There’s nothing lighthearted here

Re “Justices throw out lawsuit on search of couple’s home” and “Naked truth,” editorial, May 22

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in favor of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, who raided a Lancaster home in 2001 looking for several black suspects but instead discovering a white couple whom they held naked at gunpoint, would be laughable if it were not so appalling in its implicit approval of poor police work. And The Times’ editorial position was disappointing as you simply describe the incident as “inconvenient” and “embarrassing” for the couple but fail to take the deputies to task.

The people the deputies were seeking had, according to The Times, moved three months before the raid. And we are to believe -- because the Supreme Court (and of course, the Sheriff’s Department) say so -- that the raid was just an honest mistake by cops doing their job? Right.

I would not even have to be a former police officer (which I am) to figure this one out. How about checking telephone and other utility records with a couple of quick phone calls, not to mention a call or visit to the Lancaster Post Office, to confirm that your suspects are still residing at the intended address before serving a search warrant there?

When did police work become so lazy -- and society approves of it?

DENNIS HALL

Cypress

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It’s one thing (albeit misguided) for you to agree with the Supreme Court’s reasoning in the Max Rettele and Judy Sadler case. It’s another for you to express a sophomoric chuckle about the fact that they had to stand naked before sheriff’s deputies. These facts are not humorous as you label them. I wonder if you would still find them so if it happened to you. Does your editorial staff have high school students moonlighting for it?

SUSAN HARTLEY

Santa Monica

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The Supreme Court found that the sheriff’s deputies who rousted a couple at gunpoint from a bed and forced them to stand naked for several minutes acted reasonably. Regardless of whether that was a good or bad decision, it’s disrespectful to human dignity, let alone the privacy and security we all expect in our homes, to be flippant about what the couple went through.

You write: “Pursuit of the guilty will sometimes inconvenience -- and embarrass -- the innocent.” As anyone who has looked down the wrong end of a police officer’s gun (and I am one of them) can tell you, knowing that your life may be snuffed out in a flash is significantly worse than an embarrassing inconvenience.

DAVID M. SALDANA

Ames, Iowa