WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS IS NOT WEST TEXAS

As a citizen of the Berkshire community I feel compelled to add my voice to
those of others who have written to The Eagle with reason, objectivity,
compassion, and no personal agenda regarding the arrest and probable long
term incarceration of the 19 or so young people "netted" in the now
infamous police roundup, on drug charges in a downtown parking lot in Great
Barrington and charged on an unfortunately drawn legal technicality, with a
serious crime.

This is a technicality, I may add, that is usually ignored in such cases in
the more enlightened parts of our country by more enlightened district
attorneys.

West Texas is of course an exception, and now, it seems, so is Western
Mass. There are also occasional attempts in Western Mississippi, I
understand, to burn nude art. I have no objection to the locking up and the
losing of the key of the two or three punks who have become violent with
other members of the community in the same location, but that is a separate
matter.

The matter at hand is of the kind in which hapless young people have, for
generations, congregated on Friday nights, drunk too many beers and done
stupid, hapless, things that the town elders have traditionally winked at.
How many of the Torquemadas now crying for blood never participated in such
adventures when they were in their teens or early 20s?

Al Piccin, Housatonic, April 27, 05