A Tangled Web
“Betrayed” [May] was not only expertly written but also showed the “off the record” emotions that officers Kirks and Fbrsyth felt when they realized they could no longer trust those who had taken the same oath they had. I can understand, on a minor scale, what they experienced, as a similar betrayal touched my life in 1985 while working for another local law enforcement agency. However, after reading your story, I’d almost choose termination to being placed back “on the streets,” wearing a name badge, and facing criminals whom I had helped put in the penitentiary.
PATTI ROBISON
GARLAND
It was great to see such in-depth coverage from the bottom up. Glenna Whitley’S style and content are good for the gray cells.
1 have been an officer for ten years and in Mesquite for five. Many of my Dallas police friends are the lowest I have ever known them to be due to morale. It is great to know that people like Whitley still care and get their views in print.
WAYNE CLEERE
MESQUITE
My father, Larry Cadena, was an undercover narcotics officer. He was killed on December 13, 1988. in the line of duty while participating in a buy/bust operation. When all the news cameras were turned off of our family, we were left with the aftermath of dealing with the loss of our father, sorting through and handling the estate problems, tax problems, and other items that accompany a death. There was one man who stood by our family for no public recognition, That person was John Barr, the man Glenna Whitley wrote about in the article “as not doing anything without a purpose.” Since my father’s death. Barr has continued to help our family without any compensation. He has done this without any request for payment or public accolade.
LARRY CADENA JR.
DALLAS
Broom vs. “Subhuman Creeps”
What was your brain doing when your thumb went down |May] to the Dallas grand jury for no-billing Todd Alan Broom in the execution of a “man” who brutally murdered an innocent woman on a local parking lot? In the future. D would do well to worry less about the wrongs done to rattlesnakes and more about injustices suffered by victims of subhuman creeps like the one exterminated in this incident. Honk if your fashionable liberal philosophies have dulled your natural instincts of outrage at assault and murder.
BAILEY HANKINS
Dallas
AIDS and the Facts
Chris Tucker, like Andy Rooney, needs to understand that while AIDS can be transmitted by homosexual unions, it can also be transmitted by heterosexual unions [“Parting Shot,” May]. Indeed, AIDS originated in Africa, where it is primarily a heterosexual disease.
An increasing number of babies are being born with AIDS because their mothers are infected. Shouldn’t Andy Rooney have listed the many ways the HIV virus can be transmitted instead of feeding hatred by only mentioning homosexuals? Or is it because many people (to borrow Tucker’s expression) “fervently wish” that only homosexuals transmit the HIV virus?
P. B. JOHNSON
DALLAS
On Mallets and Malice
“Mallet Malice” in the May “Inside Dallas” could have been written by Alan Connell’s attorney. While most of the facts are essentially correct, the lack of context makes the report essentially inaccurate.
Robert Payne’s mallet did strike Alan Con-nell, injuring his eye, but no one [other than Connell] has suggested that Payne deliberately struck Connell in the face.
Second, Alan Connell, protestations to the contrary’ notwithstanding, did not lose the sight in his right eye, he lost some sight in his right eye.
Third, over a period of several seasons. Robert Payne’s mallet did make contact with at least three other players, but so has mine, so has Norman Brinker’s, so has Connell’s, and anyone else’s who plays polo. Being hit by the follow-through from a shot or attempted shot is incidental to the game. Sometimes the consequences are terrible as in Alan’s case; more often they are not.
Fourth, the Willow Bend Polo Committee did find Robert Payne “grossly negligent”; however, the term was not intended in the legal sense (which implies malice). It was intended to mean that Robert was negligent in not keeping an eye out for Alan, who has a history of riding in harm’s way, and that this negligence had a “gross result.”
Fifth, the committee did not recommend to the USPA censure of Robert Payne Jr. A range of disciplinary actions was considered by the club and a collective decision of probation was the result. Norman Brinker and Robert Payne Sr. did not reverse or alter the committee’s decision.
Finally, it is incredible to me that anyone who might have testified in this case was intimidated out of doing so. Neither the owners of the club, nor Robert Payne Jr., could pose a credible threat to the polo career of anyone playing at Willow Bend in 1987, or today for that matter.
ED SCANLON
FRISCO
Even a reporter or a publisher knows that by definition in modern dictionaries, “malice” means “desire to see another suffer” or “intent to commit an unlawful act or to cause harm without legal justification or excuse.” They should know that in a current Texas statute “malice” is defined as: A) conduct.. .specifically intended.. .to cause substantial injury to the claimant, or B) an act that is carried out.. .with a flagrant disregard for the rights of others and with actual awareness. . .that the act will, in reasonable probability, result in human death, great bodily harm, or property damage.
After due deliberation all twelve of the jurors answered that they did not believe that Bobby Payne intentionally or recklessly struck Alan Connell. Not a single juror believed Alan Connell or most of the evidence that he offered for some nine days.
There is strong indication of malice under the statutory definition on the part of the journalist and the publisher. If they were seeking truth or fair comment on a case already tried and concluded, why did they fail to check with anyone opposing Alan Connell’s position?
HUBERT D. JOHNSON<BR>DALLAS
Baylor Brouhaha
During D’s interview with me (“On the Side of the Angells,” April], I mentioned a former abortionist who said that she saw as many as fifty to seventy-five Baylor women a month. I was also careful to point out that [her claim] was retracted. In the first factual check over the phone, I said that this statement was completely retracted because of a lack of documented evidence and that it should not be used. I was not questioned about this point in our last factual check, so I assumed it was eliminated. For this reason, none of the information should have been used. If I had been questioned on this point, I most certainly would have corrected it.
MARTY ANGELL
DENTON
