Letters: Readers discuss COVID in Olathe schools, Overland Park police, Google bigot
School spread
Everyone in our house is fully vaccinated. Our eldest child works for UPS. He was exposed to the coronavirus and lost his senses of taste and smell last week. UPS had him get tested. He is COVID-19 positive. He is to be off work for 14 days from his exposure date.
My wife and I are now exposed. She is a middle school teacher and reported her exposure to her employer, Olathe Public Schools, and scheduled a substitute. We booked an appointment to get tested Monday morning. The district told her to report for duty as though no exposure occurred unless she becomes symptomatic.
We are unlikely to become seriously ill, but she must go in and potentially spread the virus to unvaccinated middle school students to take home to their families and friends. The district should tell teachers to take off with pay and not charge them sick or personal days to get tested. And if they test positive, they should quarantine for 14 days.
Every school in the area has infected and sick students. Something is very wrong when our public schools take this less seriously than a commercial entity such as UPS. Olathe Public Schools are putting students, faculty, staff, their families and the entire community at greater risk.
- Nolan H. Goldberg, Overland Park
Unfair to police
The news coverage of the 2018 shooting of Overland Park teenager John Albers by an Overland Park police officer has been extremely one-sided against the police. (Aug. 29, 10A, “More evidence found in fatal police shooting of Overland Park teen”) It focuses only on the split-second decision of a police officer facing an individual backing a vehicle toward an armed officer. It does not address what might have happened had the officer let him drive away.
A large vehicle could cause serious injury and death to innocent bystanders. People trying to evade police don’t pay a lot of attention to their driving. The police have a responsibility to protect members of the public at large, and that sometimes means stopping them.
- Sandra Freeman, Kansas City
That’s a wrap
There’s never any excuse to shoot a suspect approaching a law enforcement officer with a knife or to shoot one fleeing in the back, as is reported all too often.
A number of police departments are using a tool called a BolaWrap. It’s a handheld restraint tool that fires a lasso-like, 8-foot Kevlar tether with tiny hooks on each end that wraps around a subject’s arms or legs, preventing the person from fleeing. It has a range of 10 to 25 feet. The device uses a green laser sight line to assist the officer with aiming.
The BolaWrap was primarily intended to help subdue subjects in a mental health crisis or on drugs who are unreceptive to commands.
If a person of interest approaches an officer with a knife, the tether can be fixed around the arms, rendering the subject helpless with nonlethal force. If a person tries to run, he or she can be restrained around the ankles.
There are some who call the device’s tiny hooks inhumane. More inhumane than a bullet in the back?
All police departments, including those in Missouri and Kansas, should make the small, handheld, clip-on device available to their officers.
- William R. Park Sr., Shawnee
Big tech bigotry
Google has an antisemitism problem. Its former global lead for diversity strategy and research, Kamau Bobb, posted online in 2007 that Jews have “an insatiable appetite for wars and killing.” When this information came to light this summer, Google removed Bobb from his position instead of firing him. This sets a poor example to other employees.
Google should make it clear to staff that this antisemitic language is inappropriate and unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
The fact that Bobb had been a company leader of diversity strategy seems laughable and demonstrates an evil type of irony. Merely reassigning him sends the wrong message. It seems analogous to the Catholic Church moving a pedophile priest from one diocese to another and not addressing his criminal behavior.
- Richard S. Gilman, Overland Park
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss COVID in Olathe schools, Overland Park police, Google bigot."