I am just finishing reading for the third time your article entitled “Two Men Caught in Connection with Mail Theft and Eluding Police on Lopez Island.” I can still hardly believe my eyes. This is very scary. How do we protect ourselves from crooks like these?

It seems to me that all our Sheriff’s “forces” which we presumably pay well to keep us “safe” from criminals like this have done so far is to let these crooks go until “next time” after they’ve hurt still more innocent victims. The article as written indicates the thefts and depredations occurred two years ago, in 2022. It’s now two years later and the wheels of justice are only now just starting to creak to life. Where have these criminals been all this time? Are they out and about or have they been in some sort of incarceration all this time?

Does anyone honestly expect these criminals to change? Would you change if you got away with this kind of behavior, over and over again, with no accountability at all?

Isn’t there somebody who is responsible for keeping people like this who apparently have multiple charges in other counties and states from being free and out in society? The reporting on this matter so far is pretty sketchy and does not have much in the way of explanation about how and why these miscreants are free to wander about the county and commit random acts of violence and aggression. I think the randomness of their crimes against people they don’t even know is what makes this so repulsive and sinister.

“We taxpayers” are stuck in a miserable situation, caught between nurturing, and coddling the sick minds that commit these depredations on the rest of us, and the seemingly reasonable desire to have fairly safe and predictable lives worth paying our high taxes for. Am I the only San Juan County taxpayer who resents this unfairness?

Ginni Keith

Lopez Island