Editor:

Really? The shamelessly job-protecting ranks of the DEA and FBI are trying to stave off budget-cuts and potential unemployment by yet again “investigating” the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office. Please. Isn’t this kind of political and bureaucratic gamesmanship precisely the reason we should start thinning these money-sucking ranks of the government?

Pitkin County has been beyond fortunate to have the likes of Bob Braudis, and now Joey DiSalvo, and their incredibly professional deputies and staff, to serve this peculiar and difficult valley. This is one of the reasons we all love small communities and should do everything we can to support what makes them special. Many people, myself included, are happy to testify to the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office’s honesty, integrity and transparency. Can we do the same for the FBI and DEA?
 
Well, these are the agencies that have been employing allegedly drunk-driving, illegal-gun-toting undercover informants with axes to grind in this valley. And nationwide they’ve been practicing an extremely ugly version of rendition on selected prisoners for more than 25 years. It’s called “diesel therapy.” They do it to people who have only been charged and remain unconvicted of anything. In the meantime they are bused (hence the diesel) from one dangerous jail to another for weeks on end to keep them nervous and abused and to prevent lawyers from being able to reach them while they are constantly pressured to provide evidence against others the DEA and FBI want to prosecute. This is what they did to Monty Chitty, for example.
 
Are these the kind of law enforcement people we want telling us our local sheriff’s office is corrupt? Not me.