Fixing Park/Speedway needs more thought

As a contributor to Devin Simmons' interesting front page article on the intersection of Park and Speedway (April 9 Wildcat), I must take exception to your unequivocal call for left-turn arrows from Speedway to Park in the April 15 editorial. While the left-turn arrows may be warranted, there are a number of factors that traffic engineers need to consider when making this change: signal timing, accident experience, types of accidents, delay to all traffic movements, pedestrian movements, the lane drop on Speedway west of the intersection and so on. I assure you, as I did with Mr. Simmons, that determining the signal timing requirements at this intersection is complicated.

If you are willing to be educated on this subject, I would be happy to devote one of my classes this spring to this particular intersection. Between now and the end of the semester, I will be discussing signal timing, and it will be my pleasure to speak directly about this intersection for one whole class. I invite you to learn more! Please let me know if you would like to attend.

Mark Hickman, Ph.D., P.E.
assistant professor, transportation engineering

Police stop people who match suspect

Dr. Kunnie, it was unfortunate what you went through on April 6 with the UA police department. No person should ever have a deadly weapon pointed at them. I too was removed from my vehicle at gunpoint near a busy intersection by the city police several years back. I also somewhat matched a suspect's description.

Since I'm white and one of the officers who stopped me was black, does that mean the black officer was racist? I don't believe so. Police officers understand witnesses generally do not give detailed eyewitness accounts so the officers have to generalize the descriptions they receive. Officers also know suspects routinely discard/change clothes after fleeing the location, so officers must look for suspects with little or different variations of clothing. Understand, officers must at least use the threat of deadly physical force when confronted with a deadly force encounter. In your case, the officers thought you had a knife. In a reasonable officer's mind, a suspect committed a serious assault with a deadly weapon. Unfortunately, you were in the area and the officers thought you were involved.

It was a reasonable mistake made by the officers who did not have the luxury of spending hours gathering and analyzing intelligence before making an arrest. Dr. Kunnie, if the UAPD implements more sensitivity training, may I suggest you take a Citizen's Police Academy training so you can better understand what police officers have to go through everyday. It is not just a black-and-white issue.

Roger Early
Pima Community College law enforcement student

Prof should not be Îtoo busy' for police

Perhaps if Professor Irene d'Almeida was not so busy and answered a few questions early on, all of this "mess" could have been avoided. In as much as we are all innocent until proven guilty, avoiding the UA police with the flimsy excuse of being too busy makes one think otherwise. Maybe our university professors are overworked, and we need to focus the taxpayers' money on hiring additional teaching talent rather than funding lawsuits!

Dana Powers
Tucsonan

Cops did their job, independent of race

People like Erica R. Watson are quick to play the race card (or any other card) when they notice someone's different identity in relation to police activity. In her April 16th letter, "Kunnie case an example of UAPD Îracial discrimination,'" she said: "Look at this case for what it is: institutionalized racial discrimination by the UAPD."

Ms. Watson, what proof do you have that the UAPD was discriminating against Dr. Kunnie because of his race? You don't! You're also forgetting that employee at Subway reported to the police that an African-American male came into the store and threatened to kill one of the workers. While the police caught up with the person who didn't fit the exact description of the suspect, at the same time, the police were doing their duty of protecting and serving the public from harm ÷ especially looking for the criminal scum who has no respect for human life.

If I am wrong, then those officers who did racially profile Dr. Kunnie should be punished. However, for you to generalize the UAPD in a disgusting manner is offensive to cops and to me. It's people like you who have no respect for the police, the same men and women who risk their own lives to protect and serve the people of America.

Donald Wilson
sociology senior

Campbell is opinions' version of ÎBlue Balls'

Steve Campbell's latest column that was meant to reveal the truth behind UA Peace Refuge, instead exposed himself as a narrow-minded jukebox replaying cliche right-wing rhetoric (unlike his foes who actually provide fresh opinions). The pro-war crowd has a very weak cannon in their arsenal. Mr. Campbell is to the opinions section as "Blue Balls" is to the comics page ÷ predictable, tasteless and simplistic.

Benjamin Guez
history sophomore

Protesters Îshaming' other war dissidents

Steve Campbell's bashing of the UA Peace Refuge on Tuesday was absolutely brilliant. The idea these people present is probably a moral, just and equal system of government, but it is pure Marxist nonsense. The Communist Manifesto holds about as much water as the Bible, and if these idealists can't stay to their own, they deserve a good flogging like Billy Graham and all his Jesus-freaks. Mr. Campbell is right, far too many protesters are shaming the name of respectable dissidents, who have read a bit more than Michael Moore's gibberish and are not taken to wild tantrums and fits of frenetic enlightenment. The end is not near though; these people will burn out and be replaced by a new crop of equality junkies convinced they are going to wake up the economic infidels from the evils of capitalism. Forget them. They are weak, fickle, and will soon be hanging out at all-night coffee shops heavily sedated with "enlightenment."

Adlai Stevenson once said, "In a democracy, people usually get the kind of government they deserve." As far as I know, which isn't much, he was right. But so what? The experiments with republics, fascism and communism have failed even more miserably, and even if the Bush administration deserves to be dragged behind a semi down the length of Pacific Coast Highway, that doesn't mean the next administration is going to pull over and stop the car. Not by a long shot, and if you don't like it, then go somewhere else, because we surely don't need you. Wherever you go though, just make sure the U.S. hasn't been there first, which could be difficult. Or else you're going to be knee deep in the visceral slop leftover from 70 years of profiteering.

Brooks Kary
agricultural economics sophomore

Decision to cancel concert Îshameful'

It is a very sad day when, in mainstream America, all it takes is a relationship to Judaism to send people cowering from the possibility of protesters. Wind Symphony Director Lisa Hunter's decision to cancel a performance on Holocaust Remembrance Day is a sickening acquiescence to those who deny the Holocaust and the Jewish people's right to mourn ÷ or to even exist! The overwhelming documentation (mostly by the Nazis themselves), the testimonials of the survivors (Jewish prisoners, Nazi detainers, American liberating soldiers, and others) and the incredible direct evidence (the camps themselves, with their ovens and human remains) convince even most anti-Semitics of the facts. It is shameful for the School of Music to allow this to occur! The reported reasoning behind the cancellation of the concert is ridiculous and is completely unrelated to the Holocaust. Lisa Hunter is setting a dangerous precedent by allowing protesters to dictate our lives and take away the enriching things available to us in our free society, like music and art. Additionally, programs like this particular concert are especially important in order to remember the past and keep history from repeating itself.

Jacob A. Hall
Near Eastern studies senior
president, Students of Democracy