Recent editorials from Tennessee newspapers:
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March 3
Bristol Herald Courier on a sheriff’s deputy who was shot during a standoff at a Tennessee home:
Firefighters, emergency service personnel and citizens crowded local bridges and roads in solidarity to salute the passing of Sgt. Steve Hinkle of the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office and more than 50 police cruisers in procession Tuesday.
Hinkle, a 65-year-old veteran officer less than a year from retirement, died that afternoon from injuries he received during a shootout Saturday after an area family reported that a man was threatening to harm himself.
Expressions of grief have been both sweeping and intimate. Make no mistake: Sullivan County is in mourning.
Hundreds gathered at the Sheriff’s offices for a vigil.
A Sheriff’s Officer cruiser is parked at the flagpole in Blountville in Hinkle’s honor, and the site is piled with flowers and remembrances.
Across the county, heads bowed in prayer for Hinkle and his family.
The officers who protect and serve us sew together the fabric of our community - now, we all feel torn.
Hinkle, the 11th Sullivan County officer to die in the line of duty, served residents for 27 years, with an additional five years prior as a Reserve Sheriff’s Deputy. He started as a corrections officer, and then went on to serve as a school resource officer for Sullivan East and Sullivan Central High Schools. Hinkle was also a firearms instructor and member of the Sheriff’s honor guard.
Representatives from Knoxville, Carter County, Hawkins County, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and from across the country have reached out with their condolences. According to those who worked with him locally during all those years of service, Hinkle was “a gentle giant,” ’’loved by everybody,” ’’a jewel,” ’’one of the most genuine souls,” ’’absolutely one of the finest men, friends, and officers anyone could have to look up to,” and “a hero.”
It’s said that a man is judged not by how much he loves, but by how much he is loved by others. The words of Hinkle’s co-workers and many friends speak for themselves.
Around the office, co-workers remember that Hinkle was never seen without a cup of coffee. He loved the Old West and cowboys, and taught many officers how to shoot. He routinely dressed as Santa Claus when Christmas came around.
Steve Hinkle was present for his police family when they needed him. “He was always there to give rookies advice and pointers on what he had learned,” remembered former Deputy April Castle, who worked with him for 10 years. When retired School Resource Officer Carolyn Gudger single-handedly faced down a gunman in Central High in 2010, Hinkle was there to help her through the aftermath.
“He’d just stand there with you, as long as it took,” she said. “If you had to talk, he’d let you. He was just so patient. You couldn’t help but love him.”
Hinkle was also there when Gudger’s mother passed away. He told her to think of her mother as just being away temporarily, and that they would see each other again.
We might think on Hinkle’s own advice, and on a present he gave to Gudger: a rock bearing one of his favorite Bible passages, Psalm 46:10. “Be still and know that I am God.”
As we grieve and contemplate the life of Steve Hinkle - the man, the lifelong public servant, and the hero - we can recall his words.
Be still. And remember.
Online: https://www.heraldcourier.com/
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Feb. 22
Kingsport Times-News on incarcerating people with mental health issues:
As we expected, Albert Toronjo has been sent to jail when he should have been placed in a mental rehabilitation facility.
Toronjo, 68, of Kingsport, has been harassing women for years. He’s been arrested multiple times and has spent time in prison. …
He recently appeared in court, where he pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated stalking and was sentenced to 4½ years in prison. He waived alternative sentencing and will be eligible for parole at some point in time.
Clearly, Toronjo has issues that will not be fully addressed in a jail cell. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, some 2 million mentally ill persons are booked into jails annually, with 15 percent of incarcerated men and 30 percent of incarcerated women suffering a serious mental health condition. Once in jail, many individuals in need of mental health treatment don’t get it, and those who do and are released no longer have access to any care and their conditions deteriorate. The alliance estimates that 83 percent of inmates with a mental illness are not treated.
This all results from a failed policy that began in the 1960s to move mental health patients out of state-run facilities and into federally funded community mental health centers to cut costs. Between 1955 and 1994, a half million mentally ill patients were discharged from state hospitals, which were then closed.
