Discipline of officer falls well short

Whoopee! Metro police officer Jacquar Roston finally got his punishment: a whole week without pay (“Officer suspended in shooting,” Tuesday Review-Journal). Of course, Mr. Roston gets this after he collected eight months of pay while doing nothing.

Now, all we taxpayers have to do is pay for the victim’s lawsuit against the county. Since the police union supports all officers, how about having the union pay the damages?

I’m sure this will be a good lesson for all other officers. If you need a few more weeks vacation, shoot someone, and you get a paid administrative leave.

RICHARD ANDES

LAS VEGAS

Gun control laws

To the editor:

Regarding Mr. Sebelius’ commentary in the July 24th edition of the Review-Journal (“Incident should give second thoughts on gun laws”), I think the author missed one of the more important aspects of the whole incident. What immediately caught my eye was who sold the Glock — Laura Conklin, a sergeant with the Reno police department.

I think you should do some investigative journalism as to why a police officer would be selling a gun to a young man at 4 a.m. in a Starbucks. I’d have thought even Sgt. Conklin might have wondered why she wasn’t meeting the 19-year old at his parents’ house or somewhere similar at say, 10 a.m. or 2 p.m.

JERRY MOSIER

LAS VEGAS

Detroit not alone

To the editor:

Six figure salaries, huge payouts at retirement, golden pensions at young ages, all arriving for public employees while they sound indignant calls for more on the backs of struggling taxpayers. Do you think municipal bankruptcy could never happen in Southern Nevada? Just ask the citizens of North Las Vegas.

The retired civil servants of Detroit will pay a dear price at their most vulnerable moment, based on the lies told to them regarding their unsustainable retirements.

It’s time to have an honest discussion about what’s sustainable right here in Southern Nevada, for the sake of our civil servants. Just keep raising taxes to pay for it? Ask Detroit how that worked out for them.

BRIAN BRESEE

LAS VEGAS

GOP influence

To the editor:

The July 22 front-page article in the Review-Journal, “Insiders regaining influence in GOP,” should be the headliner on every news stand in the United States. Our country needs an honest-to-goodness two-party system to balance the scales of government. That system has unified us for decades and should be a reminder to open the eyes and hearts of everyone.

What we don’t need is the ideologies of the minority tea party or the Ron Paul faithful, spewing and dividing the once proud and honorable Republican party.

Democrats and Republicans have always fought like two roosters in a hen house. Most of the fighting by elected officials was over bringing jobs and a better economy to the states they represented. What a difference compared with what today’s Congress — with its extremely low approval rating — is fighting over. Rather than the House of Representatives trying to help fix our new health care system, they’ve voted dozens of times to repeal ObamaCare. Doing away with the extremely harsh tactics practiced by large insurance companies over decades is the greatest asset of this new program, yet the House fights against it.

We don’t need our troops in foreign wars, and we don’t need wars inside our government. We need to elect representatives who represent our country, not their ideologies. Those who oppose what our government stands for should hang their heads in shame and get out of the way of progress.

DON ELLIS

HENDERSON