Speakout 3/10

Get your martin gourds and houses cleaned out. We've had five martins to arrive Feb. 28 in Vanduser.

This is to the people of Oran. Shut up and quit complaining about the police department in your town. We understand that Oran prides itself on being a town of drunks and we're sorry that there are city and state laws that have to be followed. It doesn't seem to me that having law enforcement has hurt the economy of other towns such as Chaffee, Benton, Sikeston, Miner, just to name a few. You people want to get rid of a cop for just enforcing laws. But let the first business get robbed or a child get run over by a drunk driver, and I'm sure everyone knows who they're going to point their finger at. That's right, the chief! So go to bed tonight, knowing that someone is trying to make Oran a safe town. Get behind him and get with the program. You're becoming the laughing stock of the county.

I do not know if you will print this. It needs to be said. I know judges who sit on benches who commit more crimes than who put innocent boys in prison. You send them into a slaughter house and you don't think twice. And you're sitting at home tonight and looking at your child. Put yourself in a mother's place who has to watch her son mutilated in jail. Cops are sworn to protect, but they don't protect. They sit on their sorry butts and let someone be beaten beyond recognition. Can you imagine what it's like to look at your child and not be able to recognize them? You send young people to prison to become prey for people who are stronger than they are. If you can look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, then you know what you've done really doesn't matter. But try being a mother of someone who has sworn to be guilty of something they are innocent of. You hang tags on them of things that aren't true. You only have 30 day appeal that you don't even know about. You put the tag of snitch on them that will surely get them killed. Do you have any idea what's going to happen to an 18-year old in prison? No one cares. You say they are drug lords when they are not. Someone stronger got them to sell on the streets. They also become prey. You judges commit more crimes by putting these young kids in prison. How in God's name do you look at yourself in the mirror? Be a nurse and work in a prison and see what they turn out. Then tell me you are correct. The guards are like you. They don't care. There's guilty people in prison, but there's a lot of young kids being thrown to the wolves and nobody cares. Know what you're doing before you do it. All the horror stories you can think of, they are very true inside of prison walls. You are not sent here to be no one's judge. It says that in that little black Bible. You better blow the dust off it and read it.

I think the city police should know that we the people on the west end are fearless. You can keep writing these tickets for noise ordinance all you want, but we have a right to be heard and enjoy what we have worked for and to drive around and enjoy that time. We buy our own gas and we don't ask anyone for anything. We are tired of being harassed. The only people getting tickets for loud noise or "our music" as you call it are the black people on the west end and we are tired of it. I have had two myself and have had my vehicle towed. I have gotten a lawyer and I'm going to fight this next charge. I think Sikeston should give it a rest and start hunting down some of these murderers and the ones selling the dope and leave the ones of us minding our own business alone.

This is for the lady who called the cops on my dog. She's a good dog and doesn't bother anybody. We live out here at Plantation Acres. If you are walking by here and my dog bothers you, you have 2,000 acres to walk. You don't have to walk right out here in front of my yard. Find someplace else to walk. I've lived here for 10 years and have never had a problem with my dog except for you. You have only lived here for about two years. It must not bother you too much, because you come by here everyday and walk your little dog. Everybody else says my dog is a good dog. So find someplace else to walk, please.

Senator Crowell wants to outlaw all abortions. Why is it that men think they know best what women should do with their bodies? It is like being raped twice.