Correction: An image on page 6 of the Sept. 5 edition neglected to credit the photographer, Merrick Chase (www.MerrickChasePhotography.com).
The Waters ‘mistrial’
(Re: “Troubled Waters,” cover story, Sept. 5.) Have you ever been on a jury?
Jury members aren’t thinking about the verdict. They are wondering, when will this be over? What am I making for supper? Or will I make it home in time for my show? Some people hate and fear the homeless. They think they are guilty whether they hear all the facts or not.
And as for a jury of his peers, there were none. Talk about a mistrial.
Delana Mooney/via Internet
Ms. Gilboy’s and Mr. Dyer’s thorough article raises valid issues about whether Mr. Waters would be in jail for the rest of his life if he were not homeless when he stabbed two other homeless men, violently killing one. In our justice system those with less do not get the same representation, and if we presume Eddie was solely acting in self-defense and if he were not homeless, he likely would have been considered the victim. If Eddie were in his bedroom, he’d be innocent. The man who shot the wasted college girl who wandered into his home at 3 a.m. last year went free.
Unfortunately, as I waded through the morass of the story, I finished it not wanting to champion Eddie’s cause, as the writers implore. Rather, I kept coming back to a line in the story: “It is an understatement to say that such a decision to turn Waters loose would have been controversial in a town whose affluent citizens are at best uneasy about, or at worst terrified of, the area’s homeless population.”
It is not only Boulder’s “affluent citizens” who are uneasy about and terrified of people like Waters, Giampino and “Turtle.” By “people like,” let me clear — I don’t mean homeless; I mean drug- and alcohol-addled people, armed and prone to violence. Some local homeless have told me the increasing drugs and violence of the chronic vagrants here terrifies them.
My partner is “terrified” to run the creek path, especially at night. We have concerns about the safety of our daughter at Boulder High when she is around the creek path. Imagine for a second if it were your daughter, wife, father, mother or son who met up with Waters, Giampino and Turtle that night when they were drunk, high, armed — prone to violence?
Boulder’s growing problem with drunk, drug-addled and violent transients gives honest, nonviolent people — including less affluent and homeless people — plenty to be uneasy about and terrified of. Your complete denial of this and condescending attitude toward our community make me far less sympathetic to Eddie.
Mark Gelband/Boulder
Lost police reports
In Jefferson Dodge’s article, “Taking aim” [Aug. 29], one sentence is: “But county officials say they have no reports from the sheriff’s office about public safety problems with hunters in the area.”
I know of a least one serious incident report concerning hunters/residents confrontations that was reported “lost” by the sheriff’s office. In the fall of 2005, four women residents met with a Division of Wildlife officer and a sheriff’s deputy in the living room of one woman’s home to discuss an incident. Earlier that day, the women saw several hunters shooting from Sugarloaf Road. Another hunter was shooting from above, down towards the road. These male hunters were allegedly drinking. One of the women was threatened by one of the men gutting a deer with a knife. Note: Two months after this incident, one of these same hunters shot and killed a resident’s black lab, maintaining the dog “had interfered with his hunt.”
During discovery in a lawsuit filed two years later, we asked for the sheriff’s report for this incident. It was listed as report LBC050912044028 on a page of a “Call for Service Unit” log under “Shots Fired.” An assistant county attorney informed us that the report was “lost.”
If the commissioners would hold a public hearing, as the petition (86 residents’ signatures) delivered to them nine months ago requests, they could hear from many residents directly about the public safety problems presented by hunting in our densely populated neighborhoods.
Anita Moss/Boulder
