PLENTY OF BLAME TO SPREAD

Columnist Bill Johnson and a News editorial have made Denver police officer
Joseph Bini the scapegoat for the death of Ismael Mena. I'm not sure if all
this vitriol is justified. There seems to be a lot of blame to be spread
around.

No. 1 is that no-knock raids are a direct usurption of the Fourth
Amendment. There were numerous unchallenged agreements to conduct this
raid. There was no Neighborhood Watch-type program to alert the police of
drug activities. Ismael Mena was an illegal immigrant who escaped scrutiny
by INS after being contacted earlier by Denver police. And all of this was
initiated by the rights-thieving failure known as the "war on drugs."

Yes, Bini is responsible for a part of this tragic fiasco, but let's not
oversimplify the solution by attaching him with all the blame.

Richard Parks

Denver