METH MAN DIDN'T NEED TO DIE

The Times-News tossed out a tantalizing morsel of cowboy logic last week,
but we're not snapping it up. The doggerel went like this: because Meth
Man's aggressive psychosis was self-induced through illegal drug-taking, it
was proper to subdue him with bullets to the belly. The Bostonian who dared
to come to Twin Falls and go berserk with a butter knife got exactly what
he deserved, the editors tell us.

Our sunny enjoyment of this piece of south Idaho justice is clouded only by
fear of a $5 million fine. The gut-torn tourist has found a lawyer without
a conscience and is suing the city, county, hospital and cop who shot him.
No matter. All should go well if we get a wise judge who chuckles and then
tosses the tort. But what if we don't get such a judge? It could be an
expensive piece of satisfaction, this gunning down of a drug addict.

Even if a court does not award the Meth Man his damages, somebody will have
to pay his hundreds of thousands in medical bills. We can bet he does not
have either the cash or the insurance to cover them and that, at the very
least, the taxpayers will be stuck with this.

While locals are hoping for the convenient legal judgment, Times-News
readers are hoping, I hope, that the editors would be more sympathetic to a
patient whose psychosis had more subtle causes. They would not argue, I
presume, that an ordinary schizophrenic who became violent should be shot.
Besides being expensive to tend to his wounds, it strikes many of us as
morally abhorrent, medieval.

Instead of celebrating the crude feeling of righteousness, they seem to
feel in this case of the blasted Bostonian, Times-News editors should be
calling for a review of the causes of this costly fiasco. Perhaps Canyon
View mental hospital needs to re-evaluate its admittance procedures and to
research newer methods of restraint. Perhaps our police need training in
crisis management without bullets. The Wild West days are over, and
editorial longings for justice at the end of a gun not withstanding, it is
time we moved into the modern reality. Even if you chaps at the newspaper
don't find it more humane, we'll all find it cheaper.

BRENDA LARSEN

Twin Falls