This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I agree with Dana Carroll's recent letter, "Guns rule us all," that our national gun violence epidemic comes down to people who should clearly not have guns or have easy access to them. This was the case at the congressional baseball practice shooting in Washington, D.C., and also in the shooting in my neighborhood in Sandy recently that killed Memorez Rackley and her 6-year-old son.
Sandy Police Chief Kevin Thacker's assessment was that nothing "could have stopped [the killer]." That is simply not true. How about responding to reports of his threatening behavior, identifying him as a danger to others and taking his guns away? How many people have to identify a threat before society takes action?
Count how many people were aware of the danger Jeremy Patterson posed: Sandy police received information from the victim three days before the shooting. Facebook friends of Patterson saw threatening posts, and his family knew of the threats. Draper police received an anonymous tip of the imminent danger hours before the shooting. Why did this man still have his guns? Utah laws are failing us if a mother, her children and innocent bystanders can be gunned down outside an elementary school after there were clear signs of mortal danger, and the police say there is nothing they can do to stop it.
Nancy Farrar Halden
Sandy