JUDGE GETS BRICKS FOR COMMENT ABOUT EX-DEPUTIES

Here are your weekly bricks and bouquets, a regular feature of Monday's
Opinion Page.

It didn't take long for bricks to start flying after the story appeared
Friday about the former Davidson County deputies changing their pleas on a
number of federal drug-related charges. Readers were incensed by some of
the comments from U.S. District Judge William Osteen.

As the judge thought out loud about the sentences he will be handing down
on June 14, he said the law enforcement officers might have provided public
service during their careers that they should receive credit for in
sentencing. But, he added, any good they may have done may be offset by the
stigma they create for all law enforcement officers by being major drug
peddlers while serving as narcotics officers.

We'll let one angry reader speak for others. "I want three big bricks big
enough to cover Davidson, Forsyth and Guilford counties for the judge and
what he had to say. What can he be thinking when he says these criminals
who were supposed to enforce the law broke it and they might have done some
good public service in their careers? What does that say to those of us who
do public service and don't sell millions of dollars worth of drugs?"

Lexington Senior High School's girls basketball team received some bouquets
"for an outstanding regular season and getting further than the boys did in
the playoffs."

And WLXN received a related bouquet from another reader "for broadcasting
numerous Lexington girls' basketball games. This is the first year they've
broadcast entire girls' games."

Several readers tossed bricks at Robert Joyce, Forsyth County's
undersheriff, for his letter to the editor about Davidson County
Commissioner Billy Joe Kepley. One reader writes, "I do not know either Mr.
Kepley or his son, but I do know the letter was in poor taste. His comments
were unprofessional and unethical." Another reader sends "a few buffalo
chips" via FedEx for Joyce and reminds that Forsyth Sheriff Ron Barker
hired his son as a deputy, just as Sheriff Gerald Hege has done. Barker's
son shot himself and blamed Hispanics.

(Please read the letter from County Commissioner Fred McClure below, which
expresses the opinion lots of us have about Joyce's letter.)

Please mail your suggestions to Bricks and Bouquets, The Dispatch, P.O. Box
908, Lexington, N.C. 27293; fax them to 249-0712; or e-mail them to
letters@the-dispatch.com.