It’s been more than seven weeks since a tragic incident where Bowling Green police Officer Matt Davis was shot July 6 after responding to a call at a car dealership off Russellville Road.

The Kentucky State Police was handed the investigation at that time, and since has erected a wall of silence.

We of course understand that an investigation must be thorough and not rushed, and there are certain details that cannot, and should not, be revealed until the investigation is complete. But the KSP’s refusal to even acknowledge basic questions is troubling.

The Daily News has reached out to the KSP no less than nine times via phone calls and emails to ask basic questions in the public interest, without even a cursory response.

The state agency released a brief statement July 6, acknowledging it was investigating the shooting and a male subject “was pronounced deceased.”

The statement does not even explain whether the deceased subject was the one who shot officer Davis or was an innocent bystander. Basic questions that could not jeopardize the investigation remain unanswered.

Unfortunately, the KSP has a history of improperly withholding information from the public.

In 2018, the Attorney General’s office found KSP violated state public records laws by withholding information from the Louisville Courier-Journal; a similar ruling was handed down in 2021 regarding records related to a cold case in Madisonville.

In 2019, a Franklin Circuit Court judge ruled that KSP “willfully withheld” public records from radio station WDRB and ordered it to pay the station $11,500 of taxpayer money in attorneys’ fees and penalties.

A 2020 study from the National Freedom of Information Coalition reported that the KSP was the most frequent violator of the state’s public information laws.

A police officer was shot in broad daylight on a busy Bowling Green street and another person was killed in the same incident, and in the absence of any information from the KSP, we are left with rumors and unanswered questions.

The community deserves better from its public servants.

-Bowling Green Daily News