Letters To The Editor

Sat., Dec. 5, 1998

Implication of article resented

In her column (Valley Voice, Nov. 21), Pat Sciuchetti was basically demeaning and ridiculing the Concerned Citizens Awards given by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department.

Ms. Sciuchetti maintains that we will have citizens placing themselves and others in danger for the hope of getting an award.

This is absurd.

Daily, we read about people who fail to render aid, who stand back and don’t want to get involved - with disastrous results.

Maybe Ms. Sciuchetti would prefer this to the honest, instantaneous impulse to help.

As a citizen, and as a communications officer for the Sheriff’s Department, I deeply resent the implications that this article makes.

Every single communications officer has the safety of the citizen and officers as a first priority. We can always catch the criminal later.

I was on the phone with several of these citizens during the events described. The first thing we ask is are they in any danger. If we are told that no laws are being broken, and that they are not in danger we believe them.

In the final analysis, there is really nothing we can do to stop the action.

Hindsight is always better than foresight in incidents such as these.

The fact that these men and women’s first thought was to stop a wrong rather than ignore it, avoid it, or add to it makes them heroes in my book. I am happy to live in Spokane with people like them and a law enforcement agency willing to recognize them. Rae Anna Victor Spokane

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