America Must Create a National Police Force

Re “Sniper Suspects Slipped Past Authorities Time and Again,” Nov. 30: This country needs a national police force. The disaster of the Washington-area snipers evading capture for so long underlines the ineffective, disjointed and bureaucratic makeup of our more than 14,000 law enforcement agencies that will not and cannot communicate with each other.

Law enforcement agencies next door to each other have no idea what their neighbors are doing, let alone what is going on in another county or state that is hundreds or even thousands of miles away. If this country does not start to put together a real national police agency like those that exist in Germany, France, England or Canada, then we can kiss the war on terrorism and our country goodbye before this initial skirmish is even over.

Ernie Salomon

Santa Barbara