In his Oct. 28 Viewpoints letter, "Grand jury used the facts," the
Houston Police Officers' Union president, Hans Marticiuc, accuses the
public of not using their heads. His boys storm Pedro Oregon Navarro's
home, clearly ready to shoot the man because of some rumored activity
told to them by an informant, and Marticiuc is worried about others
being carried away by their emotions.

Officer Marticiuc stands for a principle which is becoming absolute in
law enforcement: never admit you were wrong.

The macho code of refusal to back down, even from the most hideous
miscalculation infects everyone from the U.S. attorney general on
down, and is the consequence of decades of propaganda defining police
work as a war against internal enemies.

In a free society, law enforcement is not war. Its purpose is the
protection of the citizen, not the conquest of the population.

The aim should be wherever possible to reduce violence, not
automatically to exercise overwhelming force. Where the lines are so
sharply drawn, it is little wonder courageous juries are hard to find
willing to find for the "other side."

In any case, condemning the officers involved misses the point. Some
may be thugs attracted by the seek-and-destroy mindset of the war on
drugs and some may be brave men thrown into a desperate situation made
worse by bad policy, but atrocities like this will be inevitable until
voters ask politicians to defend their rights rather than posing in
front of slamming prison doors.

James M. Grace,
Houston