The Daily News misses dangers faced by the NYPD
Manhattan: The day after we sat in a Queens courtroom with the tearful family of a hero police officer who sacrificed everything to protect this city — a proceeding the Daily News didn’t bother to cover — we were outraged to read your editorial disparaging the integrity and courage of all New York City police officers in connection with the tragic death of Win Rozario (“There’s another way,” May 8).
By claiming that police officers are willing to risk “not much” of their personal safety to protect the public, The News isn’t just insulting cops and the families of our fallen heroes. You are also ignoring a key fact in this case: police officers weren’t the only ones in danger. Rozario’s family members were also in harm’s way. As the body-camera footage makes clear, these officers were trying to minimize the risks to everyone in that room, not just themselves, and were forced to make split-second decisions based on those risks.
The News’ condescending remarks about the threat of “some scissors” trivializes both this incident and the difficult reality police officers face when responding to many calls. Less than a year ago, in another Queens precinct, a mentally ill individual jammed a blade into a police officer’s neck and slashed his partner. The attack occurred mere seconds after the officers arrived on the scene, before they had a chance to “de-escalate” and before they discovered that the man had just butchered his whole family with the same knife (“4 stabbed to death, including girl, 11, and boy, 12, by relative fatally shot by NYPD cops outside burning Queens home,” Dec. 3, 2023).
Police officers understand that failing to react quickly to a threat can have deadly consequences — again, not just for police officers but for members of the public, as well. The time to prevent tragic outcomes to mental health crises is long before police officers or anyone else is called to the scene. It will require a functioning mental health system that takes action to protect those who may be a danger to themselves or others, with mandatory outpatient or in-patient treatment when necessary, instead of allowing the cycle of crisis and response to repeat over and over again.
The News’ unnecessary speculation that the outcome in this case could have been changed by a mental health co-response program like B-HEARD — which, as even The News acknowledges, still requires police officers to continue responding to crises where “safety questions” are involved — does nothing to improve the situation. Police officers don’t choose which calls we’re sent to, and we can’t control the dangers — once again, to both ourselves and the public — that we face when we arrive.
The police officers involved in this incident deserve a fair investigation based on the facts and the law, not demonization by activists who are exploiting this tragedy to advance a broader anti-police agenda. Moreover, all police officers deserve better than The News’ sneering about “the necessity to accept danger, especially if it will help the public they’re sworn to protect.”
The scale of that danger cannot be determined from the comfort and safety of a newsroom. Police officers across this city must make the determination and accept the danger in real time and under immense pressure, every single day. In case the News has forgotten, we have one very recent example of what that acceptance can cost us, our families, and the city we serve. Patrick Hendry, president, Police Benevolent Association
Hands-on help
Brooklyn: To all you college students who think protesting will fix things, go over to Gaza and see what is really going on. Fix things there. Hunger, thirst, no housing. Fix things. Carol Matovick
Historical omissions
Lackawaxen, Pa.: Voicer Ephraim Savitt gives himself away when he ridicules the name of my Pennsylvania township in the Munsee language (of the Lenni Lenape indigenous peoples of the area). This is the same culturicide (a form of genocide) that the Zionist state has employed to eradicate artifact evidence of Palestinian presence. Savitt’s history conveniently begins with the United Nations’ partition plan, thus ignoring the demographics when the U.K. was granted its mandate over Palestine, where 90% of the population was Muslim (incidentally, “national home in Palestine” has no meaning in international law, but certainly does not denote statehood). Disregarded also in the Voicer’s truncated timeframe is that the British double-crossed the Arabs, whom they had promised independence for helping to topple the Ottomans, by entering into a secret agreement with France and Russia to allow Jewish settlement. My initial letter was pragmatic: The events are irreversible, so move on. John A. MacKinnon
Traffic squeeze
Middle Village: The city is planning on adding new bus and bike lanes with congestion pricing on the way. How absurd is that? The goal of congestion pricing is to cut traffic in Manhattan so vehicles can move faster, which comes about by reducing the ratio of cars per street. If you diminish the number of cars and simultaneously remove traffic lanes, you will wind up with the same proportion, creating the same congestion as we had before. Lee Rottenberg
Support families
Manhattan: Re “New York City’s child welfare crisis” (op-ed, May 6): Child safety is the paramount government responsibility, and all families must have their basic needs met. Commissioner Jess Dannhauser, together with nonprofit agencies and the Administration for Children’s Services, has led efforts to: Increase use of vouchers that help low-income families in NYC cover the cost of child care, reducing stressors on families, by more than 350%; utilize an empowerment framework, CARES, to address family needs collaboratively, connecting families to resources to prevent removal, increased by 46%; boost workforce recruitment and retention supports, including scholarship investment, critical to ensuring that a stable, well-trained workforce can timely assist families; and promote family resilience and connection via expansion of family enrichment centers. Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies urges support for increasing reimbursement for family preservation and investment in human services professionals supporting families. Kathleen Brady-Stepien, president and CEO, COFCCA
The people’s people
Monroe, N.J.: Every day, public servants carry out critical work that allows our society to function. We rely on them for our daily safety through emergency services and preventing crime and terrorism; to ensure we build and maintain the physical infrastructure allowing us to move from place to place, communicate across long distances, power our homes or drink clean water; to educate our children; to administer critical social programs like Social Security and Medicare; and much more. Too often, their work goes unnoticed until something goes wrong. Yet public servants work every day to provide a stable foundation for all of us to enjoy our lives and freedom. That’s why, since 1985, the first week of May has been designated Public Service Recognition Week. I hope you will join me in expressing your appreciation to those who serve for what they do for our communities and our country. Jeffrey Bender
One-man takeover
Milwaukee: Vice President Al Gore graciously presided over the Electoral College vote in 2001, a contentious and controversial election that he lost to George W. Bush. After he announced the vote count, Gore asserted, “May God bless our new president and our new vice president, and may God bless the United States of America.” Similar circumstances 20 years later resulted in Donald Trump defending the Jan. 6 rioters’ “Hang Mike Pence!” chants. How tragic for our democracy that the Republican Party has become the party of Trump. Terry Hansen
Hideous hypocrite
Howard Beach: Trump commenting on Sen. Jon Tester’s weight, saying that he “looked pregnant,” makes you wonder if he ever looks at himself in the mirror. Not only does he have a weight problem himself, but he has an orange face and dyed blond hair that is styled like a bird’s nest. Trump is the last person who should be putting someone else down. Barbara Berg
Loose lips
Kearny, N.J.: Donald Trump suffers from oral incontinence, and Depends doesn’t make anything for it! Joseph F. Catrambone