Sheriff’s Office doesn’t need Police Department culture

Walter Chi, a current candidate for sheriff and and veteran Aspen police officer who appears hell-bent on killing himself with a knife and fork, ironically claims to be very worried about the collective mental health of our communities. So much so that he wants to police local school hallways with drug dogs. I guess the anxiety, paranoia and repression generated by such jailer tactics among our mostly innocent youth don’t fall under Walter’s definition of mental-health problems.

Apparently, neither does sexual assault. Officer Chi has admitted that he didn’t report information regarding alleged sexual abuse of a 5-year-old child, after the eye witness of something being amiss confided in him. Given that we are what we eat, withholding critical information may simply be a byproduct of his 26-year Aspen Police Department upbringing. In 2005, the APD neglected to inform the Sheriff’s Office, then located just across the hallway, of the mid-afternoon raid planned on Little Annie’s and Cooper Street restaurants where Officer Chi joined Drug Enforcement Agency idiots to surround and risk the lives of bewildered diners with 50 cops, guns drawn. That absurd and risky raid ultimately yielded 5 ounces of blow, with a street value of not nearly enough to pay for the raid manpower, let alone the investigation. Pitkin County communities simply don’t need any APD cultural cross-pollination with the conscientious leadership and cogent approach of our infinitely more progressive Sheriff’s Office. Vote!

David Frank

Aspen