APPLAUD POLICE

I cannot help getting agitated observing the reaction the Plano Police
Department is getting from the people of Plano after the busting of a
number of people involved in the drug-dealing business in Plano including
several high school students.

I observed how many people showed their concern when high school students
in Plano started to die of drug overdoses. Despite all the public warnings
and all the media exposure of the problem, drug abuse claimed the lives of
several other students in Plano. That is why I am astonished observing that
now, when the Plano Police Department busted all those delinquents who were
in the drug business, the parents bailed out those students in a matter of
a few hours and now are pointing their finger at the Plano Police
Department for ruining the lives of those "innocent children who were
already on the way to recovery and whose lives were changed by the awful
actions of the Plano Police Department."

To those parents I would like to say the following: "Stop protecting the
criminals." That is exactly what those high school students involved in
drugs are, criminals; they were bringing drugs into the schools, they were
doing something wrong and they knew it, and they were putting the lives of
other students at risk. They should be treated as criminals and be given
consequences.

We should applaud the actions of the Plano Police Department which for sure
saved the lives of many kids in Plano and many other places and we should
be backing up those who are taking strong actions against those who break
the law.

TONY ROTEL, Carrollton

We - not they - are to blame

Re: "Drug suspect says he was entrapped," March 24. Jonathan Kollman, 17,
arrested in a drug sting, said, "I was trapped." His mother Angela Kollman
said, "We feel like the Plano Police Department was our son's drug
supplier." And she went on to say, "We're proud to live in Plano. It's a
great city, they've got a drug problem. They need to clean it up" [my
emphasis].

Plano is not the problem. Parents in Plano such as Victor and Angela
Kollman, who did not monitor their son's activities and allowed him to
become an addict at age 14, are the problem. The blame falls on us parents.
All children are born innocent and are taught bad things either by
commission or omission.

The police of Plano cannot keep kids from being addicts; but can and must
do all that is legal and proper to stop the drug traffic, even to arresting
a minister's and teacher's 17-year-old son.

DEAN BAILEY, Mesquite