I have also read every newspaper article that was published about Cd'A Police Officer Kelley and the shooting of Arfee inside a white van in the parking lot of a local coffee shop. This white van was reportedly notified to the police department as "suspicious" and located parked in the legal parking lot of the shop. Did the shop owner who reported the van make any attempt to see if that owner was a patron in his restaurant at the time and what made it suspicious?

If common sense had prevailed, this is one mess that could have been kept under control from the beginning.

My reason for writing this letter is to offer Mr. William Yarwood a different perspective from someone that has also served as a public safety officer and attended a California police academy and graduated from Rio Hondo Police Academy back in the 1970s. Afterward I was a member of a city police department and I am well qualified as I also graduated from the West Covina Citizen's Academy and served as a supervisor on a local college campus police department while attending to earn my bachelor's degree.

There is no such thing as a routine traffic stop anymore and every incident can be considered a "suspicious" vehicle until you can clear it. Let's start from the beginning and when the officers arrived and approached the "suspicious" white van, normally if a dog was inside, it will protect the owner's property and growl and bark. With two officers approaching this van, one trigger happy cop could have injured his partner before assessing the situation. One picture did appear in the Press, only once, supposedly taken by a civilian showing the windshield to only be down not even half and showing where the bullet hole appeared.

With Arfee being a large dog and probably not able to get his whole head out the window, the officer, if agile could duck back out of range of the dog nearing the open window. Mr. Yarwood makes excuses for Officer Kelley going against the training he should have had, and especially with the number of years experience he claims to have had. The department that I was employed with had strict rules for discharging your firearm and when you did, you had to account for each cartridge and explain where it went and ended up. We had the latest firearms training as to who and when to shoot by video screen training and only those who were armed or posed an immediate threat. Not through a half open window where escape was pulling back and ducking at the same time. Most dogs are found to be unarmed.

Officer Kelley with all his years of experience should certainly be able to tell the difference of dog breeds, especially a pit bull from a retriever. I have always felt the initial response was more of an intended cover-up, rather than a mistaken identity. If he heard the dog barking, then he should have "perceived" approaching from a greater distance from the open-window side door. Then, after the dog was shot and killed, then to open the door and remove the owner's companion and not make an effort to locate him. Just leave him a note, telling him to contact the police department and then leaving the scene. All the time, the owner was inside and no one tried to locate him and let him know of the tragedy or even to find out who owned the "suspicious" white van.

Mr. Yarwood still keeps making excuses for Officer Kelley. What if a small child had been in this van and was hit by Officer Kelley's careless discharge of his firearm? Each police officer is trained before he is assigned his firearm which automatically gives him a great advantage over any private citizen. Watch some of the police programs and see some of their antics. Over-reaction and brutality are getting more prevalent. I got reactions and comments from some law enforcement friends of mine before writing this letter and all agree that common sense was lacking in handling this whole affair. It has since become a cover-up.

The new police chief should have taken on this task and let the citizens of Coeur d'Alene know how it was being handled. That is the reason so much discontent and hard feelings are still being talked and written about. If Officer Kelley would shoot a human (God forbid), would Mr. Yarwood cover it with just a split second reaction? Yes, most officers have to make split-second decisions, but they have to live with those decisions. We all make mistakes, and hope most are not drastic. Officer Kelley should be disciplined with time off, office or desk duty and strenuous firearms training for a set period of time. This mistake he made will probably end up costing the city a lot of money and especially the way it was handled. Lately this has been hushed, but there are still bumper stickers around.

Of the years I was with law enforcement, not once did I discharge my firearm and especially living in the Los Angeles area of California. Thank God for Idaho.

Bill Singleton is a Coeur d'Alene resident and Kootenai County Historical Preservation Commission member.