When police kill

The R A N T of G L E N N glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
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A time to kill

Letter to the editor;

The TV movie “High Noon” (not to be confused with the classic western of the same name) depicted a crazy man with a twisted personal agenda, holding hostages in a bank.

Eventually the SWAT snipers killed him, but only after the negotiator tried for a long time to coax him out.

To give the viewers reason to believe this murderous lunatic could be persuaded to surrender, the movie first covered some other hostage situations with varied results.

In the end, the police had to decide to take it upon themselves to kill this man before he would kill several innocent people he was holding at gunpoint.

This goes both ways: Evil government people (and there certainly are evil government people) can murder an individual of their choice and have the public applaud the killing as protecting public safety.

On the other hand, when the defenders of law and order have righteously killed a violent criminal, publishers and broadcasters can spin the story out until the public believes the bad guy was an innocent victim of corrupt and murderous police.

Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona