How Salina’s Access to Critical Public Information Quietly Disappeared — and Rumor Took Its Place
By Tim Unruh
On the Friday night of Labor Day weekend — August 29 — a 14-year-old girl stabbed a 17-year-old boy at Indian Rock Park, one of Salina’s longtime teenage gathering spots.
For the next five days, the Salina Police Department didn’t confirm it had happened — not to residents, not even to local reporters who asked.
This particular incident was isolated, between two teenagers, and it posed no continuing threat. But parents, neighbors, and the broader community had no way to know that. They had no information at all.
And that raised a more troubling question: What if it hadn’t been isolated? What if witnesses had seen something that could have helped police?
Without timely information, a community can’t protect itself, can’t be alert, and can’t help solve problems. What happened at Indian Rock was more than a crime between kids — it exposed a system that has quietly stopped telling Salinans what’s happening in their own town. And when official silence becomes routine, social-media rumors rush to fill the void.
The Silence and the Parents
“I think it’s both appalling and disturbing,” said Melanie Britegam, a longtime Salina resident who raised three children here and now has a 10-year-old grandson.
“He’s soon to be one of the teenagers out in the community. This makes me wonder what else they are hiding, what other dangers my grandson might be exposed to,” she said. “We need to know what’s happening in the community so we know how to protect our children.”
The Teacher’s View
Lack of transparency also worries Darrin Stineman, a journalism teacher at Salina Central High School and former reporter who once covered law enforcement in Garden City and Salina.
“In both places, the police departments and sheriff’s offices were great about having daily briefings on notable occurrences from the previous day — even on weekends,” he said.
Suppressing news, he added, is harmful.
“Sitting on information for long periods of time does a big disservice to the public,” he said. “(People) have a right to know what is going on in their community on a daily basis. I don’t know that there would ever be a legitimate justification for waiting long periods of time to release information.”
If Stineman were the father of a Salina teenager today, he said, he would want to know about incidents like the one at Indian Rock Park.
“I think that definitely would add to the urgency as far as the need to know,” he said. “I would hope that at the very least, they had contacted the parents of the kids involved so that they were aware of everything that took place.”
He discusses current events — and the media’s role in covering them — with his students.
“We talk in class a lot about the importance of transparency in government,” he said. “If the police were withholding information for long periods of time, that would certainly be a good example of what we would hope not to see from governmental agencies which are supposed to be working in the public interest.”
A Community in the Dark
The community remained in the dark because the Salina Police Department didn’t confirm the Aug. 29 stabbing until Wednesday, Sept. 3 — 120 hours after it occurred.
“What else does the community not know?” asks Matt Moody, Co-Founder & CEO of Salina311.
The answer reveals a troubling erosion of transparency that has quietly transformed how — and whether — Salinans learn what’s happening in their own community.
The Five-Day Wait
Joshua Barnhart, co-founder and chief market officer of Salina311, first learned of the Indian Rock stabbing from a post on the Salina Police Scanner Facebook page late Friday night.
He called the police department Saturday morning. No information. A staff reporter for Salina311 texted Lt. Andrew Zeigler, a public information officer. No reply.
“They tell me they don’t release anything on weekends, because only the press guys could release that,” Barnhart said. “Shift lieutenants and shift supervisors wouldn’t talk to me. They straight-up say, ‘We’re not talking about it. You’ll have to talk to the police captain during the Tuesday press meeting.’ ”
Monday was Labor Day.
At Tuesday’s press briefing, police discussed a domestic disturbance involving damaged eyeglasses. No mention of the stabbing.
“We got that, instead of a stabbing at Indian Rock Park,” Moody said. “We ended up having to beg for it.”
When a staff reporter directly asked Capt. James Feldman about the stabbing, he said only that he would “look into it.” Information finally arrived Wednesday, delivered by Lt. Zeigler at the next media briefing.
By then, the incident was old news. More importantly, five days had passed when witnesses’ memories could have been fresh, when parents could have made informed decisions, when the community could have been alert. In that silence, Facebook groups and scanner feeds became Salina’s unofficial emergency network — a substitute for the public record that once came straight from the police desk.
For Comparison: A Different Standard
For comparison, Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan said his office typically releases basic information about serious incidents within hours, even on weekends — “unless it’s a serious event,” he said, “in which case information comes even faster.”
When Barnhart texted Soldan about an Oct. 17 fatal motorcycle crash near Brookville — on a weekend, while the sheriff was out of town — Soldan responded within hours with enough information to publish what little was known.
