Just a quiet Sunday night in Henderson

To the editor:

Thank you for pointing out in your Sunday editorial ("No deaths, this time") that Las Vegas police might have been overzealous when breaking into Emmanuel Dozier's home to search for drugs on Dec. 28.

As a neighbor of Mr. Dozier's family -- and one of eight who was asked to leave home after one hour of police coming and going while they investigated -- we were disappointed in how Las Vegas police handled the entire situation. For more than an hour we waited in our home, wondering what was going on in our neighborhood. Not once did a police officer knock at our door to notify us as to what was happening. Instead, we watched from our windows as officers came and went from our back yard with drug-sniffing dogs, SWAT officers set up a rifle on our backyard table and police talked of getting up on our roof for a better position to shoot from.

We weren't immediately notified to stay in our home, urged to stay away from the windows or get in a closet for safety. If this was such a high-energy SWAT takedown, then shouldn't the police have knocked on our doors (all eight homes) to let us know what was going on?

After an hour, at 10:30 that Sunday night, there was a knock on our door (and the doors of the other seven homes) asking us to leave, even though police already had Mr. Dozier and his family in custody. Why, then, did we have to leave? Another clue of disorganization among Las Vegas police?

We understand why Mr. Dozier was reluctant to open his door, especially if he had not heard the police announce themselves. We never answer or open our door to a knock unless we know exactly who is at the door.

Cindy Poole

HENDERSON

Blinded by greed

To the editor:

Lost in the debate over the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme is the motivation of the people and organizations who invested with him. While the rate of return he promised has not been fully analyzed in the press, some scattered news stories suggest he gave returns of 7 percent to 9 percent annually, year after year.

When certificates of deposit were earning of the order of 3 percent annually, Mr. Madoff's returns must have seemed marvelous.

The stock market had many ups and down while Mr. Madoff was perfecting his fraud. Did some of those revelling in their high returns ever ask themselves, "How is he doing it when the market is down 10 or 20 percent?"

Some people asked themselves that, and either didn't invest with him or took all their money out. The ones who didn't ask themselves that question were, in a word, greedy.

Herbert Inhaber

LAS VEGAS

More of the same

To the editor:

Regarding the recent clashes between Israel and Hamas:

All I ever seem to read is how various nations are appealing only to Israel to "halt their aggression."

Here's a novel concept: Why doesn't Hamas say to Israel that it will cease all terrorist activities and that it recognizes Israel as the nation it has been for more than 60 years (it's not like it is going to change anytime soon)? Maybe after a few months of Israel not having to worry about its men and women and children being murdered by rocket fire and suicide bombers, its citizens would relax a bit. And maybe then Israel would allow more and better commerce across its borders.

Israel doesn't seem to want any more land than what it has now, and it just wants to be left in peace. If the other Middle Eastern nations would make an effort, maybe Israel would.

But being that it isn't politically correct to try this revolutionary idea, things will probably go as they are now.

Neil A. Dickinson Sr.

HENDERSON

Liars, thieves and thugs

To the editor:

I have worked all my life, and now that I am ready to retire, the money's gone from my retirement account and there's no equity left in my home. It seems that some rich kids on Wall Street were playing Monopoly with my retirement savings and didn't know what they were doing, and some well-organized thugs from the mean streets of our inner cities extorted so much from the financial system that the banks went under.

On C-SPAN, I got to watch a group of left-wing nuts laugh and scoff at the notion that the thugs had anything to go with the collapse of the banking system, and then some right-wing nuts said it was necessary for the "accumulation of wealth" for the rich brats to squander my retirement because that made them entrepreneurs.

I think they're all a bunch of liars and thieves, and I want my money back -- unless someone is going to make it possible for me to live like a human being on $7,500 a year from Social Security.

Steve Novak

HENDERSON