Letters to the Editor

LBPD Militarization

Well said, Marshall. [LBPD Use of War Toys Questioned, Feb. 24 issue]

I hope more readers will respond to your clarion call for action before it’s too late. The consequences of having a militarized police force in a civil environment are wrong – unnecessary and deadly.

Bee Jenkins

Are military weapons really what Long Beach taxpayers want their money spent on?

Michael Ruehle

Obama started selling military weapons in the mid-west. The police are “suppose to protect us,” not murder innocent people. I would expect this from the south and mid-west, but not California and especially Long Beach.

People wake up and stand up. The Right is getting more and more power. Read or watch the movie 1984.

Beverley Bender

Silverado Park

Hooray for those citizens on the west side of town who stood up against the imposition of the city’s decree that the Silverado Park gym would be closed to the community to become a winter homeless shelter, as usual, with no notification to the citizens. The fortitude of our neighbors on the west side is a true inspiration for the rest of us who have been falsely led to believe that there is nothing we can do in the face of this tyranny.

Here on the east side, we still haven’t had any information about the fentanyl-overdose death at the Community Hospital winter shelter – another shelter put into place with no notification, further exposing this city’s penchant for operating in the dark.

The outrage, activism and ultimate success of the people on the west side of town proves that democracy is alive – at least in one part of our city. Margaret Mead said it best: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world ... Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Merry Colvin

Dear Fellow Coyotes

Beware that multitudes of humans have built many brick/mortar structures and moved into our homes and hunting areas with no thought or care of how we are to survive their onslaught. In fact, humans have caused the extinction of more species of wildlife in the last 100 years than in the entire history of mankind.

We have lived in this area for thousands of years before the human interlopers decided that this land belonged to them. They have slowly, surely and systematically destroyed almost everything that mother nature provides.

These humans leave out food (including their “pets”) and water to lure us close and then want to kill us for accepting and acting on their invitations. We must be vigilant lest we all become victims oftheir unbridled lust for our natural habitat. Additionally, when these humans leave their cats outside, they greatly contribute to the destruction of the avian population.

Sadly, many humans see us as pests. They seemed to forget that we were here first and they are the ones who were encroaching on our homes. We have families and babies to raise and feed just like any other of God’s creatures. And, just as they shouldn’t leave their young children alone outside, neither should they leave their pets alone to be mistaken for fast food.

Making us the villains where humans have been irresponsible has been the epitome of irony and hypocrisy. They also forget how we keep the rodent/vermin population in check. Let’s hope that the violent humans who would further displace and destroy us look in their hearts and learn to live with us.

Diana Lejins