Officer followed the use-of-force rules on Grant Street

I am a city of Pittsburgh police officer, responding to the editorial "Gunfire on Grant" (Sept. 27).

In police officers' line of work, we don't usually have the time to sit back in our air-conditioned offices and debate about whether or not to shoot and stop a threat of harm to citizens or fellow police officers. Police officers usually only get seconds, if that, to make a decision.

The careless motorist who was involved in the Sept. 22 incident was driving a one-ton machine that could have killed everyone in its path.

Officer Raymond Kain did everything by the book and within the city's use-of-force guidelines. Officer Kain did what he was taught in the police academy, and that was to attempt to stop the threat before any citizens or fellow police officers got hurt or killed. The actions by the driver in this case gave Officer Kain justification to use his duty weapon.

What would the editorial say if one of the pedestrians or officers had been killed or run over by this unconcerned driver? What would it say if right after Officer Kain shot at the threat, the driver hit and killed a pedestrian or officer?

We are only doing our job; we cannot write the future. In this case, it seems that we are damned if we do and damned if we don't.

DET. RICHARD YOCHUS
Overbrook

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Policies should work

I have read the series on residential treatment with interest ("In Harm's Way," Sept. 18-21). For several years in the 1980s, I monitored the contracts for out-of-home care and other programs for the Allegheny County Children and Youth Services. Most agencies provided residential care.

I believe that restraints are overused and contribute to the occurrence of assaults. Restraints should occur seldom, if ever. Even with seriously disturbed adolescents, language needs to be used rather than brute force. I know the arguments, but no responsible person would restrain their own child like this, and these children should be treated with no less consideration.

Children of any age should be restrained only when one child is seriously assaulting another and, in that case, only to remove the assaulting child. The use of restraints as a discipline method also attracts a type of person to this work who enjoys the authoritarian aspects of the job.

The real issue should be treatment. Children are in placement for rehabilitation, not punishment.

Agencies should apply a programmatic approach that answers the questions: What does the program consist of? Is this congruent with what clinical research says about successful treatment methods? Are residents actually benefiting from the program provided at the facility where the child is placed?

Society spends a lot of tax dollars on residential treatment. The children so affected deserve the best from us, not the repeated betrayals documented by Barbara White Stack.

SUZANNE McDEVITT
Associate Professor
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
Edinboro

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No respect for adults

Regarding the series "In Harm's Way," Sept. 18-21, I find it ironic that even though these young people are so out-of-control that their own parents cannot control them, when there is an alternative such as these group homes, they cry abuse. If a child does not respect his mother and father, he or she is certainly not going to respect a staff member in a group home.

I say put cameras in these facilities to protect the staff and have a trained psychologist on staff to address these children when they get unruly.

GINA STEVENSON
North Braddock

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They mean well

Sally Kalson considers the evangelizing of Jews by Messianic Jews to be patronizing and offensive in her Sept. 21 column, "We'll Behold Our Own God, Thank You Very Much," about the two-week stop by Jews for Jesus in Pittsburgh. But consider this analogy.

In 1979 Rotary International launched a campaign to immunize all of the world's children against polio. They began with the Philippines and are well on the way to achieving their goal. Together with partner agencies, they have mobilized $1.5 billion in polio-specific grants. Rotarians are passionate about this effort. Inoculation is by invitation, it is free and it is not forced on those who refuse it, for whatever reason.

The prophet Isaiah foretold the coming of a messiah who would make himself an offering for sin. Many centuries later, John the Baptist identified Jesus as the "Lamb of God, who takes away that sin of the world," according to the Gospel of John. Jesus told his followers to "make disciples of all nations." And in the Gospel of Matthew, Peter proclaimed that "there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name (than that of Jesus) by which we must be saved."

Those who believe that Jesus is the messiah through whom alone we can be rescued from the fatal disease of sin are motivated by the compassion of Jesus Christ to share that good news with all the world. Should this be considered any more patronizing or offensive than sharing the gospel of polio eradication? That the well-meaning efforts of some overly zealous Christians are so construed -- admittedly sometimes with justification -- is regrettable.

JOSEPH M. HOPKINS
Emeritus Professor of Religion
Westminster College
New Wilmington

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Screwy values

"Modest" is described in the dictionary as "keeping within reasonable or proper limits; not extreme, excessive or intense." I don't know the Post-Gazette's definition of "modest" regarding the average increase in the assessed value of residential properties, but it sure doesn't apply to my new assessment, especially when compared to the homes around me ("Assessment Appeals by Schools, Municipalities Targeted," Sept. 27).

The appraised value of my home increased by $22,000 or 23 percent, which is not modest at all. One home next to mine increased only 7 percent, and the one on the other side increased a mere 2 percent. This latter house is a large, two-family home which has been assessed at $30,900 for the last three years, compared to my assessment of $97,400. How can my home be worth $87,900 more than this neighbor's?

Furthermore, the home directly across the street was sold for $130,000 just two years ago, but its new assessed value is only $87,500. If this doesn't demonstrate that the assessment system is completely broken, then nothing will.

JAMES T. SHEARER
Brighton Heights

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Restore it to nature

In regard to the Associated Press story "Poor New Orleans Neighborhood Floods Again" (Sept. 23), my reaction to the proud, determined insistence to spend many billions of dollars to restore or rebuild the city of New Orleans the way it was before Hurricane Katrina is utter disbelief.

Sometimes there is such total destruction that it may be necessary to take a step back to decide what really is the best purpose for the devastated land. This area has been described as a bowl. Walls must be built to hold back the water. Does that not tell us anything?

The land should be restored to its natural state. A national park wetlands area might be a better use of this land: a living memorial park which could be used by people and also be a preserve for the fauna and flora that would naturally inhabit the areas that nature destroyed.

If anything can be salvaged from the historic city, relocation to another area on higher ground makes more sense. I consider that a much better use of my tax dollars.

STEPHANIE SEWELL
Observatory Hill

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Real sex ed

In reply to Barbara Devine's Sept. 21 letter "It's not intercourse," I believe the reason many teens think that oral sex is not sex is a result of the Bush administration's push for abstinence-only sex education. If kids were taught the real facts of sexuality, maybe they would have an idea of what sex is, not to mention how to protect themselves.

N. MANSFIELD
Grove City

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Gun violence is out of control

People as young as 17 are being shot down like dogs in the street in our neighborhood ("Suspects Sought in Drive-By Slaying," Aug. 23).

Although the subject of curfew has come up in meetings with the police, a curfew will not stop the shootings. Curfew should begin at home when kids are still under a parent's control. Some parents need to wise up, grow up and put up some rules for their own children. This will stop them from being swayed by their peers or by drug dealers.

Perhaps if their parents checked up on whom they are hanging out with or where they obtained money that they didn't earn, then more young adults would be graduating from high school and going on to college instead of ending up in the cemetery.

As long as these drug dealers continue to buy, sell and distribute drugs in our neighborhood, they will cause more young deaths, possibly even of someone in their own families. Stop this now before it is too late.

DOROTHY HOPKINS
Hazelwood
Editor's note: The writer is a member of the Hazelwood Initiative.