LETTER TO THE EDITOR:MacDonald case disturbing

I realize that my commentary will be belated, but I feel that an opinion converse to those offered in the Nov. 9 edition of the Independent must be published. I offer the following to your readers: It must comforting to be able to place such confidence in the actions two of our police officers took on the morning of Aug. 25. It must be comforting because ignorance is bliss.

Can you really accept without question that the police officers were completely justified in firing upon 18-year-old Ashley MacDonald? Aside from their training, the two officers have approximately five years of experience between them. Training doesn’t make up for experience just as instruction won’t make up for practice.

If these officers had been more experienced, maybe they would have backed off long enough for the third officer to finish loading the pepper-ball launcher. I won’t dwell on “maybes” because of how many there are. I eagerly await the investigation report’s release so we may all find out the length of the knife Ashley wielded, the substances in her bloodstream, the report of how many bullets were fired by each officer, and which officer fired first.

These men are not innocent of their actions and need to see some official penalty. Perhaps they won’t be charged or punished as criminals, but it’s certain they shouldn’t ever have another chance to overreact the way they did.

JENNIFER K. WOO

Huntington Beach