Recently The Citizen published a letter to the editor from Gary Rettmann in which he accuses the Peachtree City Police Department of — at best — dereliction of duty, and — at worst — attempted extortion in a moral, if not legal sense.

In his letter (posted 4/3, appearing in print 4/4), Mr. Rettmann accuses the Peachtree City police of withholding police patrols with the objective of scaring citizens into paying officers more.

Mr. Rettmann reports not seeing any police one weekend as he ran his errands around the city. As he typically does see patrols around the city, he writes, he interprets his failure to spy a cop one weekend as a nefarious ploy by the police to not do their jobs with the objective of gaining a pay raise. (http://www.thecitizen.com/node/15698)

Mr. Rettmann owes the Peachtree City police an apology. He accuses them of failing to uphold their public trust, their sworn duty. He does so on grounds no stronger than that he did not see any patrol cars during his travels one weekend.

The same Tuesday that Mr. Rettmann posted his letter online (4/3), PTC officers arrested two men for attempted burglary (among other charges) in the Kedron Village Shopping Center.

According to The Citizen, Corporal Debbie Allen caught the two in the act while she conducted a routine business check. One of the men was reportedly out on bond for multiple charges including armed robbery and burglary in two other counties (http://www.thecitizen.com/node/15806).

Apparently, Cpl. Allen did not read the alleged Machiavellian memo from police management to curtail or suspend patrols in order to shake the citizens down for more money.

I have no trouble with a vigorous public debate regarding how we determine how much to pay from the public treasury to those who protect us by enforcing the law. However, I think Mr. Rettmann should gather some evidence before going before the court of public opinion to bring indictment against the integrity of others, especially those who have taken an oath to enforce the law.

Eric Ferrell

ferrellguy (at) yahoo.com

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