To the editor,
A real president for the Navajo Nation is needed.
In 1973, an 18-year-old protesting the legal sale of alcohol to Native Americans who were falling down drunk was killed by Gallup police. The Navajo chairman sent his apologies to the Gallup mayor several years ago.
Farmington police killed a man for assaulting his girlfriend. The Navajo president did nothing.
The present president wants the officer who executed a drunk woman in Winslow, who posed zero danger to him or to his fellow officer (who has yet to be identified), “removed and barred from further serving as a police officer.” There’s no mention of prosecution, or if no prosecution, of boycotting all of Winslow forever. Death is not reversible.
The present president has not said one word about the drunk human who was killed unnecessarily by six Gallup police officers. All of us in “drunk city” and especially law enforcement are aware that alcohol makes some people go crazy. That however is not a capital crime worthy of execution to be carried out instantly by the whim of anyone with a badge.
I apparently was mistaken in my belief that it was the district attorney who made the decision of whether to prosecute or not: because the Maricopa County attorney has ruled that Shipley did not commit any act that warrants prosecution. If the overkill of shooting a helpless 95-pound female, not once but five times, does not warrant prosecution, what is the qualification?
Louis Maldonado
Gallup
