Pubdate: Wed, 09 Jul 2003
Source: Greenville News (SC)
Copyright: 2003 The Greenville News
Contact:  http://greenvillenews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/877
Author: James E. Cassell Jr.

CRACK USERS SHOULD BE THROWN IN COUNTY JAIL

I read an interesting article in The Greenville News about the fire at Poe 
Mill but the most interesting part of the article was the part that said, 
"We knew it was going to be trouble eventually," Parker Fire Chief Richard 
Jones said.

Jones said the call came at 5:12 a.m. after Greenville County sheriff's 
deputies ran off a man possibly smoking crack. By the time the first of 
nine fire trucks arrived the building was burning end to end, Jones said. 
The roof was almost gone.

Now as I've heard it said before: What's wrong with that picture? Do you 
mean to tell me that the Greenville County sheriff's deputies just ran the 
man off? It seems to me that if he was possibly smoking crack he should 
have been taken in. I understand what "possibly" means but he could have 
been tested and if he did have crack in his system he should have been sent 
to jail.

Now I know that the Sheriff's Office is probably going to say that if 
deputies took every person in who was possibly using drugs then we would 
have the jails full, and I understand that too. The answer to that would be 
to build more jails. I'd rather have the jails full than to let these 
people stay on the streets. Look what this incident probably led to, and 
this is just the beginning.

What about the three people killed in the Greer bank robbery last month, 
and the 17-year-old girl who was killed and her body found in a field? All 
possibly could have been eliminated by taking someone in for "possibly 
smoking crack."

James E. Cassell Jr.

Pickens
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