Letters for April 12, 2018

Make Sacramento more like Mayberry

Re “The whole world is watching” by Eric Johnson (Editor’s note, March 29):

Common-sense rule for supervising law enforcement from The Andy Griffith Show. I propose the Barney Fife rule. Any cop with a disciplinary problem, or whom their supervisor deems less-than-trustworthy with a weapon, should be allowed to carry only one bullet, and they have to keep it in their pocket. Sheriff Andy Taylor understood the shortcomings of his deputy and took steps to protect the public from him. I suggest that our police can do likewise.

Derek Link

Sacramento

via newsreview.com

SPD must do better

Re “Bullet points” by Raheem Hosseini (News, April 5):

Activist Berry Accius says, “Sacramento could actually be a model of what policing looks like nationally…” I assume he meant that he hopes Sacramento policing becomes good enough to serve as a model, as do I. However, when the police department thinks it already is good enough to be a model, you can expect a lot of institutional resistance. In 2014, Sacramento Police union president Dustin Smith said, in criticizing mayor [Kevin] Johnson for his comments on the grand jury decision on the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, Mo., “We feel like we’re the model for the rest of the state to follow.” He went on to say that, since they’ve been doing things “so right” the mayor’s comments were hard to take.

Jan Bergeron

Sacramento

via newsreview.com

Call it like you feel it

Re “Reporting while black” by Kris Hooks (Essay, March 29):

Whoever told Kris Hooks that “you have to be impartial in order to be a good journalist” sold him a bill of goods. It’s the other way around; you have to be partial to be a good journalist. You have to have a core belief in something that animates you, that gives you an angle from which to look at and write about the world. Hooks need look no further than the SN&R newsroom and give a close read to what his colleague Scott Anderson wrote a few issues back. Is there anything at all impartial about “Ghost guns?” The best journalism ever written in the United States is at its core polemical and ideological. You don’t write anything worthwhile being impartial.

Charles Saydah

Carmichael

via U.S. Mail

Make science make sense

Re “Bio-engineered news” by Alastair Bland (News, September 22, 2016):

The entry of large corporations paying public research-and-development officials and professors should be banned. I was shocked to see a corporate lobbyist sometime back appointed to a presidential science council. My lab investigated rBGH milk and concluded that fraud was involved. The whole thing needs cleaning up and focusing on a few important objectives that program a well-determined safe result, agreed to by all our great people, not just insiders.

Bill von Meyer

Pendleton, South Carolina

via newsreview.com

Corrections

Re: “Rent revolt” (SN&R News, April 5, 2018):

The story incorrectly stated that Fernando Nadal’s son suffered a fatal overdose. It was Nadal’s friend’s son. SN&R regrets the error.

Re: “His brother’s keeper” by Raheem F. Hosseini (SN&R News, March 29, 2018):

The story misidentified the gender of Stephon Clark’s children. He is survived by two sons. SN&R regrets the error.