Comments (2) Best Flak - 2010

Stephanie Slater,Public Information Officer, Boynton Beach Police

Reporters are a pushy lot, always demanding police reports and video, stipulating that these must arrive "before my deadline," an addendum that tends to sound like an ultimatum. And when the police departments' public information officers deliver those goods in a timely fashion, there's no guarantee that the reporter will produce a piece that's flattering to the department. The unflattering ones tend to get a spokesperson in trouble with his or her other constituency — the chief's office. Somehow, Stephanie Slater of the Boynton Beach Police Department manages to please both these masters. No one in local law enforcement is quicker to return a call or fire off a requested document. And Slater is adept at showcasing her department's investigative triumphs. When a SWAT team prepared to swarm the Platinum Showgirls strip club in Boynton, Slater made sure that television cameras could swoop in a moment later to watch the high-heeled beauties do a perp walk. Slater played a role in crafting one of the year's most memorable pieces of news footage, in which an officer informed Dalia Dippolito that someone had murdered her husband. The surgically enhanced gym bunny wailed ridiculously and collapsed in the officer's arms, only to be told in the moments to follow that the man she thought she hired to be a hit man was working for BBPD. Not long after, the video was available on YouTube and DVD, supplied by deadline.