Editor,
Why does the news media keep saying the day John Hyde murdered five people in August 2005 was the bloodiest day in Albuquerque history? Has it forgotten the Hollywood Video murders in 1996, by Shane Harrison, in which five people were also killed?
Does the fact that no police were murdered by Harrison make the whole thing easy to overlook?
Harrison, Michael Astorga and countless other people in
Albuquerque were on parole at the time they committed murders. What makes Mayor Martin Chávez and the City Council think that if trained criminal experts at the Parole and Probation Division of the New Mexico Corrections Department could not keep tabs on dangerous people and deter them from committing murders, psychiatrists will do a better job?
Why does the Albuquerque news media keep saying that Hyde was off his medications?
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The fact is that many psychiatric patients are drug-resistant or become resistant to their medications. The medication either has no
effect on them, or they become immune to the medication's effects after a while. This may be the case
with Hyde.
It's time for everybody to realize that Kendra's Law is yet another feel-good measure that will not yield results.
Vastly greater numbers of people are killed nationwide by repeat DWI offenders, but I don't see anyone advocating that they be given attention on a permanent basis to keep them from getting drunk, driving and killing anyone.
Jorge Bollin
Daily Lobo reader
