If you're concerned about our community, I strongly suggest if you have online service to read Derek Resner's comments on the Times-Union's comments page.
In case you don't have access to a computer, this person brought to light the point of the highway department's lack of plowing our roads in the outer county areas for two to three days and the highway department's "shoddy work at best" in describing repairs.
But i have to say I never put much thought in the issue of the police having "personal cars."
I have to admit, I see a certain officer, from Warsaw, who lives in Syracuse, drive to work every day on Ind. 13, with a Warsaw squad car. I also have to admit that right there in the "new police department" building they so badly needed, there sits a gas pump, and I'm thinking how much gasoline for personal usage my tax dollars are being spent on versus "actual service."
I am asking the public, do they see as many un-uniformed officers as i do with their kids in the car going to a game or family function? If I used my company car like that, I would be terminated.
Now, if I got your attention, go online and see how much these cars are from the factory, and how much it costs to put the computer system, cage, fabrication, lights and paint scheme to make it a police car, and online it says now you got a $30,000 vehicle. And we give one of these to a lot of different officers, and to top that, we give 'em a brand-spanking new one every three to four years.
Right on, Derek. My sympathy about your nephew with the meth problem. I'm from Oregon, and you're right, there's more of that crap now than ever. The police are failing, the system doesn't work unless you're talking low-level offenses with bored kids at Center Lake Park or the "skateboarding" crisis.
It's not about crime prevention, it's about big business. If they really wanted to stop drunken driving offenses, they got the technology, because it's cheaper, I mean a lot cheaper than to modify a cop car, and then the actual offender could pay for it and not me. If they wanted to stop cocaine, that crap is not made here in Warsaw, Ind., it's brought in from Mexican borders (and now the meth is too now that precursors are monitored). Right there would solve 76.3 of the caseload in every county in this state.
We are always going to have violence and certain crimes. We got to enforce with a police force, and criminal court systems are always needed. Don't get me wrong there. But at the same time, I wonder if you took the cash aspect of it out of the issue would we have so many cops, probation officers and lawyers.
And if you want ethics, ask your lawyer if they would do what he or she does for my earned wage of $16.32 an hour, and that it would take three years to get that like it took me. They would tell you they would go into another racket, the medical field.