That responsiveness, once routine, now feels exceptional.
Salina residents receive instant alerts for weather warnings, Amber Alerts, and traffic accidents. The city can notify thousands about water main breaks or power outages within minutes. But a stabbing at a popular teen hangout took 120 hours to confirm.
And during that silence, the city’s information network didn’t stop — it shifted. In the absence of verified updates, Facebook pages and group texts filled the gap, circulating fragments of scanner chatter and speculation.
Ten years ago, according to multiple sources, the same police department would have confirmed such an incident within hours — often the same day. A stabbing, less than three miles from police headquarters, took five days to acknowledge.
What Changed: The Clipboard Era
“Ten years ago, when I worked for Salina Post, the police had a very open policy,” Barnhart said. “You walked up to the window in the Law Enforcement Center and they would hand you a clipboard with an itemized list of what the police did the day prior. You could stand there as long as you wanted and look over what happened, whether it was a speeding ticket or a wellness check. Everything was there.”
Gordon Fiedler, who covered Salina for the Journal from 1979 to 2014, remembers it the same way.
“It used to be standard,” said Fiedler, now 76. “Back in the day, we used to pretty much have the run of the place. We could see the entire incident reports — some details were blacked out.”
That clipboard — the police blotter — was defined by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Bulletin in 1969 as “a book or index which contains a permanent, chronological record of every official act that comes before the police officers in charge of the desk.”
The FBI’s guidance noted that where “mutual understanding between the press and the police” exists, “the police will normally be inclined to provide the press all the information possible.”
For decades, that mutual understanding defined Salina’s relationship between police and the press.
Carson Mansfield, who served 29 years with SPD and retired as chief in 2013, recalls that openness.
“We thought it was in the public interest to know what was going on in town. We had a rapport and mutual trust with the media,” he said. “One of the reasons we released information is because, in a void, rumors go wild, and it wasn’t to anybody’s advantage to have hysterics.”
Today, that void has a new occupant. Where reporters once stood at the counter flipping through the blotter, social media now stands in their place — a space where speculation spreads faster than fact.
The FOIA Era: Pay to Know
Today, those same incident reports — once open to any citizen — are available only through a Kansas Open Records Act request, which can take up to three business days to fulfill.
According to police officials, technology, COVID restrictions, and “going paperless” all contributed to the change. The digital system, they said, made redacting private details more complicated.
But the result is unmistakable: what was once free now carries both delay and cost.
When Barnhart asked about filing standing open-records requests for all public information, he was told it could cost up to $3,000 a month — $36,000 a year — for what used to be provided at no charge.
“The police department’s information is curated,” Barnhart said. “We’re not given the right to choose what available information should be shared. That’s now done by the officers who run police briefings.”
Max Kautsch, legal hotline attorney for the Kansas Press Association, said the practice violates the spirit, if not the letter, of Kansas law.
“Police departments are required under the Kansas Open Records Act, upon request, to produce blotter information, such as the date of the offense, type of offense, and location of the offense,” Kautsch said. Those records are expressly excluded from the “criminal investigation records” that can be withheld.
“The dissemination of which is crucial for keeping the public informed about community safety,” he added. “It is very doubtful that one-word explanations about incidents investigated by police comply with KORA’s requirement to be transparent.”
The three-day wait, while legal, eliminates the immediacy that once made local news locally relevant. By the time information arrives, witnesses have scattered, memories have dimmed, and the community’s ability to respond has passed. Barnhart acknowledged that some requests are fulfilled sooner — but most are not.
“Ninety-eight percent of that stuff isn’t worth looking into,” Barnhart said of what eventually arrives via FOIA. “There are no details given. There’s no way to tell what the other two percent is.”
In effect, the system meets the letter of the law while violating its spirit.
When Silence Has Consequences
The Indian Rock stabbing wasn’t an isolated example. Throughout 2024 and 2025, critical information about law enforcement reached Salinans late — or not at all — while rumor and misinformation filled the vacuum. And that vacuum, increasingly, is where many residents now get their first “news.”
The Officer Who Couldn’t Drive
On April 10 at 7:31 p.m., Officer Melissa Short-Eshleman was involved in an traffic accident in her patrol car at Crawford and Lewis while responding to an emergency.
