Don’t Surrender the Pier to Gangs

* It will be ironic if the rest of us are shut out of the Newport Pier as the youth gangs roam free on our streets. There are already very few facilities where a young person can go after dark, and closing up the pier will potentially foster more mischief elsewhere.

Certainly, our city can keep a manned patrol car or substation at the pier entry around the clock to maintain order instead of shutting down the pier at night. We should also be awakened by the fact that a 13-year-old killing people randomly in cold blood is far more dangerous than a 30-year-old that killed for love or money.

It is time our society and lawmakers discard the naive notion that those murderers and criminals under the age of 18 are somehow less responsible for their crimes, no matter how heinous. There is no reason to wipe these young monsters’ slates clean at age 18 simply because their crimes were committed at a younger age. We, the people, deserve nothing less than the truth and the right to walk our streets without fear of getting hit by a bullet.

JOHN T. CHIU

Corona del Mar