April 9, 2002

George W. Bush
President
United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500    
USA

Dear President Bush:

Mental illness is a non-discriminatory one. There isn’t a group or family that doesn’t suffer in some way from it. Every once in while we read about a distraught individual who acts out in such a way as to threaten or cause himself or herself and others grave physical harm. It distresses and frightens us.

When someone does become a danger to the safety and well being of others, it is our police who usually are the ones who take whatever actions they deem necessary to protect that person or others in the community from harm. They are trained to weigh delicate situations that may require them to restrain an individual. And, as we know, there are times when police officials have no choice but to kill the individual before that person kills someone else.

It is sad when things like that happen. But we are all thankful when such a sick person is restrained from continuing to endanger people. Afterwards, we try, as a community, to see if we can bring about programs and services to help the mentally ill among us to deal with and defuse their propensity to hurt themselves and others. But we still need and want the protection from them, even if it means they must be destroyed, rather than allowing them to hurt and destroy others.

The poor souls, who strap explosives to their bodies in order to kill themselves and others, such, as we have been experiencing in Israel, cannot be well people. To do such things is sick. They must be restrained from hurting others. The authorities must protect us from such ill people.

As President you are the head of the Executive Branch of our government. You are supposed to act; to execute as guided by our laws. Allowing mentally sick people to roam free and unrestrained and to kill others at will can only serve as a message to other similarly disturbed individuals that killing people is alright; “If it wasn’t they’d be stopping us”, they’ll be saying to each other.

Please reconsider your expressed request to have the Israeli authorities reduce their efforts to restrain people who are bent on killing themselves and others. There is no sense to it. We would not allow it to continue here in Nassau County or in Crawford Texas. How can you dare to allow it to happen anywhere else? Call the police and let them do what needs to be done so we can live our lives as safely as possible. There is no negotiating with someone who is so ill as to kill themselves and others. That is what’s happening. It needs to be stopped. So, please stop it.

                                                                                                                                                        Respectfully,

Drew Kopf