A great deal of controversy has been raised over an incident which occurred during the Fourth of July holiday. One of two criminal suspects had to be brought down with a Tazer device, following a burglary at Rite Aid.
While the facts are well known, the Gazette is waiting for an official report before commenting on the use of force by a city fireman-code enforcement officer who assisted a Sheriff’s deputy under attack by one of the suspects who was resisting arrest.
A great deal of hostile, inflammatory rhetoric was expressed on our website blog (www.fillmoregazette.com/forum) about this incident. The same sort of indignant flaming was heard during oral communication time at the last city council meeting.
These expressions of outrage have one thing in common: they grossly misstate the facts and mislead the audience. There also appears to be some sort of underlying agenda sparking these hot complaints.
It’s my hope that the official report will be available for next week’s edition.
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Our new pool is coming along swimmingly. (Sorry). Concrete foundations are being poured this week - see fillmoregazette.com for some color photos. The pool complex is expected to be open for business before January, ’09. One of the unintended consequences of this otherwise happy news is the fact that First Street at Orchard will soon become a traffic nightmare. Just imagine those days when the final bell at Sespe School sends streams of kids to their parent’s waiting SUVs, the Boys and Girls Club’s 50 to 80 kids play in the front yard, the high school is having a major sports event, and parents are anxiously waiting in a line of idling cars to drop their kids off for a cool swim. Oh – then there’s the normal student pedestrian traffic from the middle school and high school, and normal foot and vehicle traffic from First Street residents. The intersection of Orchard and First is already chaotic. What can we expect next year?
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Something close to $35,000-worth of illegal fireworks citations were issued this year by our police and fire departments. I wonder if this will cover the cost of the fireworks display.