Police Gunfire Is Not A Good Response To Mental Illness

In April of 2020, there was a report broadcast on New York's WCBS Newsradio Eight-Eighty about a man who told police he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. After revealing that information, he came at them with a knife, an apparent attempt at suicide by cop. He was shot twice in the torso.

Couldn't the cops have found a better way to subdue this man who was obviously experiencing mental distress? Why weren't less lethal alternatives used such as a taser, pepper spray, stun grenades, a bean bag shooter, rubber bullets, or some kind of fishermen's net?

A New Nickname For Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn, New York, has long been called the Borough of Churches because of the large number of houses of worship located there. But a few years ago because there were so many shootings in Brooklyn, an on-air person at New York's WBAI-FM gave the borough a new nickname--Gunsmoke, New York.

To be fair, Chicago deserves a new nickname more than Brooklyn does. In light of all the homicides in that city, Chicago instead of being the Windy City, should be known as Gunsmoke City or better still Tombstone City.

Violence In America

The following letter-to-the-editor was sent via e-mail to the Metro New York newspaper on May 28, 2015:

Dear Editor:

In retired police sergeant Sal Giarratani's letter (Metro, May 27), he expressed the belief that "a culture of violence...permeates communities of color." This view is one-sided. It also ignores American history as well as the '60s saying that "Violence is as American as apple pie."

The history books are full of examples of American violence: the Hamilton-Burr duel, gunfights in the American West, gangland slayings, the massacre of Native Americans, witch-hunts, Ku Klux Klan lynchings, police violence against labor organizers, presidential assassinations, to name a few.

And if you add to that the glorification of firearms in the movies and on television and the subsequent bloodlust and carnage on screen, you will see that communities of color are not and have never been the only segment of society plagued by violence.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

Note: This letter was published in the Metro New York newspaper on May 29, 2015.