08/27/03  Terrell Bolton

I am sorry that things got this ugly for you (Hate Mail). 

I am sure the writer of the hate letter means well (in his own way), but we also know Bolton will be OK.  He will not be any better or worse than any of the fired chiefs before him.  He is a big boy and knows how this game works.

I personally did not have a problem with him because I don't believe he could have ever gotten as far as he did as a Black man in that role if he was even half the idiot some people portrayed him to be.

While I do not think he knew EXACTLY about the "fake drug" deeds of his underlings, I do feel his instincts told him he needed to CLEAN HOUSE in order to make things right and "possibly" AVOID that particular scandal.

I very much blame the City Council for settling the lawsuits with those disgruntled officers!  As it turned out (the one time we SHOULD HAVE GONE TO COURT), we would have actually won!

Since I have always recognized your sense of fairness, I hope Dallasarena.com does not let the City Attorney off the hook.  She advised Bolton he could indeed replace his command staff and we even had her advice and counsel on video tape!  In this particular regard, Bolton was far from dumb.

At any rate, Bolton is gone now.  Without him to slap around, we can finally see who will be good at reducing crime in Dallas.

As a citizen, voter, and taxpayer, it would be nice to know that 82% of our officers actually bother to LIVE IN DALLAS proper.  Then I might think that they deserve a raise.  If our officers actually patrol neighborhoods on "regular time" rather than on extra pay time, then I would feel better about them having a caste status above the rank and file employees.

When criminals see a system structured the way Dallas has chosen to structure ours, they drool with delight.  

Hopefully, with the distraction of Bolton's presence finally out of the equation, City Hall might be able to focus on the "nuts and bolts" rather than the nuts and boltons of making our police more effective.