Better hiring policies might help Metro

To the editor:

In response to your series on the use of deadly force by Las Vegas police: I am convinced the personal motivation of a police officer to possess such enormous power over others is a very significant factor.

When serving in the military many years ago, and later in my civilian career, I was in a position to personally observe problems of this nature. When serving overseas, the area in which our infantry division was stationed was serviced by a military police unit comprised of members who had volunteered for such service under a program in which they could choose their military assignment. We also had our division military police, who were just capable division infantrymen selected for this duty by the personnel section and trained by our division.

For well more than two years, we experienced an inordinate number of problems with the MP unit policing, yet comparatively very few with the division MPs. It was definitely a problem of attitude in enforcing the rules. The unit MPs became despised as being confrontational, while the division MPs were respected and seen as soldiers doing their assigned duty.

The problem became so bad that the provost marshal intervened to order that all patrol duties include equal numbers of unit and division MPs. Problems disappeared!

Years later, I represented a Southern California city in which the city's police were constantly being charged with brutality and abuse of force. That city implemented an extremely thorough series of psychological tests and assessments as a condition for new employment and even continued employment. There was such a dramatic improvement in city police performance that other cities soon adopted these screening procedures with their police forces.

I believe that police enforcement is for only well-adjusted people who can do this difficult work and desire this important responsibility for the right reasons. Sadly, too often that is not the case.

JOHN TOBIN

LAS VEGAS

Happy ending

To the editor:

I witnessed a type of incident that is very rarely reported involving Las Vegas police.

A man had mixed alcohol with powerful anti-psychotic drugs, effectively causing a psychotic breakdown. He was yelling, pacing, disturbing and begging to be shot. He was not brandishing a gun, holding a knife to anyone's throat or aiming a moving car at an officer. He was not shot.

Instead, he was patiently and professionally talked down for more than an hour and a half, at which point he gave himself up into custody.

It ended well for all, but not without a great deal of hard work on the part of the police.

Jill George

Las Vegas

The ladies

To the editor:

Three weeks ago, Mike Blasky's in-depth chronicle of my long-standing battle against ladies' night ran in the Review-Journal ("'The Unusual Steve Horner' battles feminism," Nov. 27). I am just now getting around to making a couple of observations about the story.

For the most part, I think Mr. Blasky wrote a fair and complete assessment of why I don't like ladies' night promotions at local establishments: It's based on hypocrisy and double standards, and those are the two major components of our society's collapse.

As far as corrections in the story are concerned, there are really only two that need to be made:

First, my father was just as instrumental as my mother in raising us six boys. Second, it is a gross exaggeration to suggest that I believe women are to blame for my problems. That's as ridiculous as claiming liberals are the problem. Women simply act out their nature.

The real bottom-line culprit for why society is spinning out of control is our individual apathy. And you can bet that because of that apathy, each of us gets what we deserve.

Steve Horner

St. George, Utah