This blog is normally friendly to police officers, but not to rogue cops who give the force a bad name. The following are two letters to the editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette:
More than angry about it
Did my eyes deceive me in reading that in 3 1/2 hours, seven detectives spent approximately $700 on drinks, tips etc. at PT’s Showclub and one detective admitted to being “wasted” and belligerent?
Seven hundred dollars of whose money? My tax dollars? This averages out to $200 per hour.
Just how many street lights would that money have lit for a year? How many pot holes filled? How many trash cans emptied?
And yet, we are consistently being asked for tax increases to fund, among other things, our police department.
This sting was a gross misuse of tax dollars and I am more than angry about it.
While I have no qualms with keeping tabs on selling liquor to under aged persons or the visibly intoxicated, I do have an issue with how this sting was handled.
When I reported an attempted theft, officers could not be sent to file a report, due to budget cuts.
To all of you elected officials, remember this: The taxpayers are not going to approve tax increases when this is how our hard earned dollars are spent.
Judith Nelson
Colorado Springs
Severe distortion of priorities
I am a foreman for a large landscaping company. A little less than two years ago I was working on the University Village Shopping Center project on North Nevada Ave. in Colorado Springs. Upon arriving at work one morning, my crew discovered that our storage container had been broken into and a Jumping Jack compactor had been stolen. This is not a cheap piece of machinery. I called the Colorado Springs Police Department to report the theft. The officer I talked to would not even come out to the site, instead taking a short report over the phone, citing the extreme workload that the department was under. He did, however have time to spend 30 minutes basically giving me a lecture, (fundraising campaign speech), on why it is so important for citizens to vote for tax increases. Ironically, I live in unincorporated El Paso County, so I cannot vote for city issues.
Around the same time my wife and I went to a “community meeting” for the Security/Widefield area which was being conducted by the El Paso county Sheriff’s Department. Much to our dismay this was also nothing but a lecture on how the Sheriff’s Department is grossly under-funded, and therefore understaffed.
If memory serves me correctly this was also around the same time frame that “Girls Gone Wild” was in the Springs, and the Police Department felt the need to “investigate.” What they found, (surprise!), was willing women were flashing their breasts to men who eagerly and willingly wanted to see them.
Now a story comes out that Springs Police spent $700 recently at P.T’s Showclub trying to get to the bottom of serious offenses there. One officer deliberately got visibly drunk and acted obnoxious to ascertain that he would continue to be served. I must admit, I respect the integrity and dedication of this officer who was willing to subject himself to a night of drinking and watching naked women dance, solely for the sake of “protecting and serving” the community. Basically what they found was that people get drunk at a bar, and the dancers are not prostitutes.
Is it just me, or does it seem like there is a severe distortion of priorities evidenced here?
James West
Widefield
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