BAD IMAGERY

The local news anchor delivered the story with the same sing-song
cheer he might use with a report on a church bake sale: A valley high
school was shown getting a locker-by-locker once-over by a K-9 cop and
his drug-sniffing dog. The anchorman, like the school officials who
arranged the search, clearly considered it a thoughtful, positive
action by a concerned and caring government. I disagree.

First, the search was an obvious violation of our U.S. Constitution.
The cops and the principal stated no suspicion of any student doing or
possessing anything illegal.

More importantly, the imagery was all bad. When I see a man in uniform
with a dog, I can't help but think of Hitler's henchmen and their
snarling German shepherd pals unloading doomed Jews from rail cars at
Auschwitz, or Police Chief "Bull" Conner's redneck goons loosing their
hounds on the blacks of Birmingham.

Nothing, save maybe tanks in Tienanmen Square, says "police state"
quite like a police dog. I hate that our children have to see that.

Oh, and detectives Copper and Fido found ... nothing. Not one crack
rock, not one pot bud, not one Limbaugh Lozenge. So the exercise in
civil rights-stomping served only to teach law-abiding kids that the
adults who run their world don't trust them.

Cliff Craig,

Huntsville