It’s time to quit bashing the Lethbridge police

By Letter to the Editor on April 29, 2021.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of the below letter to the editor published in the April 29 edition of The Lethbridge Herald incorrectly stated Mayor Chris Spearman “voted to defund the police force by $1,000,000.” In truth, Spearman opposed the reduction to the police force budget in two separate motions.

Editor: Myself and most Lethbridge citizens are fed up with this new fad of trashing the police that has crept into our city.
We have an excellent police force of 172 men and women officers who choose this profession with the intent of a meaningful role in enforcing the laws-to protect citizens from danger and criminal actions.
They do this well. We are in danger of a weakened justice system. Note the increased shop lifting indicated by more and more items being locked up in our large retail outlets. Drug trafficking is rampant.
One gateway to hard drugs is marijuana. Look what some lawmakers have done making this intoxicating, addictive and brain damaging drug so available to all. Obviously youth have more access to it now and many will follow the path to harder drugs, addiction, death and wrecked lives.
I appreciate the speeding tickets via photo radar or the radar patrol car. It prompts me and others to drive a safe speed, avoids injury to our and other’s grandchildren.
The purpose of photo radar is not to raise money for the province; it is to protect lives that can be lost by excessive speeders.
Individual police officers have made mistakes and are held accountable for them.
Integrity is a word that fits for all police officers as a whole. Accusations of racial bias by officers are made with no evidence of truth.
Yet some city council members voted to “de-fund the police force” by $1,000,000. They followed the fad rampant in other parts of North America.
Yet they just voted to allocate almost a million dollars to street art.
Let’s speak up to support our good police force-over the loud voices of those who wish to drag all into the fad.
Ken Oler
Lethbridge