Letters | PIER 34 SENTENCING: EVEN MORE ANGER & PAIN

SEVERAL years ago, I was a sergeant in the Sixth District when I was involved in a tragic rooming-house fire. I was able to save several men, but four died.

I did what all police and firemen would do, try to help. For that, I was sentenced to a lifetime of nightmares, flashbacks and hearing the sounds of the screaming men I couldn't save. The owners of the building didn't suffer at all. The families of the victims did, as does my family, and me.

I feel a just punishment for Messrs. Asbell and Karetny would be to have to hear the screams of those poor young women as they tried to get out of harm's way, and have nightmares about the suffering that the victims' families are going through.

Maybe they are having nightmares. If they are, then that is just punishment.

Nothing will bring those lovely young women back to their families. Reading about this stirred up all those terrible memories. Nothing will help stop me from hearing those screams.

Michael J. Walton, Philadelphia

On May 18, 2000, sitting in front of my TV in New York City, I saw a news report coming from Pier 34 in Philadelphia. As I saw workers pulling people from the wreckage, I thought, who would have allowed this to happen? How could a brand-new establishment suddenly collapse into the Delaware River?

Little did I know that the person I saw covered in a white sheet was my 21-year-old cousin, Monica Rodriguez.

We got a call from my aunt Mary Lou at around 1 a.m. My husband, Glen, immediately packed up to drive to Cherry Hill. He advised me not to go since I was 37 weeks' pregnant.

The information that came in over the next few days was mind-boggling. Asbell and Karetny were told the pier would collapse at the next low tide by structural divers. There were 3- to 5-inch cracks in the pier's walks.

An engineer described propane pipes tearing away from the pier, something he'd never seen before. The evidence continued to be staggering. The signs of negligence where overwhelming. Most legal professionals thought it would be a clear-cut case. Little did we know that Asbell and Karetny had friends in high places.

I hate to think that after seven long years of the district attorney's office working tirelessly for the community and the three families that this case could be determined by Mayor Street's letter to the judge. We cannot allow our judicial system to be swayed by one man's opinion.

I feel like the Ferraro, White and Rodriguez families, with the help of the Philadelphia community, has been pushing a large boulder uphill. To send Asbell and Karetny home or to some celebrity destination would be an injustice to the entire city.

The real crime would be if the system allows these men to be judged by their social circle and not by the bad deeds they have done. Yes, these men have been called "pillars of the community," but the travesty is that they allowed all the pillars of Pier 34 to collapse into the water, taking with them three of Philadelphia's own children.

Melissa & Glen Capelo

New Canaan, Conn.

Re the Asbell sentencing:

Unconscionable! He deserves justice and prison. I hope John Street never rests from this decision, and I can't wait until he is roaming around with Wilson Goode. This is the city's second bomb dropped.

Frank Graff Sr., Sea Isle City, N.J.

Wrong on gun amendment

Your editorial urging repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment mischaracterizes the law.

Nothing in the amendment prohibits the sharing of federal gun-trace data with local law enforcement. But repealing it would make this sensitive information available to the public (and politicians), and would only serve to jeopardize criminal investigations - exactly what happened recently when Mayor Michael Bloomberg used federal trace data to mount a supposed "sting" against Virginia gun dealers.

Repeal of the amendment could pose a deadly threat to officers and witnesses involved in the investigation of gun crimes. That is why both the ATF and the Fraternal Order of Police oppose repeal.

Michael Kubacki, Philadelphia

Editor's note: Neither the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE) or the Fraternal Order of Police have opposed the appeal - we called and asked.

According to the actual language of the amendment, the trace information the ATFE can share with local law-enforcement agencies is limited to information "as pertains to the geographic jurisdiction of the law enforcement agency requesting the disclosure and not for use in any civil action or preceeding other than an action or proceeding commentced by the [ATFE] or a review of such an action or proceeding.''

That means information about other guns owned by a person whose gun was used in a crime cannot be shared.