MORE ON ICE RAIDS

Editor:

I ask Mr. Castillo, and other taxpayers with a confused lack of
understanding, to please read my letter in the May 19 Daily News again.

Nowhere in my letter did I mention extra pay. Although with 100
officers, in one day, in our small locale, I'm sure there was some
extra pay, commonly known as overtime, somewhere. If not, there were
100 places in our state that were not getting their normal police
protection that day.

Extra is not the issue. There was a very large sum of taxpayer dollars
spent on Operation Black Ice with very little to show for it.
Arresting local dealers, each with less than $40.00, does not stop the
major illegal use of controlled substances.

Very few drugs were confiscated. Drugs are still out there, for sale,
somewhere by somebody.

I don't believe dealers should have the opportunity to sell drugs to
our kids but that kind of money should be spent at a higher level.
Either stopping the major suppliers before the drugs get to our
neighborhoods or in education for our kids so they don't become such
lucrative customers for the neighbor dealers. Drug dealers, big or
small, wouldn't be in business if there was not such a good market for
their product.

Nowhere in my letter did I make any comments that put down or
belittled the efforts of our law enforcement officers who do put their
lives in jeopardy for our safety and welfare.

The headline to my letter was put there by the newspaper. I have great
respect for our local law enforcement community.

Starting with the police and going up from there.

The decision to spend that much money on an operation that was big
enough to get a name, such as Black Ice, had to come from higher up
the chain of command. They may have had hopes of finding big time drug
dealers but that was not the end result.

What I do for the safety of our community is bring it to the attention
of taxpayers and our high paid officials that operations such as Black
Ice need to be looked at very carefully in relation to the overall
cost compared to possible poor end results.

David McBath, Red Bluff