Toledo Blade
September 10, 2003

The fact that it took Toledo Police 20 minutes to arrive at the scene of the stabbing death of 4-year-old Skylar Burnard and the stabbing of two-month-old Gavin Harmon, allegedly by their mother’s live-in boyfriend, is reprehensible.

I challenge The Blade to hold Chief Mike Navarre’s feet to the fire on this horrific crime. An outside investigation of the events from the first call to 911 to the arrival of the first crew on the scene is necessary.

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It is no secret to the rank-and-file officers that the department does not have enough officers on the street for a city the size of Toledo. When the original call came in a crew should have been sent immediately.

The call went out as a general broadcast, meaning there was a hope that a crew would break off another call and respond. This should not have happened. Once Nicole Miller called 911 at 4:19 a.m. saying that Harmon was going crazy, that her children were with him, and that she was afraid he might hurt them, a crew should have been sent code one (lights and siren).

The independent investigation needs to look at manpower levels, operations at 911, and the correct response to domestic violence calls. The buck should stop at the chief’s desk.

RON SCANLON
Philmar Drive
Mr. Scanlon is a retired detective with the Toledo Police Department.

Click here to read the entire letter in the Toledo Blade.

Saturday, September 13, 2003
Cincinnati Enquirer

What in the world is wrong with our police officers ("Police concerned over
civilian pepper guns," Sept. 10)? I have been firing handguns and long guns
since I was around 10 years old and am now 70. I have yet to see a handgun
that looks like the pepper ball gun, and so what if it does? I think it
looks more like a paint ball gun.

I don't believe officers will be shot with a pepper ball gun because the bad
guys will still continue to carry the real thing. The police officer stated
that a burglar with a real firearm might shoot a homeowner brandishing a
pepper ball gun. This sounds like an even better reason to have a real
weapon close at hand. Is this reluctance to have armed, law-abiding citizens
the result of a good ole boy macho network?

Surely our street officers have figured out by now that it's the bad guys,
the ones who do not respect any law that are a threat to them and not the
law-abiding citizens.

Gerald Wheeler
Mount Washington

Click here to read the letter in the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Related Story:
Cincy Police: When we say we want you defenseless, we mean DEFENSELESS

UPDATE: An astute OFCC supporter has forwarded a Sept. 16 story from the Washington Post, which shows how inadequate pepperball guns can be in stopping someone intent on harming an innocent person.

Ohioans should not have to be forced to carry a rock in a sock under their seat (as one woman who tested the pepperball gun in Cincinnati said she does) if they wish to to protect themselves from violent attack. Nor should their Constitutional right to bear arms for self-defense be so infringed that they are forced to depend on technology that is proven to be inadequate for stopping threats, such as pepper spray, pepperball guns, or stun guns.

It's getting hard to keep up with the crime headlines in Toledo. While the council and mayor chase smokers, vote to reinstate failed laws aimed at disarming the poor, and write letters to Gov. Taft opposing HB12, the innocent citizens of that city are under seige. The following headlines were all published in the past week in the Toledo Blade:

Police take 20 minutes to respond to 911 call; 4 yr. old girl fatally stabbed

Man held in robbery attempt

Deputies investigating attempt to snatch child

Clerk hurt in robbery of carryout on Dorr St.

Police look for pair of robbery suspects

Information sought about holdup attempt

Robber fires shot into Wendy’s ceiling

N. Toledo man says he was shot by stranger

Man shot several times at barbecue in Toledo

Pizzeria robbed; ties to Wendy’s heists seen

The founder of criminology, 18th-century scholar Cesare Beccaria of Milan, once wrote:

"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty — so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator — and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve to rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventative but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree."

Related Stories:
Toledo: Disarmed (smoke-free) citizens, well-armed criminals

Toledo Mayor breaks tie to extend ban on handguns

Tell Mayor Ford to support the self-defense rights of Toledoans