Regarding two recent stories about police officer-involved shootings (“Use of force expert: Ligonier Valley police shooting ‘probably should have been handled differently’,” Aug. 20, TribLIVE; “Man killed by Philadelphia police never got out of his car, didn’t ‘lunge’ with a knife, police say in new narrative,” Aug. 16, TribLIVE): These two accounts of police behaviors are ludicrous. In the Ligonier incident, possibly, maybe, the shooting was justified — fearing for their lives?

In the Philadelphia incident, however — seriously? “Police say in new narrative … .”

I am sure the majority of sensible people reading the coverage of the Philadelphia incident would respond by saying the police were lying — period.

These two separate incidents show the very real need for civilian citizen overwatch of the police. People who blindly “Back the Blue” no matter what really need to see these incidents, and others like them, as reason for truly, sincerely and immediately putting in place some mechanism to hold every police officer and official accountable for their actions — starting with totally undoing the police union, the FOP.

John Fleischman

Vandergrift

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