I beg Hawaii’s police departments to require training for all officers in how to respond skillfully to suicidal or mentally ill persons without killing them.
The 911 operators often are forewarned that the person is distraught or suicidal. After a recent suicide-by-cop incident, it was reported that the man himself called 911, and when they arrived he was sitting in his car holding a gun.
Other past incidents: a man with a knife walking down the road in Palolo; a man standing with a knife in his apartment doorway; a distraught young man running naked out of an elevator into a hail of police bullets.
The police, trying to help, are causing these poor souls to die.
These repeated incidents might unintentionally encourage sick, despairing people to think there’s a quick, “easy” exit available: All they need to do is call 911 and have a kitchen knife in hand.
Anne Miller
Kahaluu
Darby showed Hawaii ill-prepared for disaster
We can thank Tropical Storm Darby for giving the Nimitz underpass a good flush.
It purged the underpass of needles, dirty diapers, food containers and human waste to make room for the next buildup. Now while everyone plays the “not me” game, someone has to clean this mess. It turns out to be the people who actually use the area for recreation and not a squatting area (“Darby leaves a mighty mess,” Star-Advertiser, July 26).
Another sad thing is, Darby was not a hurricane, nor was it even a direct hit. Yet we turn into a Third World country with the flooding of homes and streets, and loss of power and water, because as it turns out we really are not prepared for a disaster of any magnitude.
Luckily, we did not have any known loss of life.
Robert Thomason
Mililani
Removal, euthanasia not solutions to feral cats
Suzanne Case’s premise that euthanizing cats will control the population is faulty (“There’s nothing humane about treating ‘cats gone wild’ like pets,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, July 17).
I have spent more than 30 years in feline medicine in Hawaii. We all agree that cat overpopulation is a concern, but recent studies demonstrate that culling cats actually increased the population of feral cats due to an influx of other cats after dominant resident cats were removed.
Cats are sentient beings, and they are our most popular pets. A multi- faceted approach needs to include trap-neuter-release, high-quality and high-volume spay/neuter programs and other modalities.
Cat population control needs to be ethical, humane and evidence-based in order to balance peaceful coexistence of cats and people.
Removal and euthanasia of cats are not the solutions. Our feline companions deserve more thoughtful consideration before a rush to judgment.
Sue Sylvester-Palumbo
The Cat Clinic, Kaimuki
Arroyo’s detention was just unlawful vendetta
The rule of law, badly tarnished during the administration of former President Benigno Aquino III, has been reasserted in the Philippines with the Supreme Court’s dismissal of plunder charges against Aquino’s predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Arroyo had been denied bail and held under arrest in a hospital room for four years while the government dithered and failed to bring her case to trial, apparently because its case was weak. It was a vendetta by Aquino that violated a fundamental premise of justice — the right to a speedy trial.
Arroyo thanked the court for “finally stopping five years of persecution.” This decision should destroy the myth that Aquino fought corruption. In fact, he fought his political enemies while ignoring corruption of his supporters.
He was elected on the strength of the names of his famous parents — the martyred Benigno Aquino Jr. and former President Corazon Aquino — but never lived up to them.
Carl H. Zimmerman
Salt Lake
