Larry Daniels wrote:
>BS, Buster. The severity of the injuries have nothing to do with whether or
>not there was a possible crime involved and, therefore, must be investigated.
>
Why? I'm afraid I don't know what Texas state law says about it. In
California, however, it is not required of a citizen to report a
wounding to the police. It is, however, the responsibility of the
hospital to make a report if a person goes in for treatment.
>You say that, besides the Sheriff, there were 4 more cops in a county of 407.
>That's a ratio of one cop for every 81.4 people.
>
I'm sorry, Larry, but there is a big difference between a "cop" or
police officer, a sheriff, and a constable. A cop or police officer is
a professional law enforcement officer with training in accordance with
state standards. Virtually everywhere in America, a sheriff need not
have been a trained officer or even have any law enfocement training.
Most rural sheriffs in America are primarily officers of the court,
providing baliffs and executing orders of the court. Here in Orange
County, California, the sheriff was never a police officer or sheriff's
deputy before he was elected to office. Finally, constables are a
holdover from the medieval courts of England and carry out minor
judicial duties and "keep the peace". Generally speaking, they have no
law enforcement powers. Finally, down in Kenedy County, holding down
county jobs is a Medellin family business.
>How many places do you know that have that many cops per citizen? My city has
>a ratio of one cop for
>every 722 people.
>
A better question would be how many police officers does your city have
per square mile. Down in Kenedy County, they don't have one police
officer for the county's 1,457 square miles! But then you have to
admit that Kenedy County is just not a den of crime. In the year 2000,
they had a whopping 5 reported crimes; three burglaries, one theft, and
one vehicle theft!
http://www.fedstats.gov/mapstats/crime/county/48261.html
>The FBI recommends one for every 500 people. You are saying they didn't have
>the manpower to investigate? Bull.
>
Who is going to do the investigating?
> Somebody was shot. That demands the cops look into it. Today, not tomorrow.
>
>
The fact is that except in hot cases such as murder, investigations
don't usually begin until the following day. The uniformed officer
simply takes the report.
>A non-story? Your idea of the fundamentals of journalism would seem to be
>belied by the professional journalists.
>
Uh, I dunno, but I got my first paying job on a newspaper when I was 15,
and in more than a dozen years was a "professinal journalist" as
reporter and editor on big and little papers. (Then I got bored and
went on to have several other careers.) I think that as a working hack,
winning a few press club awards along the way, I had a pretty good grasp
of journalistic fundamentals.
>The real "fact of the matter" is that the cops were not doing their job and
>the press was.
>
But there are no "cops" in Kenedy County. The press doing its job?
Rubbish.
Buster Evans
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