Should the police “drop the whole thing” against Auburn Mayor Norman Guay? Absolutely.

However, there are many of us “regular folk” who don’t have the name recognition and press on our side when injustice happens to us.

The police policy to issue summonses and let the courts decide is absolutely preposterous due to the nature of the bureaucratic mess that our court system is in. If police officers are detecting a crime, then it should be in their mental capacity to realize when a crime has not been committed, and to act accordingly. Simply passing people on to the court system in a case like this is a huge waste of time and money.

Anybody who has ever had to stand up in court and plead your case (as I have) will tell you that it is not worth the fight. Between getting shuffled through the various bureaucracies of the courts criminal division, the district attorney, the secretary of state and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (for driving infractions), you will invariably give up. You are not innocent until proven guilty, and the punishment never fits the crime.

I have worked in restaurants in the area for years and would like to note that I’ve seen many of these officers drinking beer on their night out. Suffice to say, what happened to Mr. Guay would never happen to them.

Daniel Coulombe, Auburn

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