Here is what they printed ...
Congress has enabled police abuses
I feel fortunate to have been born into a white, middle-class family and to live in a town like Eugene where the police actions are consistent with their traditional motto, “To serve and protect.”
Sadly, not all Americans are so lucky.
Events of the past few days in Ferguson, Mo., are a shocking reminder of just how radicalized and militarized some police have become in America.
Much of it is because of Congress, which ramped up the “war on drugs” throughout the 1980s and ’90s and started arming state and local police with military equipment.
That can’t continue. How many more innocent young black men need to be murdered by police? How many more peaceful protesters, legally invoking their constitutional right to assembly, need to be shot at, have assault rifles and sonic weapons trained on them and have tear gas and stun grenades thrown at them?
Meanwhile, reporters are being arrested, beaten and physically abused by police. That’s far from what freedom looks like.
So my questions to Congress are, “What do you intend to do to rein in out-of-control police nationwide? Are you going to take away their deadly toys, or at least stop sending them new ones?
“Or are you going to let them continue to terrorize our citizens while giving them the latest in high-tech equipment to do so?”
It is also in their
online letters section. There are predictable right wing comments online.