This is in response to a front-page article in the Sun Journal (Nov. 20). Residents of Lewiston-Auburn should know that not all police departments are arresting African-Americans or other races at a greater rate than white suspects. They are being arrested because they are suspected of breaking a law.
Police officers are trained to run five miles, through dark alleys, scale walls and enter homes the health inspector wouldn’t touch. He or she has to be able to sit in an undercover stakeout all day, cover a homicide scene that night and patrol the neighborhood the next day looking for witnesses to testify in court. An officer can talk a 250-pound drunk into a patrol car without incident, and feed a family of five on a civil service paycheck.
An officer can recite the Miranda warning in his sleep; detain, investigate, search and arrest a gang member on the street in less time than it takes five judges to debate the legality of the stop; and, yes, keep a sense of humor.
Police officers have phenomenal control. They deal with crime scenes painted in hell. They can coax a confession from a child abuser and comfort a murder victim’s family, only to read in a newspaper how law enforcement isn’t sensitive to the rights of criminal suspects.
They do all that for us — the citizens of this state — and for a piece of cloth called the American flag. And for something else, something called justice.
Dispute that, ACLU.
Mary Story-King, Auburn
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