Cole Rehbein
Online, June 22: “Downtown Restaurant Vandalized with White Supremacist Messages”
Where were the police?
In the downtown tourist area of a popular tourist town, a three-hour response by police to a destructive crime is not just unprofessional, but suspicious. Response times are crucial to safety and community policing—very poor timing during the "defund the police" movement.
Eleven years ago, July 2009, there was a violent home invasion, attack and burglary on east Alto, and SFPD magically showed up three minutes after being called, so it's possible. Which begs serious questions about priorities that don't make sense.
SFPD needs more focus on protecting citizens and popular businesses, with less on collecting revenue through ticketing and other sources.
Blessings to India Palace!
Larissa Lewis
Santa Fe Isn’t Immune
The Santa Fe Branch of the NAACP strongly condemns the heinous destruction of the popular India Palace Restaurant [on June 21] by apparent white supremacists.
All in all, during these extraordinary times of a pandemic, state-sanctioned brutality, systemic and structural racism in our country, we in Santa Fe have been able to protest peacefully without fear or intimidation.
However, we now know Santa Fe is not a haven from such racist attacks. Sadly, hatred of the "other" exists everywhere.
How do we stamp it out-—by not letting it grow and fester.
Each of us must:
• challenge casual racist remarks said "only in jest"
• accept responsibility to condemn conspiracy theories with no basis in truth which denigrate others and
• educate those who share them.
We cannot allow hate to grow-—it will destroy us all.
Doris A Page
