The Dick Knight
In the article “Cape, cowl and Camelot” [July 24], the only one grasping for hope is [writer] Steve Schneider. We all know it’s a lot of fun to see things blow up, but let’s be honest: Batman’s most recent incarnation, The Dark Knight, is morally bankrupt.
Through his directing, Christopher Nolan doesn’t just “give a nod” to particularly messy current events, he makes it very clear as to where he comes down on those controversies. This movie could have been written by Dick Cheney and the Republican Party. In it we learn that it’s OK to lie to the public to protect a symbol, torture will get you the information you need, spying on the entire population is acceptable as long as it’s “just this one time,” and the bad guys should be pursued no matter how many innocent people die. Oh, and all that escalating violence? Well, that’s just because the opposition is in its last throes. Sound familiar?
Nick Farrantello, via the Internet
Might Makes Wrong
This letter is in support of continued pressure in the representations by your staff writer, Jeffrey C. Billman, so that the Orlando Police Department might understand that having a badge should not automatically absolve them [Happytown™, July 24].
My one personal experience with OPD worthy of complaint was when, a few years ago, an officer grabbed my arm without identifying himself while I was in heated debate with a bouncer about when and why drunk people should be excluded from drinking establishments. On pulling away, I found myself in a scrum of sorts, with someone’s arms pulling my head back toward my feet and my glasses torn off and trampled. In moments I was hogtied at curbside while officers joked whether the next car would see me in time to go around.
Although Billman has shown himself to be one of the best investigative reporters around, I had a difficult time getting through his “My Word” submission to the Orlando Sentinel. I suggest that in the future he include a graph that illustrates how complaints against OPD increase sevenfold when puppies are involved.
Jef Shelby, via the Internet
Thin Blue Line
I read your article with great interest [“Might makes right,” July 10]. The picture you paint is very accurate and unfortunately a sign of things that will only get worse. If you look at other major police departments
(especially Southern California, the New York City area and Pennsylvania’s large cities), you will see a historical progression of police violence leading to unjustified police killings that are committed with impunity.
The Orlando Police Department is on track to start killing “suspects,” either real or imagined, using the rationale that they “feared for their lives.” Even if a police officer is terminated for gross transgressions, he or she will turn up in another police department to continue meting out justice as he or she sees fit.
Of course, it is the citizens who have to pay to clean up the police department’s brutality. Since cities are self-insured, tax dollars are used to settle claims against police officers and departments. So instead of fixing potholes or offering after-school programs, our tax dollars are used in ways that benefit no one.
This is a sad state of affairs that ultimately the citizens have allowed to develop because no one is truly held accountable for police brutality, except maybe the victims of
police brutality.
Mark Campbell, via the Internet
Staying Put
In response to my letter that Denmark has a better social safety net than does the U.S. [Letters, July 17], “Anonymous” suggested I move there. “Anonymous” reminds me of the decals I saw in the ’60s that read: “America, love it or leave it.” I always thought that was such a quintessentially American idea. How much more stirring it would have been if Patrick Henry had cried out, “America, love it or leave it”? Or how much more memorable if Paul Revere had galloped along on his midnight ride shouting, “America, love it or leave it”?
Jay D. Jurie, Sanford
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