FORCE: When lethal is legal

In response to Mr. Dayton’s “Letter to the Editor” dated Sunday, April 6:

I greatly agree with you that Mr. Gerlach should be awarded for taking this dirt bag off the streets that he has been terrorizing in the Spokane area over the years.

1. The problem I know, being retired from law enforcement of 28 years, is not the courts, but the overcrowding of our jails and prisons all over the U.S. Citizens want justice, but they don’t want to pay for new or upgraded jails to handle the criminals. Therefore, the courts are forced to release the “non-violent” criminals over and over again on probation or parole where eight times out of 10 they will violate. The “convicts” I call them, laugh at our judicial system because they know how far they can push their luck. Most of the time they’re back on the street before the officers can finish their paperwork.

2. Gun owners also need to know when they can or cannot use “deadly force” when someone has committed a crime in front of them. Law enforcement officers go through “shoot or don’t shoot” training all through their career, and they are held accountable for their actions. You see it in the news almost daily. I know for a fact the officers go through hell for weeks and are haunted for the rest of their lives before they are cleared (or not) from a shooting.

Citizens with firearms are held to the same standard in our courts. If your life (or the life of someone around you) is not being threatened, then you CANNOT use deadly force, such as in the case Mr. Gerlach is going through. The truck that was stolen in front of him was driving AWAY from him and was no longer a threat “to his life or anyone else at that time.”

I feel so, so very sorry for the nightmare Mr. Gerlach and his family is going through. Those of us that handle firearms need to know this. Tears came to me when I saw his wife on the local news inside the courtroom behind the one she will always love. Your life can change in a heartbeat with poor judgment. Don’t let it be you! May the court rest with this in time.

JACK CLUFF

Coeur d’Alene