ONE MAN’S BATTLE

Steve Salerno’s “A Father’s Crusade” (Aug. 21) touched a deep chord in its reference to persons entrusted “to serve and protect” who have somehow betrayed their oath. After a 1980 kidnaping and murder in my family, I had to deal with various law-enforcement bureaucracies in San Diego County. Salerno’s report affirmed my experiences of unaccountability and even sloppiness in our institutions of law and order. In my case, efforts to affect procedural changes left me doubting my own sense of right and wrong.

When we suffer from a horrible tragedy, the re-victimization that often follows can be a wake-up call.

JAMES TALLEY

Santa Monica

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Men such as “The Monster” should not slip by us and only become known when the body is found. The battle against evil must go beyond legislation against the acts to the source of the acts themselves. The frontier of this battle involves each individual; and the battleground is the human soul. Small victories can be won by presenting truth where there are lies, and love where there is indifference. And by having the guts, like Sam Knott, to confront evil despite the indifference or criticism we may face.

KAREN BAILEY

Whittier

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Some unsettling questions about law-enforcement priorities and governance are raised by Sam Knott in his attempt to baby-proof the world. Like Candy Lightner’s trampling of search warrants in her march to end drunk driving, or the various ill-conceived “three strikes” bills following the Polly Klaas murder, Knott’s answers may be worse than the problems they purport to cure.

ROBERT MC MILLIN

Garden Grove

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Salerno states that Craig Alan Peyer was the only CHP officer ever convicted of committing first-degree murder while on duty. Another CHP officer, George Gwaltney, was charged in 1982 with murdering a 23-year-old woman on I-15 east of Barstow. Gwaltney’s first two trials in Superior Court in San Bernardino County ended in hung juries, but in 1984 he was convicted in U.S. District Court.

JOHN PATTON

Barstow

Officer Gwaltney was never technically found guilty of committing murder, with two trials in San Bernardino County Superior Court failing to convict him. A U.S. District Court, however, found Gwaltney guilty of violating the victim’s civil rights when he raped and killed her.