Even this morning as I awoke, I heard the text message alert on my phone. Still shaking the sleep from my mind I looked at the message, which read, “ … How do I need to go about getting my confidential business off (your) site.”

Here we ago again, I said to myself, perhaps out loud, as this is about the third time in a week someone has posted, messaged or called saying the crimes they or someone else committed are essentially not matters of public record and are private matters.

When I think of private matters I think of investments, I think of vacations, I think of the person you are with, your religious preferences, the things you eat, the movies you see.

I think back to a time when I did something that was in the police blotter, something I believe goes back to my former spotty driving record. The person doing the blotter at the time asked me, as I was early in the newspaper game, if I wanted it out. I emphatically said no.

I didn't go on a rant about how that was my private business because it wasn't. I sucked it up and moved on.

Crime is a very public matter. It hurts other people, hurts businesses, damages property and could endanger lives.

Now people committing crimes or friends of people committing crimes brush it away like a pesky fly, as we've seen those misguided souls in the police corruption stories crying free them and seen other comments like they're good people, such and such and what's his name would never do something like that.

I've been in their shoes, shoved a big old stack of baskets while working a summer job loading trucks in a guy's face because at the time a family member was being accused of flying in drugs.

It turned out to be an empty investigation with no hard evidence, but the guy rode me so hard I fought back. Had this family member been charged, arrested and ultimately found guilty, I suppose it would have meant another fight or the general acceptance of the truth.

The comment posted to the website on a particular story went like this: “I mean really like ... You have no life too sit n update every story n put people business out.!”

I gave a rather long reply ending with how the folks written about in this story could have endangered innocent lives by their actions.

The response was such I could only throw my hands in the air: “They are grown and are gonna do what they choose too do regardless if u write a story or update or not.”

Yep, society today, it's just gone crazy, give those who commit the crimes the soft, cuddly hugs, the attaboys and praise under the guise it's no one's business what they do, it's a private and confidential matter that's no one's concern, except wasn't there victims or multiple victims involved?

Then there was the call last week from some dude so irate he made me irate. His family was being threatened because he committed a crime with some fellow with a long rap sheet.

I asked him why he was in the company of this dude with the long rap sheet and he said it was none of my business.

As I wrote on my Facebook page, which has become the seed for this column, I simply said, “Thoughts after a desperate phone call: The criminal has no regard, no mercy for the victim when planning and carrying out the crime. As soon as they're caught and the information is published they blame others, pull the sympathy card and beg for their story or photo to come down. I have no regard or mercy for them unless there's a compelling reason.”

There have been few compelling reasons and I will contend the actions of the criminal are a matter of public interest, not because of the titillation factor, but from a public safety standpoint and personal protection perspective. It is a matter that should not be tolerated, minimized or brushed off whether it's murder or mischief. That's the way I see it from my perch in the catbird seat — Lance Martin