I use The Post-Journal digital version to look at local news and sports updates as I am away at college. Although my main purpose of viewing is for staying up to date, I like to dabble in the opinion section.

Mr. Craig Malmrose, I wholeheartedly love your Letters to the Editor. They are usually on global or local issues, and I admire you having a subscription all the way in North Carolina. Even though you have left the area for some time now, you still remain wanting to peep in on Chautauqua County which is beautiful to me, for whatever reason. But I am not writing today because of Craig or any local news, but I am writing this letter because I have differing views of Reverend Mel McGinnis.

When scanning through the “Local Commentary”, I clicked on “When Empathy Becomes Toxic”. I was intrigued and gave it a read. After completion, I knew I had to craft up a letter.

Reverend, although informative, your commentary reaches the wrong conclusion in my mind. The issue is not “Toxic Empathy” as you claim. Rather the issue lies with the inability of ICE, and the NYPD to fulfill its duties and work with each other.

When digging to understand the past of the suspect of the horrific murder of Laken Riley, it became very apparent to me that ICE and the NYPD failed to do their jobs. According to the Independent Article, “What we know about Jose Antonio Ibarra, the man who murdered Georgia student Laken Riley”, before arriving to Athens, Georgia, the suspect, Ibarra, first met ICE officials where he was supposed to be “‘paroled and released for further processing'”, which seems to have never happened.

Then, after he arrived in NYC, ICE reports he was arrested for “‘acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation'”, where he was released before a detainer from ICE was issued. According to the NYPD, he was never on file, so they could not confirm these statements by ICE to be true. What I am hearing is that one or both are at fault with the mishandling of Ibarra. Unfortunately, because of the issues ICE and/or NYPD had dealing with Ibarra, he was left off the hook and went to Athens.

Ultimately, who does the failures of ICE and NYPD fall on? Is it the agendas of President Joe Biden and others alike? Well, no. With regards to ICE, some of the blame can be thrown on the acting director, Tae Johnson. But further research reveals Tae is not a Joe Biden puppet as he also worked with Trump as Deputy Director beforehand. Some blame can also be thrown on current NYPD Chief John Chell, but he is also not a puppet of Biden, as he has been seen at Trump rallies and has recently been criticized for politicizing the NYPD, according to his wiki.

Could it be on the shoulders of Evangelicals allowing for Progressive regimes to take over and ruin the lives of Americans? Again, no. According to PRRI, “Religion and the 2024 Presidential Election”, roughly 8 in 10 white evangelicals, and 6 in 10 non white evangelicals were in support of Trump. This shows that Evangelicals are overwhelmingly not wanting the so-called “Leftist Agenda”.

What I am getting at Reverend, is it can be easy to pin a “Trigger Event” (Laken Riley Murder) on a singular issue (Toxic Empathy), but it’s not that simple. Many things were at play with this catastrophe, but pinning it on Toxic Empathy is not how we progress as society. We must understand that there is more to it than can be seen by the naked eye. That is why we must dig and find our own answers, even if they may be different from the masses. We must be empathetic of others, and we must not scapegoat certain groups of people. Because we fall when it is “Us vs. Them”. We must throw away the individualism that is so rampant in today’s society, and embrace collectivism that will accelerate societies of tomorrow.

Curtis Hannon is a Falconer resident.