Letter: Effective policing is the best solution

Joe Kroening is correct in his “Praise for the city’s police department” (Mailbag, Dec. 21). He is not alone in appreciating the Glendale Police Department, although our aging population is probably more responsible than any policing for decreasing violent crime rates.

An important point in Phillip Herndon’s letter (“Alarmed by frequent traffic stops,” Mailbag, Dec. 11) is missed by Kroening. Herndon suggests that racial or other profiling by our police is the cause of his being stopped repeatedly.

Anyone with any awareness at all of our history knows of Glendale’s past reputation as a “sundown town,” meaning if you aren’t white, be out of town by sundown if you know what is good for you. We like to think those bad times are no more. As Kroening says, we don’t have all the facts, but I wonder if Herndon’s experiences say otherwise?

For me, the preferred choice is neither aggressive nor passive law enforcement, it is effective policing. Multiple stops of an individual without cause to issue even one traffic ticket seems highly ineffective to me.

Roberta Medford
Montrose