Short-Eshleman was determined not to be at fault for the accident but she was not wearing a seatbelt. More significantly, she had been driving for 45 days with an expired license — it had lapsed in early February. The traffic citation issued to Short-Eshelman, by the Kansas Highway Patrol, following the collision has since been dismissed by the Saline County Attorney’s Office, which said the dismissal follows standard protocol for first-time offenses.
When Salina311 asked about department policies regarding officers driving without valid licenses, SPD replied that there was no police policy, though the city had one. Efforts to obtain that city policy were unsuccessful.
Was Eshleman disciplined? The department said the matter was a “personnel issue” that could not be shared.
As for insurance ramifications, Barnhart said he was told to ask the city or its insurer.
At an Oct. 28 meeting, Chief Wise said the expired license “was her responsibility” and acknowledged, “She missed the ball. We missed the ball, but now we got some safeguards in place.”
For context, Sheriff Roger Soldan and Doug Schroeder — director of programs at the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center and a former police chief with 20 years of experience — both said annual license checks are standard practice.
“I wouldn’t let them come back to work until they had a license,” Soldan said. “I would think as an officer, you’d be embarrassed by it.”
“You wouldn’t be pleased,” Schroeder said. “In most departments, a valid driver’s license is a condition for employment.”
The K-9 That Fell
On Sept. 18, 2024, police dog Officer Tyrann fell to his death from the top of Salina Regional Health Center’s parking garage during what was described as a recruitment photo shoot.
“Super vague, wasn't it?” Chief Wise admitted about the initial press release from the Salina Police Department. “We baked it down to the point where it probably caused more questions than anything.”
He said the department had tried to protect the hospital’s privacy by limiting what was shared.
The department denied reports that Tyrann had been placed on a ledge for photos. No photos from the shoot were released, no photographer named, no security footage made available.
The handler’s name became known only because he attended the dog’s funeral. Questions about discipline went unanswered.
Police dogs and their training cost between $14,000 and $23,000, according to industry estimates.
Beyond the financial loss, such incidents erode public confidence — and, in this case, fueled an online wave of speculation before police issued any detailed account.
The Panic at South High
On the morning of April 28, social media exploded with reports of an active shooter at Salina South High School.
“People were freaking out,” said one Salina resident who requested anonymity. “I got more information off Facebook than I did the news.”
Barnhart called dispatch seeking any information that could calm the panic. Dispatch wouldn’t confirm whether there was a firearm, whether anyone was shot, he said, or whether people should avoid South High.
“The only thing they would say was that the police were heading to South High,” Barnhart recalled.
Meanwhile, rumors escalated online: up to two active shooters, multiple casualties. Students at Salina Area Technical College weren’t allowed to leave. The school went into lockdown.
Parents flooded local Facebook groups with questions.
It turned out there was no gun on campus, he said. A student had heard what sounded like the chambering of a round in a restroom — it was someone squeezing a plastic water bottle.
“They could have de-escalated the situation by saying there was a report, and anyone going to South High should stay away,” Barnhart said. “The rumor mill was already going. I wanted to inject some calm into the situation.”
Chief Wise defended the police response but acknowledged the communication failure.
“We felt like we did a great job,” he said. “Up until now, we haven’t heard that we had not done a great job.”
Capt. Feldman added, “When we get a call like that, you guys [media] will be second because our main goal is to get to the school and protect those children.”
No one questions that priority and there were no questions about the quality of the response. From all accounts, it was exemplary. But basic information — that police were investigating a report of an incident, that there was no confirmed threat — could have been shared to establish what little was known and calm the panic already spreading on social media.
Instead, unverified posts multiplied online — reports of shooters, casualties, chaos. By the time police issued a statement, the false narrative had already taken hold.
In the absence of fact, the algorithms spoke louder than the authorities.
Other Gaps
On Sept. 6, Barnhart requested comment on an incident in the 1200 block of North Fourth Street involving “a vehicle with a lot of blood on it.” No response came.
On Sept. 29, an early-morning burglary at VFW Post 1432 resulted in thousands of dollars stolen. It wasn’t publicly reported until Sept. 30.
In each case, the pattern was the same: significant public-safety information delayed or withheld while the community remained uninformed — and online rumor stepped in to fill the silence.
The Cost of Silence
Saline County Attorney John Reynolds doesn’t mince words about the media–law enforcement relationship.
“I think it’s a necessary relationship, although I would think most cops would consider the media a pain in the ass to deal with,” he said. “Sometimes, the press tends to glorify or amplify what’s going on, and they’re trying to sell newspapers. If it’s treated responsibly on both sides, it’s nothing but beneficial.”
