Our local Sheriff's people set up a "sting" op in the AV Mall wherein they had someone walk away leaving a wallet with cards & $400 in cash, then dinging the parade of poor suckers who stole the wallet. The cascade of letters criticizing the Sheriffs was unbelievable, so I thought a bit of counter-view was in order:
To: AV Press
Date: 03/2008
Re: The Sting
The stream of letters condemning the Sheriff’s department ‘wallet sting’ in the local mall is a little scary from a social standpoint. Inherent in the one-sided indignation the letters express is the unspoken admission that in the same situation the writers themselves would have walked off with the wallet without a second thought.
The way I look at it is that since deputies are routinely assigned to mall duty anyway, what is wrong with staging a little morality play for the edification of the public while they are at it? As the reaction to the sting proves, the fear someone may be watching is all that is keeping a majority of our people "honest".