Editor, The Smithfield Times:

I read the opinion of guest columnist Ronald Prillwitz calling for the firing of the Windsor police chief in your last edition (“Help Windsor heal by hiring a new police chief”).

I doubt he has ever set foot in Windsor, and it seems he currently resides in or near Chicago. Who is he to have an opinion on what the citizens of Windsor want? He should work to clean up the daily slaughter and murder in Chicago and, after he has completed that task, give his opinion on Windsor.

I am in Windsor daily and all I see is that the great majority support Chief Riddle and the decisions the town government has made. Prillwitz calls for healing in Windsor. For the great majority of citizens I talk to who live there, and there are many, I hear none that need healing other than for outside people to leave the town alone and mind their own business.

The NAACP makes demands on the town’s elected officials and even the commonwealth’s attorney. Who are they to make demands on elected officials? Requests, yes. Demands, no.

If I were an elected official the best way for me to show you the door would be to start making demands. Of course I am not afraid of the woke politically correct cancel culture or anything they could threaten me with.

As far as FOIA requests, I am sure the town has gotten hundreds from out of the area and state in reference to this incident. Anyone with common sense should realize a town of this size has nothing close to the staff needed to comply with this number of requests. Legally the town must answer them, and if I were them, I would hire the staff needed to do this and bill those requesting the information for the cost of the extra staff. This is allowed under the law.

Our commonwealth’s attorney has recused herself from the investigation and Hampton Commonwealth’s Attorney Anton Bell has been appointed the special prosecutor. He is one of 11 commonwealth’s attorneys who formed the organization Members of Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice. I can only pray that Officers Gutierrez and Crocker are not sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.

 

Volpe Boykin

Carrsville