Reynolds acknowledges the gray areas — active investigations, jury pools, victims’ privacy. But he also sees the value in transparency.
“Trust is an issue in dealing with this kind of information,” he said.
Former Police Chief Mansfield put it more directly.
“In a void, rumors go wild,” he said. “We tried to bind the occurrence with some reality.”
That’s precisely what didn’t happen during the South High panic, when social media filled the information vacuum with escalating false reports of multiple shooters. And it’s what doesn’t happen when residents near a crime scene can’t help because they never know one existed.
A Pattern or an Outlier?
Gordon Fiedler, the longtime Salina Journal reporter, has watched Salina’s transparency evolve — or devolve — over decades.
When asked about the five-day delay in reporting the Indian Rock stabbing, his response was succinct: “There’s no excuse for that.”
But he also recognizes a broader trend.
“The hollowing out of the media is a real thing,” said Bryan Thompson, a former Salina radio reporter. “There’s hardly any staff anymore.”
Former Salina Journal reporter, Mike Strand, sees it similarly, noting that many public officials “aren’t used to getting even basic requests for information.”
“It might be easy and fun to blame them, but the fact is, the First Amendment and press freedom, religious freedom, the Second Amendment and so on, are like muscles,” Strand said. “If they’re not exercised, they get weak.”
The question for Salina — and for communities like it across Kansas and the country — is whether this erosion of transparency is inevitable, whether it’s acceptable, and what the consequences will be.
State Rep. Steven Howe, R-Salina, who represents the 71st District, is clear about the stakes.
“Freedom of the press is enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by our country’s founders,” he said. “Whether it is local, state, or federal, government institutions should welcome inquiry and support the right of the press. Citizens should have access to information from their government and their community.”
Howe said he knows of no efforts in the Kansas Legislature to reduce press freedoms. In fact, recent changes to the Kansas Open Records Act have favored transparency, Kautsch wrote including a 2018 amendment requiring law enforcement to share body-camera footage with people whose images were captured.
The legal framework supports transparency. The question is whether institutions will honor it — and whether communities will demand it.
A Glimmer of Change
On Oct. 16, Salina311 formally raised its concerns with the police department. Twelve days later, Lt. Andrew Zeigler stood in a conference room distributing business cards with his cell phone number to reporters from Salina and Wichita.
“I truly appreciate each and every one of you being here; your candor,” Chief Wise told media members. “We want to build that relationship. It doesn’t have to be this big adversarial thing.”
The department made several commitments:
- Zeigler’s cell number would serve as a direct line to reporters, including on weekends.
- Watch commanders were empowered to make initial statements.
- Page ones of incident reports would again be made available.
- Response times would improve.
Early signs were promising. A Thursday morning request for photos that once might have taken days was fulfilled within hours. Officers seemed more willing to share basic information.
“If we can make it better, let's make it better,” Wise said at the meeting.
What’s at Stake
"This isn’t about reporters’ convenience or media access. It’s about whether a community can take appropriate actions when the only information is rumors spreading on Facebook; whether parents can make informed decisions; and whether government institutions operate in sunlight or shadow," said Moody.
Mansfield, the former police chief, understood this.
“We thought it was in the public interest to know what was going on in town,” he said. “I don’t know what they have now.”
For much of 2024 and into 2025, what Salina had was a system of silence and delay — a police department that waited five days to confirm a stabbing at a public park, and basic public-safety information locked behind requests and fees. In that void, the new public information ecosystem — social media — has risen not as a watchdog, but as a rumor mill.
Mayor Greg Lenkiewicz, a former Johnson County police officer who also briefly worked with the Salina PD, sees the media–law enforcement relationship as essential.
“I don’t want there to be a rift between the media and law enforcement, or between the city and media in any capacity,” he said. “We do need both sides to keep each other sharp. I think we both benefit from working together.”
The October reforms offer hope. But the real test lies ahead.
Will transparency survive when it’s inconvenient? When it’s a weekend? When the information isn’t flattering? Will Salina still have timely access to public-safety information six months from now, a year from now?
And beyond Salina, a bigger question looms — one that extends to communities across Kansas and America where local news has weakened or disappeared entirely:
“When no one is watching, when no one is asking questions, when there’s nobody to notice that five days have passed — the void doesn’t stay empty,” said Moody. “It's filled with noise and falsehoods.”
When the watchdog goes blind, the crowd starts barking. And the noise is never the same as the truth.