Poor police judgment led to killing of dog

To the editor:

The saddest issue in the shooting of the dog Bubba (“Officer kills pit bull in backyard,” Jan. 7) is the attempt by Las Vegas police to justify it. They still don’t see that the obsessive and irrational protection of such behavior, to protect their image, is the reason they have such a poor image.

Every time they try to defend the outrageous conduct of their officers, they create an environment that encourages disregard for policy, rules, laws and decency. Little wonder Metro officers often lose control of a situation when they know they will be defended or protected no matter how poorly they behave or how faulty their reasoning or how limited their self-control.

In the past, I have had an officer pull his gun on my dogs from the other side of a 6-foot chain-link fence, when police were kicking the gate open. They, too, were looking for a criminal, but they did not bother to knock and tell me about it, as if by being the owner of the property I was guilty because they chased him and he jumped my fence.

A little over a year ago, another officer sprayed one of my dogs with pepper spray for barking at him. When I complained, the cop claimed he thought the dog might attack – while the dog was behind a 3-foot-tall double fence, and 3 feet behind that was the same 6-foot-tall chain link fence.

Come on, Sheriff Doug Gillespie, you have to instill a sense of justice and responsibility in your force if you are looking to improve the character of your police. Your wanting to protect your officers is commendable loyalty, but, unfortunately, it’s creating an arrogant attitude of self-righteousness that will defeat any reform.

SUE JERREMS

LAS VEGAS

Name-calling

To the editor:

In response to Thursday’s letter from Bob Sullivan (“Silence the minority”), I would like to know why he thinks people can’t have a legitimate difference of opinion on the role of government that differs from the Obama agenda, without being called “haters” or “racists.”

This name-calling is just a shameless, well-worn attempt to discredit another point of view. After all, if you are a “hater,” how can your opinions be taken seriously?

Mr. Sullivan seems to be filled with animosity himself toward the GOP, wishing to rid the political landscape of conservative candidates, their supporters in the media and their donors. If he wants to see a hater, he should re-read his letter, then look in the mirror.

BRUCE BROWN

LAS VEGAS

Right-wing trolls

To the editor:

I share Bob Sullivan’s frustration with the list of people in his Thursday letter. The problem is there’s no way to silence them, and I’m not sure we should. It’s good to know what the other side is thinking and saying.

Rachel Maddow, in her show last week, had an excellent idea for dealing with these people. She called them trolls.

These people deliberately want to irritate you and have you hate them. It’s how they make their living. So the next time you see or hear Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Dennis Miller, Donald Trump or Sheldon Adelson spewing their hate and lies, just sit back and picture them as the ugly trolls they are and have a good time laughing your head off.

As far as the rest of the people on your list go – the politicians – as long as they continue to be voted in, I guess we’ll just have to put up with them crawling out from under the bridge every once in a while.

ROBERT COLLINS

LAS VEGAS

Signing it all away

To the editor:

On Jan. 16, I watched President Obama sign 23 executive orders on gun control. I am not a gun nut, just a citizen who watched the president of the United States thumb his nose at the Constitution.

Want to enact laws? Congress does that, not one man. This is rather frightening considering Mr. Obama has signed more than 900 executive orders, mainly to circumvent Congress. Regardless of your ideology, this should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. All your freedoms are being eroded, one signature at a time. America will not be conquered by a foreign military attack, but from within, one signature at a time.

The two-party system will not be outlawed, it will be destroyed, one signature at a time. The Founding Fathers established the three branches of government to guard against one person gaining so much power that the other two branches of government are gutted and left ineffective.

This is being done, one signature at a time.

RON BOUDREAUX

LAS VEGAS

Crazy, cruel ideas

To the editor:

Regarding Lynn Muzzy’s Thursday letter (“Time for squishy GOP to make right turn”), I agree wholeheartedly. Let the GOP retain and strengthen their neo-conservative, Tea Party, socially destructive views while shouting these views to all who will listen. Let them try, at the risk of wrecking the economy and destroying our credit rating among other destructive outcomes, to get their way and return us to the Tea Party era of colonial days.

I say all this not because I want their crazy, cruel ideas to become law, but because I don’t want such an outcome. Before you scratch your head bald trying to figure this out, I say this because the more the general voting public learns about their platform and legislative agenda, the less they like it, as was proved in the recent election.

Now all that’s needed to send their agenda back to colonial days in the next election is for them to cause a shutdown of the government, which will take years to repair and will cause unbelievable hardship to most Americans – a Third World economy, a nonexistent safety net, etc.

The original Tea Party was not a movement, but a protest against taxation without representation, imposed on the colonies by the British government. This new group has adopted the Tea Party name but not its original intent, which was to force the king to give them representation in the British Parliament on taxes and other issues. The real irony here is that this group, if I am not mistaken, is against giving the District of Columbia representation in our Congress.

I dare say many if not most modern Tea Party members do not know all this history behind the Tea Party name and the difference with today’s movement, which I consider a prescription for no government at all except to start and conduct wars, and anarchy otherwise. In fact, it borders on treason, in my estimation.

DANIEL F. OLIVER

BULLHEAD CITY, Ariz.