Racism Cuts Both Ways

Regarding "Political cartoonist’s message misfired and brought on more pain" (Wednesday City & State), columnist Lisa Falkenberg correctly portrays the cartoon showing a picture of a hearse carrying the body of Sandra Bland being pulled over by "a Texas police officer" as offensive.  Unfortunately, she portrays it only as offensive to African Americans who view this incident as "a modern-day lynching", and apparently consider police behavior towards blacks as irredeemably racist.

Such a portrayal is unreasonable and unfair not only to "Texas police officers" in general, but to white police officers in particular.  There is precious little evidence that any of the deadly encounters of the past few years had anything to do with race, including this one.  In fact, several of the most recent and publicized incidents involved black police officers, and yet, the "racist white police officer" narrative is the only one given any coverage in the press.

Such gross generalizations not only kill meaningful debate, they endanger the lives of civil servants.  Just ask the employees at the Waller County jail who have been deluged with death threats, or the widows of two New York police officers - one Asian and one Latino - who were assassinated by a black man enraged by such unfair characterizations.  

Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles no doubt thinks it clever to portray all Texas cops as violators of black people, and Texans have gotten used to such caricatures by East Coast elitists.  I just wish the Chronicle would start calling out such behavior instead of buying into it.

Pete Smith 

Houston, TX

LTE - The escalation

The escalation

There is nothing ambiguous about the reason for the escalation between officer Brian Encinia and motorist Sandra Bland. I have always been impressed by the calm professionalism of Texas state troopers. Encinia was neither calm nor professional. In a matter of seconds, he turned a routine traffic stop into a physical confrontation. His rage and threats against this woman showed a police officer out of control.

Whatever is discovered about the cause of Ms. Bland's death in her jail cell, what is indisputable is that Encinia's misconduct put her there. The state of Texas needs to explain how such a loose cannon was ever given a badge, much less a gun, and take the appropriate steps to prevent it from happening again.

Pete Smith, Houston

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"Video of Bland’s arrest shows escalating clash" (Wednesday Front Page) 
http://www.chron.com/opinion/letters/article/Friday-letters-Bland-case-debated-6402448.php 

Silly Global Warmers

Regarding "A ‘mini-ice age’ isn’t coming, contrary to viral headlines" (Thursday Nation A7), it appears there's nothing that Climate Changers won't do or say to support their theories, including contradict themselves.  

Take, for example, the unnamed reporter of this Washington Post article.  They refute the notion of a mini-ice age based on unusual sunspot activity, noting that the "research mentions nothing about how (Sunspots) will affect the Earth’s climate."  Then the article goes on to confidently assert that "several other recent studies of a possible solar minimum have concluded that whatever climate effects the phenomenon may have will be dwarfed by the warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions."  

So, the data doesn't support the possibility that sunspot activity might cool the Earth, but it does prove that if it happens, man-made greenhouse gasses will counteract it.  

These people.

Pete Smith 

Houston, TX 

Unitended Consequences

Regarding "Judge hid behind new rules in Waco biker grand jury selection" (Sunday City & State), that's an interesting choice of words that columnist Lisa Falkenberg uses to describe the motives of judge Ralph Strother for not only appointing a Waco police officer as a grand juror to investigate the Banditos shootings, but for making him the foreman. 

 

For Falkenberg, appointing a Waco police officer to - in part - investigate the Waco police department is beyond the pale.  After all, critics of the previous selection system known as Pick-A-Pal - where judges selected from a limited pool of upright citizens - had built their entire case on the notion that corruption was inevitable unless jury selection was random, and critics such as Falkenberg were particularly incensed that cops should ever be able to investigate cops, as attested to by the many articles that she has written on the subject. 

 

But the inevitable result of singling out police departments to be isolated in this manner is that grand juries are more likely to be composed of people that are not just ignorant of policeman and police departments, but actively hostile towards them.  You also end up eliminating Subject Matter Experts, since their very expertise and associations must necessarily disqualify them.  

 

Falkenberg has little faith in civil servants, but she ought to have perhaps a little less faith in her own profession as well.  Clearly she believes that massive wrongdoing has taken place under Pick-A-Pal, but might not a reasonable person ask how this could happen when for decades, the Pick-A-Pal selection process provided reporters the same tiny pool of subjects in each jurisdiction to investigate again and again for any evidence of corruption or favoritism?  Seems to me, the closest critics could ever come was to note an appearance of impropriety based on a juror's associations.  

 

My recommendation is that - rather than comment from the sidelines - she strap on those gumshoes and investigate detective James Head, the jury foreman.  And while she's at it, she might report on how much "random" jurors picked specifically for their ignorance, innocence and gullibility are influenced - not only by sharp tongued attorneys - but a media openly hostile to policemen.

Pete Smith

15610 Cabot Creek Circle

Houston, TX 77070

832-428-0652 

Cops Aren't The Enemy, Lisa Falkenberg

Regarding "Judge hid behind new rules in Waco biker grand jury selection" (Sunday City & State), that's an interesting choice of words that columnist Lisa Falkenberg uses to describe the motives of judge Ralph Strother for not only appointing a Waco police officer as a grand juror to investigate the Banditos shootings, but for making him the foreman. 

For Falkenberg, appointing a Waco police officer to - in part - investigate the Waco police department is beyond the pale.  After all, critics of the previous selection system known as Pick-A-Pal - where judges selected from a limited pool of upright citizens - had built their entire case on the notion that corruption was inevitable unless jury selection was random, and critics such as Falkenberg were particularly incensed that cops should ever be able to investigate cops, as attested to by the many articles that she has written on the subject. 

But the inevitable result of singling out police departments to be isolated in this manner is that grand juries are more likely to be composed of people that are not just ignorant of policeman and police departments, but actively hostile towards them.  You also end up eliminating Subject Matter Experts, since their very expertise and associations must necessarily disqualify them.  

Falkenberg has little faith in civil servants, but she ought to have perhaps a little less faith in her own profession as well.  Clearly she believes that massive wrongdoing has taken place under Pick-A-Pal, but might not a reasonable person ask how could this happen when for decades, the Pick-A-Pal selection process provided reporters the same tiny pool of subjects in each jurisdiction to investigate again and again for any evidence of corruption or favoritism?  Seems to me, the closest critics could ever come was to note an appearance of impropriety based on a juror's associations.

My recommendation is that - rather than comment from the sidelines - she strap on those gumshoes and investigate detective James Head, the jury foreman.  And while she's at it, she might report on how much "random" jurors picked specifically for their ignorance, innocence and gullibility are influenced - not only by sharp tongued attorneys - but a media openly hostile to policemen.

Pete Smith
Houston, TX