Probably right, they would go public with MY description and MY tag number immediately.
Anyway, the release of the tag number resulted not in the vigilante murder you talk about, but the arrest of the perps.
You talked in your earlier post about all of us being brainwashed into expecting protection from the police, but now you are saying that the police were right to hide the info about the perps for the sake of protecting some imagined third party from a mistake or the perps themselves from vigilantes.
I am not one of the tough-talkers that you have referred to as "you people," but I must say your position on this one is a little dissonant.
If a private citizen had this info and kept it secret, he would be guilty of abetment and be tried and convicted as an accessory(rightly so).
The cops stupidity cost several lives, and the spree was only ended by a LEAK. If they had their way, the snipers would still be out here. No law was broken and no rights were violated by releasing the tag number.
It wasn't "kept secret", it was broadcast within law enforcement but not
to the public.
Tell me, isn't it stupid to tell the one's your trying to catch, all that you know about them?