12/23/2009 10:00:00 PM Letter: Why complain about a job well done?
EDITOR:
Janet Willis' Dec. 12 letter reminded me of the seven years I spent as a sergeant in Gang Detectives and the Gang Enforcement Section of the Long Beach Police Department.
During those years, our units served literally hundreds of search warrants and arrest warrants and almost all of those were served right around 7 a.m. That's because crooks, hoodlums and gangbangers caper, drink and ingest drugs until 3 or 4 in the morning and so at 7 a.m. they are right in the middle of their REM sleep. We never had even one shooting serving any of those warrants.
After reading her rant about the Prescott Valley officers and SWAT team in her neighborhood at 6:45 a.m., two things are evident: one, Ms. Willis is ignorant of the protection these officers afforded her; and two, nothing the police department could have done would have prevented her from complaining. If they had called to tell her about the raid in her neighborhood, she would have complained about them awakening her so early. If they had not gone to her neighborhood, she probably would complain about the police "doing nothing" about the criminal element in the area.
Those in law enforcement know that no matter what you do, someone will have a complaint. On Dec. 2, officers went into Janet Willis' neighborhood and served a search warrant and/or made an arrest or took some other police action, apparently without any shots being fired by officers or suspects. Now there's something to complain about.
