Editor,
I read an entry on the Stop the War Machine Listserv today that spurred me to write this letter.
At issue is red handprints around the UNM campus placed during a demonstration by Stop the War Machine. The University's argument is the "damage" happened during the demonstration on March 15. Therefore, the organization is responsible for the cost of the cleanup. The argument being made by the organization is it did not do it, and it had peacekeepers to prevent such things from happening. And therefore, it should not have to pay for the cleanup.
That seems simple. Two sides to a problem. The extenuating circumstance, to me, is that the Albuquerque Police Department and the UNM Police Department were present during the demonstration and took a lot of photographs of demonstrators. Did they take pictures of any of the red-hand people? Did they witness people making red hand marks around the campus and, if they did, why did they not stop the people on the spot?
I know the police have the time and resources to take tons of pictures, because I have participated in a lot of anti-war and anti-neocon demonstrations around town over the last five years. I want to know if this is the reason they cannot perform their presumed job.
I assume they are supposed to stop people in the act of defacing property. Would they now merely photograph a rape, or would they actually go to the aid of the victim? That question seems particularly nasty, but I think it is fair.
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Our police have been transformed from helping people in need to that of those who acquire data for later obfuscation of facts and manipulation of people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Our country is in grave danger. Please consider when it will be your turn to be caught under the new rules of our misdirected police personnel.
Terry Riley
Daily Lobo reader
