To the Editor:
Everett PD made the prudent choice to participate with the TV show “On Patrol: Live” ( “Everett Police featured on ‘live cops’-style TV show,” June 17 Tribune.)
Civics 101. Nice recruiting opportunity. Win-win!
EPD’s officers exemplify professionalism and restraint. Some (naturally) say the show’s “controversial.” Hardly. It should be mandatory viewing for people given to spurious put-downs of law enforcement. It’s the most authentic reality show on TV giving taxpayers an honest, unscripted look at the rampant, enabled-drug-use craziness, rehearsed disrespectful hysterics, and potential for split-second imperilment cops face responding to calls. Assess for yourself who speaks lowly of the show, demands that citizens ignore reality, acts a fool, resists arrest, or, when they spot a camera, launches into some version of “get that camera outta my face.” No - please continue with your educational antics. I insist! It’s likely anyone claiming they’re “embarrassed” probably should be embarrassed. And not because the broadcast is in real time. An appropriate measure of shame over one’s bad acts is missing within the miscreant segment of society anyway.
Over my 58 years, taking ownership of individual responsibility appears to have shifted from virtue to vice.
Deeply ashamed of my criminal acts 32 years ago, I’m also well acquainted with and mindful of the price deceptively edited hit jobs extract. Nowadays, disingenuous politicians and recidivist criminals who don’t appreciate their behavior being chronicled and publicized howl that fault actually rests with people speaking truth or the data. The societal harms by excusing and enabling criminality are a painfully obvious, indefensible disgrace.
Paul Keller
Inmate, Stafford Creek Corrections Center,
Aberdeen
Formerly of Snohomish County
