LETTERS

I read your article “Alarming evidence adds to mystery” in the Aug. 9 Redmond Reporter and I am dismayed.

There are a couple of points that disturb me and I will do my best to explain them as follows:

First, that officer Jim Bove was cited as identifying the murder of Melissa Batten as a “crime of passion” is absolutely criminal in itself. Crimes of passion occur suddenly and are not preceded by planning and stalking behavior. Killing somebody is not an act of love, as intimated in the last sentence of the article.

I am very concerned that this is labeled a “crime of passion” because it is going to confuse some stupid people who may now think that killing their ex-boyfriend or ex-spouse is sort of OK.

To finish your article with the comment that “you can’t cut off love” is just appalling!!! I think that portraying Joseph Batten as anything but a dangerously unbalanced murderer is not acceptable.

Secondly, the presence of “fuzzy handcuffs” is hardly evidence that Joseph Batten was planning to kidnap his wife. Is it actually possible to hold anybody with “fuzzy handcuffs?” I doubt it.

Can the police really be worried about “fuzzy handcuffs?” They are more accustomed to the use of duct tape and zip ties by rapists and other violent felons. And the hardcore porn is also not evidence of anything! I hate to inform you of this, but there is quite a lot of porn, hardcore and otherwise around, and there has never been any evidence whatever that it causes people to misbehave violently.

Now are we going to have a witch hunt for folks with “fuzzy handcuffs” and pornography? What about other obvious indications, such as “fuzzy blindfolds”, or maybe silk scarves that tell us that there is murder or rape afoot? Should we put you in prison because you have these things?

To suggest to the public that the “fuzzy handcuffs” indicate anything at all related to the murder is just outrageous sensationalism on the part of Bill Christianson, who, unless he is actually the invention of a prudish old lady, should know better.

Please attempt, for the sake of your readers and our basic freedoms in our society, do not to succumb to sensationalist journalism!!!

Ilse Burch

Sammamish

Editor’s note: Jim Bove is not a police officer. He is the community outreach facilitator and spokesperson for the Redmond Police Department.

The murder of Melissa Batten was tragic and a terrible loss to society.

She deserved more than a comment at the end of the story “You can’t cut off love.”

Joseph Batten didn’t love Melissa and in fact final his act was out of pure hatred and madness.

This man was determined to destroy her life. He hunted her down and shot in her cold blood. This was not an act of love.

Domestic violence can happen in many forms verbally, physically and sexually. She tried her best to distance herself and handle her abuser. Unfortunately a restraining order only made it worse for Melissa.

Laws should be made when an emergency restraining is made to monitor activity of the stalker and an immediate arrest of the person if they come close to the victim.

Alicia Gehrke

Bellevue

I am very concerned about the way Congressional Republicans are exploiting the American people by spreading the message that Congressional Democrats are “standing in the way to reduced oil prices.”

It doesn’t take an economist to understand that this message is not only false, but also a scam.

With the rise in oil demand in India and China, and the drop in the value of the American dollar, the price of oil has skyrocketed. No matter what we do in America — besides developing cheaper, cleaner alternative energy technology — we are not going to stop developing countries from demanding more oil and increasing global demand.

Further, opening more land (or water) to oil exploitation does not mean that the oil stored there will be America’s oil. It will be oil owned by oil corporations that will continue to sell it where they can get the highest profit — not necessarily America.

There are the same corporations that have Cheney/Bush ties and have named an oil tanker after Rice.

The only way to relieve fuel prices and restore our independence is to invest billions of dollars in clean energy. The more we invest, the more efficient the technologies we will see in return.

Carsten Hansen

Kirkland