Considering the evidence, her guilt is obvious
Bloomington, Ind.: For those following the Karen Read saga in Massachusetts, it’s been a wild ride. I watched the original trial long after it concluded, and I must say, it’s quite an adventure. Most who have followed this case know it ended in a hung jury. The second trial is beginning as I write this letter.
For those who may not know, Read is accused of running down her Boston police officer boyfriend with her car after an argument as he was exiting her vehicle to attend a party at a house with mutual friends. Many of them were also police officers. The boyfriend later died from his injuries and exposure to extreme cold weather.
Read was charged with vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident and driving while intoxicated, among other offenses. She maintains her innocence, claiming she saw her boyfriend enter the house, suggesting something must have happened to him inside. His lifeless body was discovered in the front yard near the street the following day. Investigators found fragments of her broken taillight near her boyfriend’s body, along with a hair matching his DNA on her bumper.
There has been a curious outpouring of support for Read on social media. Many believe she was framed by those at the party who were the actual murderers and set her up to take the blame. I am shocked that so many find this credible. I must admit that I thought she was guilty after hearing just a few details. After watching the trial, I think you’d have to be a bit nuts to believe otherwise. Scott Thompson
Nickel-and-dimed
Plainview, L.I.: Major League Baseball has published a list of 500 players being paid multi-million-dollar salaries this season, but Commissioner Rob Manfred still won’t give me back the $5.35 check (for my unauthorized “use” of Mickey Mantle’s 1956 Triple Crown statistics of .353, 52 and 130) that he has never cashed since I mailed it to him on May 28, 2020. Richard Siegelman
Hoarded toilets
Manhattan: Re “Council wants 1,000 new places for people to ‘go,’ ” (April 11): I see all of these articles about the city building new public toilets but nothing about the public toilets in privately owned buildings. Thanks to the late architect James Morgan, Manhattan Community Board 5 started requiring public toilets in large buildings as one of the requirements for them to obtain a zoning variance for additional floor area ratio (FAR), which gave developers additional space and made the buildings more profitable. The public is supposed to have access to these toilets without any hindrance. It is my understanding that the Department of City Planning has a list of these public toilets in a book called “Privately Owned Public Space.” I believe that these public toilets should be included in any directory of public toilets. Joan E. Ramer
Necrophiliac
Glen Ridge, N.J.: I still can’t stop shaking my head in disbelief after reading Friday’s article “Has sex with corpse” about that sick piece of dirt who not only robbed a corpse on the R train but then performed oral and anal sex on him. He gives a new meaning to the word depravity. Find him and lock him up. He is too far gone for rehabilitation. Francine Ferrara
All the best
Manhattan: Dear ma’am, do not despair. Someone saw you, an “older” woman on the train tracks in the Bronx. The engineer of the Metro-North train I was riding on eased to a halt. The conductor immediately announced the situation to the passengers. No one grumbled in the first car, which I was riding in. There is nothing more important than saving a life — nothing. Power was turned off. You could hear a pin drop in my train car. NYPD officers arrived forthwith and successfully rescued you. That is a lot of people rooting for you, wishing you well. Most likely, people you don’t know. Trust me, ma’am, we New Yorkers have your back. There is hope. Susan A. Stark
State sexual violence
Lackawaxen, Pa.: Rabbi Diana Fersko (“At Passover, speak truth on Hamas rape,” op-ed, April 11), while properly decrying man’s inhumanity, errs in judgment by citing Oct. 7 as a comparative example. The handful of atrocities on that date hardly “was one of the largest and most barbaric instances of gender-based violence in all of modernity.” That is, unless there is differential suffering according to race/religion/nationality, since the Nanking Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War claimed 20,000-80,000 victims. Of course, those were only Chinese. Prior to and after Oct. 7, Israel has systematically employed sexual violence to subjugate the Palestinian population. Its defense and security forces have proven more “equal opportunity” in subjecting men and boys to equivalent humiliation, often — when anatomically inadequate to penetrate the Palestinian “psyche” — utilizing batons, etc. It’s mainly documented, and not what one would want served on the Seder plate! John A. MacKinnon
It’s a long game
Rockaway, N.J.: It’s funny when the stock market goes up and up and we hear that it doesn’t help the little guy. But when it goes down, it hurts everyone’s 401(k). First of all, it only hurts if you sell low. If you are contributing weekly out of your paycheck, you are buying on sale. It’s the only sale Americans don’t like. Click on the five-year chart and you will feel better. Stock markets should be for long-term investment. If you are in a three-year window or needing the money, you should have been advised to be in more diversified and stable investments. Michael Ilardi
Dems did it
Eastchester, N.Y.: To Voicer Paul Feiner: Funny how you insinuate that President Trump’s tariffs might somehow be benefiting his family and friends. I looked and looked but can’t seem to find your letter when Nancy Pelosi and the Biden family benefited. Just saying. Russ Pinto
Lost time
Malverne, L.I.: I believe Trump has resorted to child’s play when he goes tit-for-tat in tariff negotiations. I’m disappointed at his Wharton School education. You can find better economists from CUNY. We know a thing or two about hard work, perseverance and standing in the cold. I’m a middle-aged man fed up with working on cold, dark March mornings and April, too. Help deflect all this negativity and do away with daylight saving time. Springing ahead entails waiting at 7 a.m. when Standard Time is 6 a.m. It’s dark and colder, and adjusting to the loss of an hour of sleep is annoying. Heck, I did away with adjusting clocks in my house. I have two, one marked “Standard Time” and the other “Fake Time.” Let’s get off tariffs and attempting to roll back the clock to mercantilism. Be pragmatic. Kosmas Patikoglou
Act accordingly
Glen Oaks: Taking legitimately granted federal money back from NYC is a priority for Trump. He made a fool of himself here as a consistently failed businessman, and New Yorkers know it. Now he’s after climate laws passed by our state Legislature and signed by our governor. He’s out for revenge while catering to his corporate donors. He’s already defunded federal efforts to develop resiliency on our extensive shorelines. Without such work, we stand to lose 80,000 homes to rising waters, many of them in Trump-voting Staten Island. The Climate Superfund Act, modeled on the law that cleaned up the toxic Love Canal upstate, is in his crosshairs. The act, signed by Gov. Hochul this year, would provide a revenue stream for resiliency projects by collecting a truly modest sum of money from the oil and gas firms that are causing climate warming and its attendant damage. She must make a stand. Kanwaldeep K. Sekhon
Self-inflicted
Manhattan: The most frightening thing about Trump is that he was fairly elected. America has freely chosen suicide. Joel Griffiths
Nice to hear you
Flushing: If you’re like me and miss the morning news team from the now-shuttered WCBS 880 AM, you might enjoy reading this: Former 880 morning voice Wayne Cabot can now be heard delivering news updates for ABC News Radio, which is broadcast all over the country. Cabot has also recently been heard on 1010 WINS as well. Welcome back to one of the accomplished radio journalists in New York City history. Bob Smith
