
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 10, 1991                   TAG: 9104100411
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

POLICE USE OF FORCE NOT ALWAYS ABUSE OF FORCE

I AGREE with prosecution of police who violate guidelines on use of force. I don't oppose investigation of any circumstances that may lead to such disgraces as in the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, including the questioning of academy and on-the-job training procedures.

However, Hector Tobar's brains fell out of his verbally skilled mouth when he finished his Los Angeles Times article in this paper March 24 by stating: "Despite the controversy, training on use of force continues at the Police Academy." Just what was he suggesting, that training our officers on the use of force should stop?

He described this scene: "On one recent afternoon, 60 cadets practiced martial-arts kicks and other self-defense techniques . . . The officers practiced the `power stroke' . . . With four quick baton strokes, one burly cadet broke an ax handle in half."

While attempting to be poignant, in his choice of words Tobar also implied an increasing and dangerous trend in public and media opinion: that the majority of our officers are overzealous and that the situations they will encounter do not warrant training them to such an extent.

Let me ask the general public: Would you send your officers out on the streets knowing any less? Have we forgotten the slayings of the state troopers on Interstate 81?

Take a more recent case. Leonard A. Morris, wielding a knife, was shot on March 23 as he lunged for two Roanoke city officers. His wife claimed excessive use of force. I have no doubt someone in this craze of "cops gone too far" will agree. Just don't forget the officer he stabbed, the bloodstains on Morris' leg, and the young woman raped, stabbed and left to die on Walnut Avenue, who identified him by name. But, he's "not a violent man"; he was only carrying a kitchen knife.

This controversy has led media and the average citizen to confuse the abuse of force with the use of force, and this is getting preposterous. Force must always be allowed in proportion to the situation at hand. LESLIE FENTRESS SALEM

by CNB