I’m writing in response to Amherst Police Chief Scott Livingstone’s comment — in reporter Scott Merzbach’s story “Police staffing woes hit department morale” (Gazette, Dec. 26) — that “The most dangerous thing for a community is a police department that doesn’t care.”

I could not agree more. The Amherst police who don’t care and aren’t doing the job they’re well paid for should join their colleagues and leave. The scales have tipped too far toward the militarization of local police and too far from their calling of supporting the community. Our towns need less armed police and more community response teams and Amherst has a great opportunity here to redirect funds to people who want to the publicly funded job of caring for their community.

Gavin J. Grant

Amherst

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