LETTERS: YOU CAN SHOW APPRECIATION FOR POLICE OFFICERS

To the editor:

The week of May 13-19 is National Police Week. This letter is a tribute to all officers.

Officers go out there every day and put their lives on the line in order to make our communities safer places to live. Most of the time we never give them a second thought. When we do, it's to criticize them, never realizing they are only human with strengths and weaknesses like the rest of us. We sit in judgment, yet we have no idea what officers have to contend with day after day as they deal with the worst side of human nature.

We never stop to think that for each time we see an officer fall short of doing his duty, that same officer has more than likely performed his duties in a commendable way countless other times.

How you view officers is up to you, but viewing them negatively benefits no one. I would like to believe most officers do a superb job of policing, but we never hear about them because the norm isn't newsworthy. There's always Speak Out, which is a great way to show your appreciation to officers and, at the same time, help others to view them more positively.

LORIE PEATS

Jackson, Mo.