To the editor:

I have been listening to radio reports about people abusing the law, and then when a police officer attempts to arrest them, they run or fight back. Then, if they get treated like the criminals they are, their families get upset.

These families would teach their children that if they are doing something and a policeman wants to talk to them, they should stand still and listen. Do not try to grab the policeman, and do not try to run. Stand there and listen to the officer.

Police officers are not trying to hurt the suspects. They are doing the job they are trained to do, the job good citizens expect from them.

Two of my family members have served as sheriff’s deputies in two different areas in Virginia. Thankfully, they did a good job and had very few problems making arrests.

I was a justice of the peace, an elected position, in old Nansemond County, and then I assisted the Office of the Magistrate for a while during the illness and absence of one of the magistrates.

I saw some of the problems police have to deal with, and it troubles me that some people think the police are trying to injure or hurt a person who has been caught in the act of or just after having done something suspicious.

It appears to me that too many people think they are entitled to do anything they wish, and get anything they wish, and they do not want to work in order to get these items.

We need to support the court system, police and judges and hope it will make a difference in reducing crime in all areas of America.

Mary Grace Garner-Atkins

Suffolk