OTHER VOICES

Predictive policing

I just watched a recording of the last City Council meeting in which Alderwoman Rhonda Pindell- Charles tried valiantly to get her colleagues to accept a $ 100,000 state grant providing a predictive policing model being developed at theUniversity of Maryland ( The Capital, Dec. 23).

She failed when five of them voted it down believing the approach was riddled with bad history and incompatible with community policing, a stated goal of this administration.

Although I am wary — no, downright skeptical of these data- centric approaches to crime, and I found the justification for the effort to be sketchy— Imust agree with the warnings from Mayor Gavin Buckley. He said you do not refuse grants like this lightly, and questioned if his fellow lawmakers really trusted their police chief.

Despite the denials of those who voted against it, I cannot help but see this as a slap in Police Chief Ed Jackson’s face! Alderman Fred Paone alluded to this in his closing remarks.

Here is a guy who was specifically chosen to be sensitive to community concerns and who earlier emphatically rejected the notion this would lead to racial profiling and would interfere with his community policing plans. Jackson also expressed a strong interest inworking with an academic institution, a mutually beneficial partnership nowsquandered.

I’m always worried about the background I don’t know regarding topics like this, such as source of money or agendas that could be involved; however, given what I heard I believe this was a missed opportunity andworse, a lack of respect or trust.

MICHAELDYE

Annapolis

Republicans

It is difficult to take seriously the opinions expressed by George Donohue as anything but the spewing of a demagogue ( The Capital, Dec. 28). Through obfuscation of historical facts and misinterpretation of current events, the argument in

Donohue’s opinion column is threadbare. His conclusions are predictable and sophomoric— the GOP is a moral, unlawful, and the party of Fascists.

To believe such drivel, you must buy wholesale Donohue’s contentions and be ignorant of certain facts:

■ Dwight Eisenhower won Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana in 1956. This was before the fiction of the “southern strategy” was alleged to be employed by Richard Nixon in1968.

■ GOP landslide electoral wins in 1994 and 2010 had nothing to do with racism. These were movements that drew from the basic founding principles and constitutionalism.

■ Donohoe conveniently omitted Barack Obama when discussing national debt.

■ Former Attorney General William Barr did not say therewas no evidence of fraud in the election, he said he had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome”.

■ Majority rule is anathema to our constitutional republic which is why we have an electoral college.

■ If technology is subverting democracy, it’s because tech companies have enabled the suppression of free speech not loss of jobs.

■ Democratic not Republican leaders tolerate street violence. It is in Democratic- controlled cities that the greatest riots and looting is perpetrated.

■ On the issue of racial bias and morality, it is rich that Donohue contends that the only party that now stands largely in unison against abortion has lost the moral high ground to the party that walks in lockstep supporting it.

Finally, Donohue’s question of “Who speaks for the outrage of the majority” is rhetorical because the answer is obvious— mainstream media, Hollywood, the uberwealthy, professional sports, universities, and the editorial staff of papers like The Capital.

JESSE FALSONE Edgewater