Letter: Ticket-fixing by city cops

I am so appalled at the large number of New York City Police Department officers who think that fixing tickets for their friends and relatives is forgivable ["Officers charged in ticket-fix scam arraigned: Hundreds from NYPD support the 16 accused," News, Oct. 29]. Why should any of these violators be beyond the law?

We are on the roads with these people. I like to think that the roads are kept safe by enforcing the rules for everyone. We all know police officers. Multiply this knowledge by how many are given the grace of forgiveness. This is deplorable and frightening.

If the police can be afforded this kind of luxury, where will it end? Should we now forgive teachers who give test answers to students? How about those who provide inside-trading information on Wall Street? When a group of public officials serving the public trust bands together to fight for something so lacking in honesty and integrity, it speaks to the current state of our cultural demise. We need to clean up, America.

Antoinette Donato, Miller Place
 

I am a lifelong union man. I am appalled by what I have read about the police union protesting the official actions against members of their union who have been found to be lawbreakers.

These are people whose job it is to uphold the law. The union's outcry, defending these lawbreakers within its ranks, only serves to feed the cause of union-busters. For shame!

The hard-won achievements of the union movement in our country, as the champion of decent working conditions, is damaged by those who would sully it by coming to the defense of thoughtless lawbreakers like the ticket-fixers in the New York City Police Department.

Morton Ballin, Oakdale