Sir:

Allow me to express my heartiest support of your condemnation of the utterly unjustifiable and murderous practice of police firing in the direction of persons running away from the scene of a crime.

When in conversation with my friend, Magistrate Hopkins, I protested against this, he replied that such persons should halt when ordered to do so by the police. That may be so. But the failure to do so is presumably due either to panic or hope to escape. And neither panic nor an error in judgement is a serious enough offense to merit the death penalty without a trial.

Tom Jarvis is also to be commended most heartily for his condemnation of the vicious police practice of firing at automobiles they are trying to stop. The tragic death of two nurses standing on a sidewalk in Toronto was surely sufficient to show the criminal recklessness of police in indulging in this insanely dangerous performance.

More power to you in your effort to put an end to this vicious disregard for the lives of people whom it is the function of the police forces to protect.

Calvin McQuesten