Editor:
Re: New details emerge in shooting death, Aug. 12.
I know there has been so much written and discussed about Hudson Brooks, but I would also like to add my two cents worth.
When a young man comes toward you, with hardly any clothes on, probably drunk or high, and it is obvious that he has no weapons on him, are policemen taught to shoot and ask questions later? I hope not…
The longer he has been gone and the more that has been discussed makes me angry.
I am sure the officer who killed Hudson must be sorry; however, you cannot have neophyte policemen going around shooting first and asking questions later when it is too late.
D. Barros, White Rock
• • •
Re: Long past time to learn why man died, Aug. 17 column.
Peace Arch News should be commended for your ongoing coverage of very lengthy delays from the Independent Investigations Office.
Your reporting and commentary contrast with the province’s bigger media, which largely ignore the problem.
What IIO criticism they do report mostly comes from police interests.
The IIO might be forced to rely on unco-operative police forensic labs. If so, that’s one of a number of ways in which the IIO was legislated to fail.
Short of no accountability at all, it looks like the police lobby got everything it wanted when the IIO was created. That happened without a squeak of protest from B.C.’s big media. It also happened with the full support of the province’s ‘official’ police accountability activists, the BC Civil Liberties Association.
We can only hope that the city dailies and broadcast media will follow your paper’s example.
Greg Klein, Nanaimo
