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Don’t make story sadder

I am saddened by the story of Otto Zehm and Karl Thompson. It is terrible that this man had his life ended in such a violent and degrading way. It seems that Thompson made a terrible mistake.

We should remember that he went into this thinking he was dealing with a criminal. The greatest guilt in all of this is the false accusation made that Zehm stole. It seems that had that not been done, none of this would have happened, and Otto Zehm would be alive.

Will justice be better served by ruining the rest of Thompson’s life? Nothing we can do will help Zehm. Let’s not make the story worse by what we do trying to fix it. Hopefully all in the law enforcement profession will look at this as instruction in the importance of rightly assessing all situations they are confronted with. And I also hope that some way can be found to get through this without sending Thompson to prison.

Let’s not make a sad story sadder.

Jack Ensley

Colfax

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