Bad things happen to good people no matter who's in office or who's the chief of police. In fact, bad things happened to good people to make downtown Chattanooga the "Dixie" or exclusive "Eden" it would later become. Only those impacted or knew anyone who was impacted would know the truth.
The victims may not have belonged to a certain class or traveled in important circles, rubbed shoulders with other prominent citizens, but they were good people nonetheless.
Their stories just never made local headlines, however.
Crime is not a political issue and shouldn't be used as a barb or political football to point fingers at one political party against the other.
Crime is the human failure in all mankind. It's not about Chief Murphy or CPD not doing their jobs. Crime is not about Mayor Kelly or liberals. Because horrible things, really really bad things happened while conservatives and independents were mayor. Bad things, horrible things, happened to good people while conservative police chiefs were instructing their subordinates to go out "kick butts and take names!" And that and more is what some actually did in order to make Chattanooga a place for a select few to "live, work and play."
Attempting to politicize the senseless, brutal, hideous murder of a local well-liked, well-known businessman, father, son, surely a friend and all around good guy.... his life, accomplishments, his value as a human being are minimized and tarnished. For sure he wouldn't want that, and his family wouldn't either, hopefully.
Brenda Washington
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In her letter to the editor, Brenda Washington claims that "crime is not a political issue." Really? The failure of our legal system to take an habitual criminal like Darryl Roberts off the streets and keep him locked up is most certainly a political issue.
The first and most fundamental job of government is to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. An effective criminal justice system would have prevented the murder of Chris Wright. After all, Roberts had been arrested 66 times before his most recent arrest for the murder that left a widow to raise three children without their father. One of those arrests was for firing several shots through a closed door in an apartment where there were children. The fact that he has now killed someone is anything but surprising.
In addition to the loss inflicted on Chris Wright's family by his murder, there are possible social and economic repercussions for the whole city of Chattanooga. When decent people don't feel safe walking the streets, they have three options: they can stay off the streets (Do you want downtown to be abandoned after dark, as it once was?), they can go armed and prepared to protect themselves (Do you want even more firearms on our streets?), or they can elect new leadership who they believe will do a better job of locking up repeat offenders like Darryl Roberts before those criminals can do more damage. That's as political as it gets.
Andy Walker, MD
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Dr. Walker has provided a clear cut analysis of the short and long term consequences of an inept and incompetent criminal justice system.
I thank him for sharing his rebuttal to Brenda Washington’s shallow and superficial thoughts.
Leah Geraghty