As a result, the alliance states, some 2.2 million severely mentally ill do not receive any psychiatric treatment, about 200,000 who suffer from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are homeless, representing about a third of the total homeless population, and more than 300,000 are in jails and prisons. Sixteen percent of all inmates are severely mentally ill, and there are more than three times as many seriously mentally ill people in jails and prisons than in hospitals.
De-institutionalization gave the mentally ill some rights, but most released from state facilities were not good candidates for community centers, and that continues to hold true. Today, they are shoved aside, denied the care they need. They wander the streets, or as with Toronjo, engage in behavior regardless of consequences and are repeatedly sent to jail in a cycle that doesn’t benefit them, nor society.
Online: http://www.timesnews.net/
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March 6
Johnson City Press on U.S. Rep. Phil Roe:
Our U.S. Rep. Phil Roe (R) quickly and decisively sent a strong message to the president when he believed the nation’s executive had overstepped his authority and attempted to bypass the will of Congress.
“The people of the First District sent me to Congress to fight for a better America for our children and grandchildren, and to defend and uphold the Constitution, which is part of the reason why I carry a copy of the Constitution in my pocket every time I cast a vote on the House floor,” Roe said in a fiery statement posted to his website and emailed to media outlets throughout his district after his vote in support of a lawsuit to stop the president from circumventing the will of the elected members of the legislative branch.
“I take these duties very seriously, and I believe something must be done to stop this executive overreach. I hope this vote sends a strong and clear message to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”
Roe’s strength and resolve to protect and preserve “our nation’s most sacred document - the Constitution” couldn’t be contained by just one statement.
“No president can rewrite the law, regardless of their political party affiliation,” he said in one.
“You can rest assured I will always fight to stop executive overreach and protect our Constitution as long as I have the honor of serving you in Congress,” he said. “We live in the best country in the world, and I won’t let anyone - including the President of the United States - trample on the system of checks and balances clearly laid out in the Constitution.”
In another, Roe said the nation would be unable to accomplish anything meaningful if the president continued to act without congressional authority.
“It’s up to the president. He can walk back his irresponsible governing tactics and work with Congress, or he can expect strong pushback from both chambers until the end of his presidency,” he said.
It’s refreshing to see Roe so emphatically stand up to the White House.
Oh wait. That wasn’t today’s White House. Roe made the above statements between 2014 and 2016 when President Barack Obama, a Democrat, tried to use executive orders to force action on immigration and health care.
Apologies for the outdated information, but, based on the congressman’s unmistakable determination, he’s surely spoken out against President Donald Trump’s recent attempt to use a national emergency declaration to allocate funding Congress considered and rejected for $5.7 billion worth of border barriers. The people of the First District didn’t elect him for different reasons in 2016 than they did in previous terms, did they?
Let’s see Roe’s own words about the emergency declaration:
“President Trump has consistently offered good-faith solutions that improve our border security while updating our country’s immigration laws, but Democrats have made clear they have no interest in compromising on this issue of national importance. This failure by Democrats to cooperate has left the president with no choice but to use an executive action to address the emergency at our southern border.”
No matter the party, our elected representative in the House has consistently been inconsistent. In fact, it seems like Roe is giving today’s president a pass to unilaterally circumvent a hard-fought compromise budget bill that passed both houses of Congress by more than two-thirds majorities. The debate over that border barrier funding sent us into the longest government shutdown in history.
Heck, Roe voted for that budget bill, and now he’s OK with a president negating his vote?
It’s not difficult to see that Roe’s posturing is political gamesmanship. But this isn’t a game.
The Supreme Court rightly blocked Obama’s executive action on immigration reform because it’s up to Congress to write the laws that govern our nation - though we’re still waiting for Congress to take any action at all to mend the dysfunctional immigration system.
Some Republicans, including Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, recognize the constitutional problems represented by the president’s emergency declaration. Should the Supreme Court rule it constitutional, Congress would lose its “power of the purse,” one of its most important checks on presidential powers.
Oval Office occupant aside, Roe’s waffling between uncompromising hardliner and party cheerleader negates both the things he’s said in the past and the things he’s saying in the present. And because he’s our voice in Congress, we end up being ignored.
Online: https://www.johnsoncitypress.com/
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