Letters | WHY POLICE MOVE HARD AGAINST A COP-KILLER

KELLY M. Johnson wrote a letter asking why Philadelphia police put so much effort into tracking down a cop-killer as opposed to an everyday citizen.

Allow me to point out a very simple fact to this daughter of a retired "officer": Any individual who is willing to shoot at an armed, trained police officer, who's wearing a ballistic vest and can summon up hundreds more armed, trained police officers with the click of a radio, is a real threat to anyone who crosses his path.

Anyone. Family, strangers, children. For a person to be so depraved that he's willing to gamble on whether the police officer will shoot him first shows that his regard for human life, including his own, is nonexistent.

She also claims that the department fails to vigorously investigate every homicide. That is just plain untrue. Having worked with the homicide division over several years, I have seen them dig in on cases like pit bulls. Not long ago, they were pounding the pavement in my division seeking info regarding a homeless woman murdered a few years back.

This is a case that no family or friends will be calling to follow up on. No press. No vigils. A woman who society forgot about, but these detectives did not. "Solved" homicide rates are very misleading. In many cases, police know who did it, but can't get witnesses to step up and give statements or testify.

Ms. Johnson's letter was ignorant, insensitive and inaccurate. I'm sure she didn't make her law-enforcement officer dad proud by writing it.

Joe Leighthardt, Philadelphia

What hope for our society?

Re unemployment and the diminution of the middle class, I have a question:

In our industrial society, if only 10 percent of the population can produce all our goods and services, how are the other 90 percent going to get their fair share without us becoming a socialist welfare state?

This country is on a fast track to oblivion. The fox is in the henhouse and the inmates have taken over the asylum. The old political game was the liberals vs. the conservatives - but the new game is the mass of middle Americans with their vote vs. the handful of greedy money people who are robbing us.

In the last election, the Democratic Party got a mandate to do something, but they are still playing the old game. It's about time we did something to save our country and our way of life - the American Dream.

Charles H. Seitz

Hatboro