It started with an anonymous note.
An e-mail from a fictitious address let me know on March 27 that North Bend Mayor Ken G. Hearing had been arrested. It didn’t take long to confirm that an arrest on suspicion of domestic violence had indeed happened. And it didn’t take much longer for the story to break.
I’ve covered mayors when they’ve gotten in trouble before. But a domestic violence case involving a public official was something new.
After consulting with some of my professional colleagues, it was clear to me that basic guidelines hadn’t changed. We wanted the facts. We wanted the police report. And we wanted to see if the mayor had been officially charged with a crime.