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

DATE: THURSDAY, May 13, 1993                   TAG: 9305130499
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHEN RULE OF FORCE REPLACES RULE OF LAW

YOUR APRIL 30 editorial ("David Koresh, mass murderer") was correct in saying it is ridiculous to call the events in Waco "a profound disgrace to law enforcement." Quite to the contrary, the street message of "Shoot at ATF and stall FBI and die" will tend to make those law-enforcement agencies among the most feared in the world.

On the other hand, when people are killed and hurt before charges are proved in a court of law, and when the maximum penalty of death is paid by people not charged with a crime carrying that penalty, has not the rule of law been disgraced? Nothing stands between ordinary people and the lethal force in the hands of enforcement officials except the law.

Rep. Conyers, a black whose constituents need the protection of this law to secure them from the force in the hands of enforcement officials, termed the Waco outcome a disgrace for that reason. This newspaper's gloss of the events damages the interests of the community at large. There are terrible consequences in store for a society that comes to rely too much on force to maintain order, instead of advancing respect for the law and equal protection for all under it as the foundation of order. When government agents come to the point of habitually using unnecessary, excessive or reckless force at or beyond the boundary of the law, and when there is no expectation of equal justice under the law, who will respect the rule of law? Who will not conclude that force rules? Is this attitude not already too much the cause of our civil disorder?

Waco was important because the highest law-enforcement authorities were performing in front of the world, revealing to all their basic values and principles by their tactics. Something is wrong with your tactics, your basic values and principles or both when the outcome of serving a search warrant on Bible thumpers results in the death of people and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of dollars of property.

Don't you think it's time the government asked itself whether methods used to enforce federal gun laws on otherwise law-abiding citizens are proportionate to the dangers to community life and property posed by infractions of those laws? Isn't there a clear and present danger to life, liberty and property in the trend toward unconstitutional takeover of police power from the states by federal authorities? JAY RUTLEDGE ROANOKE

by CNB