When we identify suspects arrested for misdemeanors

Q: I see a Police Blotter item today about three men who were arrested near Pirate's Cove on sex and indecent exposure charges. Why were they not named?
_ Anonymous

A: The allegations for the suspects you read about relate to misdemeanor crimes. As a rule, we don't identify people arrested on suspicion of misdemeanors because we do not follow such cases to their conclusion in the courts. There are so misdemeanor arrests that we simply do not have the staff time to follow each case. If we named each person arrested on that level of crime, out of fairness we would need to report the case's outcome.
That said, sometimes new information comes to light that makes a misdemeanor more newsworthy, and leads us to identify a suspect.
In fact, we have this morning found out new information about one of the men who was arrested on Thursday, and we will be posting a news update on SanLuisObispo.com shortly.
_ Tad Weber