High-speed chase has no place on urban streets
The idea that a high-speed chase through Little Five Points constitutes good police work reflects a cowboy mentality that has no place in the urban environment.
We have put millions of dollars into license plate readers, surveillance cameras, radio communications, police helicopters and other technology that make our police, working together, more powerful than any criminal. We should use that power intelligently. Policing is not an action movie, the GSP is not “Top Gun,” and its officers don’t have double-zero numbers.
ROGER FRIEDMAN, DECATUR
No one is entitled to a college education
As a graduate of Georgia State University, I must wonder what exactly is being taught to the students protesting the student VISA revocations? One student on the radio argued that these individuals’ right to an education was being violated.
These individuals are not citizens of the United States. Furthermore, no one is entitled to a college education, and foreign nationals who are not permanent residents certainly do not have a right to be in the U.S. for such purposes. Obtaining a college education is a choice. Being in the U.S. for such purposes is a privilege.
If the students were protesting over concerns that due process rights for the VISA revocations were potentially being violated, I might agree with them. However, this particular student’s protest appears to be based on, as the student probably imagines, a moral basis that is not sound.
DAVID STEWART, SMYRNA
Imprisoning the innocent is not the American way
Immigration is a complex issue. But what should be simple is that we don’t put innocent people in prison if not proven guilty. That is not the American way.
For most of the immigrants shipped to the El Salvador prison with no hope of release, there is no public record of any conviction for violent crime. If ICE has such records, they should make them public. Claims alone are not enough. And if they have no such proof, they should have those prisoners released immediately.
And if the president made a contract with El Salvador that did not give him the ability to release innocent prisoners, then he should be impeached.
JENNY SUTTON, WOODSTOCK
Prohibiting drug use has never worked
A reader disagreed with Parker Short’s “Bow to reality: Legalize pot, gambling,” focusing on individual harm and noting the rationale for the name “sin taxes.”
But our current system, which makes recreational drugs illegal, does not work and never has — just as Prohibition failed. But Prohibition made Al Capone rich and famous. The current system keeps Central and South American drug lords wealthy while creating drug wars and unstable governments that people flee, often heading to the U.S. border.
The Economist magazine periodically reanalyzes the approaches of governments to dealing with recreational drugs and regularly concludes legalization with funding diverted from penal systems, court systems and law enforcement systems to education and rehabilitation is the “least bad” alternative. Finally, fentanyl aside, which drugs are worse than (sinful) alcohol?
ALLEN BUCKLEY, SMYRNA
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