POLICE ARROGANCE

Your recent coverage of "Rachel's Law" legislation raises some
serious concerns about police conduct and the deference given to this
group of public employees. The primary focus of most police
departments is to "protect and serve" the public. Yet we now have
groups of police lobbying for their wishes over the rights and
protection of the very persons they are hired to defend.

There is something very perverse in this situation. The police in the
Rachel Hoffman affair used the same threats and intimidation
techniques that street thugs and drug pushers use to control their
victims and employees. They skirted the law with a wink and nod from
their superiors and prosecutors who are more interested in statistics
than the responsible performance of their jobs.

No police officer has the right to assume his interests are more
important than the life of a person who by the police's own admission
was not even charged with a crime. This cavalier attitude that
somehow police are above the citizens they are hired to protect has
far-reaching and damaging consequences.

Peter Altmeyer, Palm Harbor