LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
I am very supportive of the local police departments. I think they do a dangerous job and I think they generally do their job in a very professional manner. I appreciate the various police departments in this area.
That being said, our government that oversees the police departments and gives them direction is doing a dismal job of setting the priorities of these departments.
Allen County has a population of about 342,000 people. As of July 23rd, 2005 there are 6687 active arrest warrants for Allen County. You can verify this information for yourself. Please go to:
www.indianasmostwanted.com/counties/allen.html this website is Indiana’s Most Wanted, which tracks all of the outstanding warrants in the State of Indiana. It is updated daily. You can look and see the outstanding warrants listed alphabetically, you can generally see pictures of the individuals, you can see what crimes they are accused of, etc. It is a very informative website that is professionally maintained by the State of Indiana.
If you select just a few of the people the police are looking for you will see that they are wanted for a variety of charges including: Robbery, Assault, Battery, Battery to a Child, Domestic Battery, Child Molesting, Driving Under the Influence, Check Fraud, Probation Violations, and about any other crime that you can imagine. Not all of the crimes are major; some people have warrants for neighborhood code violations and minor traffic citations. Also, remember that these people are most likely not all guilty, they are accused of a crime and need to go to court.
It is obvious that Allen County has a large population of people roaming our streets who the police are looking for. These people are not under arrest, they are free and they may keep committing crimes. A person who is accused of child molesting could be out molesting other children. A person who has several outstanding warrants for driving under the influence is free and may keep driving under the influence and kill a citizen who is not breaking the law. You get the idea.
I am not sure how many outstanding warrants there should be in Allen County. There obviously will be some outstanding warrants no matter how much manpower the police use to serve outstanding warrants. I think a reasonable number might be a thousand; but I am not sure.
What really gripes me is when the police are directed to setup checkpoints and check to determine if law abiding citizens are wearing their seat belts. If you are not wearing your seat belt the police issues you a $25 ticket. The law-abiding citizen then has to find the time to go and pay this fine. I am sick and tired of the “nanny state” we live in. The police should be serving outstanding arrest warrants and protecting citizens from violent criminals, not enforcing the “nanny state!”
While the police are issuing tickets to law abiding citizens for not wearing seat belts there are several thousand outstanding warrants that the police are not serving. Many of the citizens who are accused of the crimes detailed in the outstanding warrants actually committed real crimes that they need to be prosecuted for. The police should spend their time protecting the law-abiding citizens of their community. That is the job of the police in my opinion.
Sometimes the police enforce their “click it or ticket” campaign with grants from the federal government. I have an idea for the federal government; leave law abiding citizens alone and issue grants for the police to arrest child molesters, rapists, murderers, and other violent criminals.
If you would like to comment on this topic please go to allencountylp.blogspot.com/. I am interested in your opinions!
Mike Sylvester, Chairman
Libertarian Party of Allen County
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