Police Officers Don’t Deserve Bad Rap

This is in response to Kent Carroll’s March 21 letter, “Police Too Eager to Pull the Trigger.” His letter serves no other purpose than to show how ignorant and irresponsible people in our society can be. He used his soapbox to point blame at the very people who put their lives on the line 24 hours a day to protect all of us.

The accident that led to the death of Officer Jim Jensen doesn’t deserve to be Monday morning quarterbacked. It was an unfortunate sequence of events by dedicated community servants. To make matters worse, the death was at the hands of a friend and fellow officer.

Kent Carroll’s letter represented SWAT teams as a bunch of bloodthirsty people who go around killing anything that moves. Maybe we would be better served if we were provided with information about how many times a SWAT team’s involvement has resulted in nobody getting hurt. There would be so many that they probably could not be counted.

Yes, these officers are out there in harm’s way, dealing with dirty situations more often than we know. We can thank our lucky stars they are out there.

BRIAN DILLEY

Newbury Park