no longer releases the names of those involved in fatal crashes.

Dave Bordewyk, head of the South Dakota Newspaper Association, called the move “a blow to the public’s right to know.”

“There are many questions right now about how Marsy’s Law affects what have been basic, essential public records for many years,” Bordewyk said. “Understandably, law enforcement and government are erring the side of caution right now. I hope we can find a proper balance that still upholds the public’s right to know."

Supporters of Marsy’s Law have said that such steps are an overreaction to Amendment S, and that precautionary removal of addresses goes beyond the Amendment’s intended scope.

Jason Glodt, the amendment’s sponsor, said the new amendment does not require the preemptive scrubbing of location information from the public record.

Victims are meant to “opt-in” to such protections,” Glodt said.

“Marsy’s Law does give victims the right to prevent information from being released that can be used to locate or harass them, but the victim has to take action to invoke their right to such privacy,” Glodt said. “For example, a victim could simply inform a law enforcement official that they have concerns for their safety and would like to invoke their right to keep their address confidential. Victims deserve to have the right to be protected from further harm.”