Opinion: Why didn’t Steve Mnuchin get a chance to open the gift-wrapped box of manure left at his house?

To the editor: I am annoyed that our Los Angeles Police Department chose to its violate professional standards when it dumped out the manure delivered in a box to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s Bel-Air home. (“L.A. psychologist claims to have left manure outside Steve Mnuchin’s home,” Dec. 25)

That manure was a well-thought-out Christmas gift, and Mnuchin may have wanted to take delivery of it. The LAPD has no right to play the Grinch that stole our Treasury secretary’s Christmas.

The LAPD should get its evidence locker up to par to accommodate such evidence as Mnuchin’s Christmas Eve manure may require.

Paul L. DuNard Jr., Cypress

..

To the editor: “Johnson’s war in Vietnam makes America puke” was written on the back of a federal tax return envelope sent to the government by a neighbor of mine in Davis, Calif., in the late 1960s. What happened to my graduate student neighbor was the subject of a magazine article.

One day, my neighbor answered his front door, where a federal officer was waiting. He told my neighbor he was being investigated for threatening the president’s life, apparently because if enough people were to vomit on the president, the president could be killed.

The agent, according to the article, knew he was being sent out to investigate activity that presented no threat to the president. That visit was the end of the investigation, which was apparently meant to intimidate my friend, whose opinion on the Vietnam War did not change.

Today, is a carton delivered by a known sender with manure inside as dangerous as an envelope containing the word “puke” was half a century ago?

James Odling, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Since Los Angeles psychologist Robert Strong’s “Secret Santa project” triggered the emergency deployment of both the LAPD’s bomb squad and special agents of the U.S. Secret Service, it has cost taxpayers thousands of dollars.

I sincerely hope the city and federal governments bill this immature psychologist for every penny spent responding to and investigating his “frat boy” prank.

John McDonald, Los Angeles

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook