Law And Order

Re "Beck eases LAPD deport policy," Oct. 5 Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck wants to distance himself from federal immigration law, which he says is unfair to illegal immigrants suspected of committing petty offenses. We don't understand the reluctance to enforce our laws or the attitude that we don't want to make life inconvenient or uncomfortable for those illegally in this country. While it's obvious that serious and violent criminals deserve priority, petty offenses are quality-of-life issues that affect us all. We have continued to say one thing about immigration while doing another, which only encourages illegal immigration.

Re "Beck eases LAPD deport policy," Oct. 5 Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck wants to distance himself from federal immigration law, which he says is unfair to illegal immigrants suspected of committing petty offenses. We don't understand the reluctance to enforce our laws or the attitude that we don't want to make life inconvenient or uncomfortable for those illegally in this country. While it's obvious that serious and violent criminals deserve priority, petty offenses are quality-of-life issues that affect us all. We have continued to say one thing about immigration while doing another, which only encourages illegal immigration.

Something very depressing happened recently in my neighborhood in the Crenshaw area. Around midnight on Friday night of the week after the riots, I heard a helicopter over my house, so I knew something was going on. I looked out briefly and noticed several small groups of youngsters, mostly kids about 11 to 14 from what I could tell, walking by. I couldn't see the helicopter, but it was close and low.

EL HUJAYRAT, Egypt - The sheik walked through his courtyard to a room where sins are purged. When a man picks up a gun and fires it, Sheik Mohamed Abul Ismail is summoned to dispense justice, often before the grave is dug. Suspicious, with a temper as unpredictable as a water bug, he is a keeper of peace in a land prone to vendettas and a farming village accustomed to funeral processions trundling through the dust along wheat fields. He greeted an outsider the other day; men at the barbershop next door popped their heads out when they heard the word "journalist," a profession the sheik likens to droughts and crop-eating insects.

What is happening to the excellent NBC show "Law and Order"? I read in The Times that it was renewed for next season. However, in its place of late is "Shannon's Deal," with no "Law and Order" to be found. Will it be scheduled on some other day? Mrs. C. Haynes, Pasadena "Law and Order" has indeed been renewed, but the NBC drama currently is on hiatus, without any word from the network on when or where it will return.

For elected officials, the mantle of "Guardian of Law and Order" is frequently a stepping stone to higher office. Occasionally, however, "Law and Order" is not the cry the crowd wants to hear. In the case of released rapist Lawrence Singleton, too many California politicians are playing to the crowd, directly contributing to a lynch-mob mentality. They need to be reminded that their sworn duty is to uphold the law, even when the law protects the rights of an unpopular parolee. Putting Singleton on the grounds of San Quentin is a temporary solution.

What a travesty of law and order! Ramsey and Dickey clearly violated Jackson's civil rights. And for this they get 50% retirement pay for life. Lead me to the Long Beach City Hall. EDWARD PFIRRMANN, Costa Mesa

Want to earn $5 million-$8 million? Be on probation, drive while legally inebriated, and resist arrest after being clocked going 115 m.p.h. on the freeway. And to think this country was based on law and order! JULIE HUGHES Rancho Mirage

Re: "Simi Seeks to Improve Image" June 22, 2001. Hurrah for the Simi Valley City Council members, who want to identify forever their city with one of our noblest presidents. Their proposed slogan, "Home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library," will indeed add distinction to a community already much admired as the site of the first, rational trial of the recalcitrant, combative Rodney King. Perhaps they could add to their slogan the declaration that "We support the forces of law and order!"

Most people are for law and order. Most people would back their children in trouble. And I'm sure that Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) is for both. But as recent events show that she has flouted the law, actions speak louder than words. By manipulating the law, this over-protective mother has turned her child into an arrant scofflaw. She has deliberately ignored two judges' orders, and how many of us could have gotten away with this? Wright recently voted against a bill to ban assault rifles, as did state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia)

Terrance Winters of Yazoo City, Miss., voted for Haley Barbour in the past, and while he gives the ex-governor a mixed grade these days, particularly on economic matters, he's always given Barbour points for political shrewdness. Which is why Winters, a 31-year-old cook at a barbecue restaurant, is flummoxed by the mess that Barbour left behind after stepping down from office this week. "I actually don't know what he was thinking," Winters said. That is a question most of Mississippi, and the political world far beyond it, is asking.

Officer Sharif Ganasi was working the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift, cruising the trash-strewn streets of Benghazi, alert for drunks and carjackers. His new black police uniform was too tight and too hot. He was drenched with sweat, his bulky body crammed into the tiny driver's seat of a white Hyundai compact. His hand-held radio kept cutting out. "We could use better equipment," he said as he guided car 23 through evening traffic in the de facto capital of Libya's rebels. Ganasi doesn't carry a gun or a badge.

A retired Mexican army officer widely credited with restoring law and order as the top police official in Tijuana was named Thursday to a similar post in Ciudad Juarez, the country's most violent city. Julian Leyzaola, who was a lieutenant colonel, was appointed public safety secretary by Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia, who was elected last July. He takes over security in a city where fighting between drug cartels has sent killings skyrocketing, with more than 6,400 people slain since late 2006.

With its daily menu of westerns, the Hitching Post Theater in 1940s Hollywood gave posses of kids some early lessons about law and order ? and not just on the screen. "Check Your Guns at the Box Office," a sign commanded the youngsters, who usually showed up in costume. Management was serious about cap-gun control. "They could check to see if your holsters were empty," said Hollywood historian and Hitching Post habitue Bruce Torrence. Still, some young desperadoes managed to smuggle their shooting irons into the seating area, as became evident.

Coach and critic Re "Jackson enters the immigration arena," May 18 Lakers coach Phil Jackson's habitual, meandering doublespeak long ago confirmed that sports success is no proof of superior intellect. Of what value is so-called deep thinking when the crucial companion skill for intelligible articulation is absent? His political views on complex issues like immigration are best taken lightly or ignored. Even in his team sport, he was very slow to recognize that depending on a single player for 90% of what is needed to gain a championship is a mistake.

With titans of the Islamic Republic entrenched against each other, huge crowds of protesters clad in green and black pressed into President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's home turf Thursday to make the case that he won reelection through massive vote fraud. The fourth day of demonstrations came as Iranians anticipated an address to the nation today by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at Friday prayers.

The detectives crouched low, guns in hand, sweeping the crumbling apartments, moving cautiously from room to room, barking at the two prosecutors to stay back, to watch out. The lawyers were children of the city, raised in ethnic neighborhoods by families of modest means. But the poverty here in central Harlem startled them. Some of the abandoned buildings served as shooting galleries, places where drug addicts congregated. The air was rank, the threat of violence palpable.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, in his first act after taking office, freed 13 people being held under a law that allows indefinite detention and lifted a ban on two opposition newspapers. "These decisions are timely as we move to enhance the confidence of our citizens in those entrusted with maintaining peace, law and order," Najib said on national television hours after taking office. Those freed are two ethnic Indian activists who were arrested in December 2007 for leading an anti-government campaign, three foreigners and eight suspected Islamic militants, Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar announced.