🚀 go-pugleaf

Letter to The Editor as published in The Columbus Dispatch on Friday,
October 7,1994

Poor, downtrodden lack the tools to end abuses

    I was disgusted after reading a part of the series on the Franklin
County Municipal Court (Insight section, Sept. 25) and the plight of the
indigent who spend considerable time in jail for minor or dubious
offenses.  The Columbus Division of Police along with the Prosecutors
office should reevaluate just what their proper role is in the community.
    When I read about incidents like those mentioned in The Dispatch along
with police programs such as Active Criminal Eviction, I wonder if
Columbus' city services realize just what they are accomplishing?
    These programs, which are targeted almost exclusively in the poorer
areas of the city are causing long term resentments to form, undermining
the effectiveness of our law enforcement efforts.
    If roving bands of police where to patrol my community here in the
suburbs, stopping motorists for not wearing their seat belts or charging
pedestrians for possessing criminal  tools for having a couple pieces of
wire in their pockets, I would wager that it would only take one day for
the citizens in my neighborhood to become enraged and to put an immediate
end to these abuses.
     Unfortunately the poor and downtrodden do not have the wherewithal or
the resources to fight for themselves.  


Sincerely,


Matthew Gaylor