Dear Editor,
Huntingdon used to be a magical place to me. It was a place I could come to as a kid and not have to worry about much of nothing except who I could get a dollar from to go play video games at the arcade. Or to buy a burger or hotdog at the concession stand where I could also watch a baseball or softball or basketball game several nights out of the week at the park in the bottom. Everybody was outside all over town so there were plenty of places to go and “set a spell” to soak up some gossip or have a glass of Kool-Aid. The police would ride by and stop and hold a nice conversation with us and then go on about his business. I tell you those were the days. What happened?
I hear how great Huntingdon is from the papers and what the town-folk write on various platforms, but I certainly don’t see it. I grew up on the streets of Memphis (oops) and Atlanta (wow) so I know a thing or two about crime and in all my years I have never seen a beefed up, militarized police force do anything but make matters worse. The purpose of law enforcement is to alleviate the fears of a certain (well-to-do) group of people who have way more than everyone else and they are afraid of their stuff being taken so they basically hire guards to patrol their neighborhoods to keep the impoverished out. I, personally, would not want whatever it is that I have to be on guard 24/7, put up fences and security cameras, and have the police department on speed dial to keep it.
Why not share? People really can’t take anything from you if you’re sharing because if they do then they are taking from everyone because everyone has access to it. The thief would then have to deal with the WHOLE community. That’s how it was when I was growing up. The People were the law, and the Law was the People. To be honest, I was more afraid of getting into trouble from my grandma than all the police you can stuff into the old doughnut shop that used to be B-Rite. If you want to know the truth your illegal stop, prior knowledge, rights violating police force is like one stop away from a racial profiling or discrimination class-action lawsuit. We weren’t even halfway through January and they had already locked up over 60 people. I thought this was a great place to live and you all were so proud of this and that and giving excellence achievement awards every week and stuff. Either I’m Looney Tunes or we are not talking about the same place. But really I’m just trying to figure out how you give all the county workers bonuses and raises and leave out your hardworking, carpal tunnel- having, free-tickets-for-all police overseers. Holy cop-pay-dropped Batman no wonder they’re so citation happy!
Trent Hampton
