I am writing in reference to an armed robbery we had in Sanford last month, regarding the clerk chasing after the robber, not once, but twice in the story, and a follow-up editorial that quoted the chief as saying: “While obviously the clerk was very brave” …
Maybe it’s me, but it’s not so obvious, and I don’t think it was brave at all. To put it rather bluntly, it was kind of stupid to chase an armed, probably crazed robber, as proven by the result ”“ shots fired ”“ which can wind up anywhere.
It appears that without that chase, there probably would have been no firearm discharge, which is obvious to me would have been better for public safety.
In all fairness, the chief redeems himself with the rest of his sentence: “We don’t want people to follow suspects and confront them,” but by then, the damage has been done, by labeling the act “brave.”
-Bill Thomas, Sanford
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