Editorial: District attorney should hold press conferences, not stage flat substitutes

There is a difference between being open to a free and transparent exchange of information and the pretense of being open. It might seem like a semantic argument — unless you have ever watched a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Being open is like a train tunnel. The pretense? That is the picture of a train tunnel that Wile E. Coyote paints on the side of a mountain, giving the illusion that things can come and go through it — until you try it and run into rocks.

On Tuesday, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala, Jr., announced that he would begin virtual briefings to the public.

“We think it’s best to communicate with you directly and provide you with all the facts and circumstances of cases that concern your safety,” he said.

The problem is that is flat. There is no depth. There is information — as long as the only information you want is what the DA thinks you should have. There is no urgency, with information provided on the DA’s schedule.

On Wednesday, the first of these briefings occurred with Zappala delivering a very scripted account of the case of the murder of De’Avry Thomas in May 2022. He took viewers through the crime with maps and video in the kind of narrative often given when an arrest is made.

But the responsible parties in this case, Markez Anger, 24, and Londell Falconer, 27, were convicted of first degree murder, conspiracy to commit homicide, attempted homicide and aggravated assault June 7. This “update” was closer to their Sept. 5 sentencing than when the verdict was delivered.

The video outlined a line of connections between the two men, the intended target of the shooting that killed Thomas in his car seat, the driver and others as Zappala described a gang war without using the word gang. He linked them to a string of other high-profile crimes like the bus stop attack that killed three, the subsequent retaliatory shooting at the funeral of one victim and the shooting of two teenagers in Sheraden on Thanksgiving.

That is important information and does give context to a brutal rash of gun crimes in 2022. But Zappala, who lost his Democratic primary election and is pinning re-election hopes on having won the Republican slot thanks to write-in votes, made vague political allusions as well. He made unnamed references to a council member, a state representative and “the city” as being unwilling to help make the area safer.

Do you want to know what he means? Do you want more information? You just slammed into the rock wall instead of the tunnel.

A virtual briefing is not an opportunity to ask questions. It isn’t a give and take. It depends on people accepting a modicum of information as the full story — which it won’t be. A press conference, on the other hand, doesn’t just accept the scripted statement. It challenges it by allowing reporters who have been following the issues to find holes and hold officials accountable.

“These are the stories of innocent people who have become victims throughout the criminal chaos threatening our way of life. … These are the stories of our community. These are the stories of our neighbors,” Zappala said in Tuesday’s video.

Telling stories is not the DA’s job. Enforcing the law is. Part of that is real transparency and openness. Zappala should stop painting cartoon tunnels.