Feedback from the Issue of Thursday, May 24

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

If the shoe fits, Russell . . .: The connections between [recalled Arizona Senate President] Russell Pearce and mass-murderer J.T. Ready cannot be understated ("Ready to Kill," Stephen Lemons, May 10)!

Pearce not only, as New Times likes to say, is a "neo-Nazi hugger," he's now a prominent Arizona politician who embraced a man who proved capable of murdering a baby.
Tom Ringwald, Phoenix

Need any more proof about Pearce?: Anybody who votes for [Pearce] endorses not only the hatred that Adolf Hitler espoused but also let a psycho roam our area with weapons hunting Mexicans and anybody else who offended his addled brain, even the grandchild of his girlfriend (whom he killed because the infant was half-Mexican).

The evidence is there right in front of us — in the photo of Pearce and Ready embracing and in the photo of [Pearce's sponsoring] Ready in the Mormon Church — that the two were extremely close. Even skeptics who refuse to believe the facts that New Times [has streamed about] Pearce's fascism for years can't dispute these photos.
Jim Wortham, Phoenix

Pearce encouraged the killer: It's hard to feel sorry for J.T. Ready's girlfriend, but the fact that the others had to get killed — particularly that baby — is such a tragedy! And I blame Pearce for encouraging this fruitcake.
Steve Terry, Phoenix

Where were the cops?!: The most interesting point in the article is that the retired Mesa investigator tried to tell numerous law enforcement people that J.T. was committing crimes, and nobody would listen. Even though Ready was suspected — even by the FBI — of murdering illegals on his and his Nazi pals' so-called patrols.

What are lazy, doughnut-eating cops good for if they can't protect us from this kind of wackjob?!
Randy Trujillo, Phoenix

Feds have little excuse in Ready case: The feds certainly don't offer a credible excuse for why they didn't stop timebomb J.T. Ready before [he] exploded.

There needs to be a full-on investigation as to why law enforcement, [which knew] Ready well, didn't stop him for his obvious crimes.

Running around the desert posing as a [U.S.] Border [Patrol] officer — in uniform, no less — and detaining human beings at gunpoint ain't legal, Mr. FBI Director!
Jim Corman, city unavailable

Good question: How could anybody vote for Pearce now that a man he obviously considered his adopted son has mass-murdered a family before killing himself, reportedly wearing Nazi [garb]?

Pearce should join the man he obviously loved enough to sponsor into the Mormon Church by lying his fat ass down in the fast lane of the 101 freeway. How the jackass sleeps at night is beyond me!
Mary Ellen Knowles, city unavailable

Creeps abound: J.T. Ready was a creep, Russell Pearce is a creep, and the idiots who will — and some still will — vote for Pearce in his latest run for office are creeps as well.

As a Mormon, I know quite a few of them, and they quit thinking for themselves in an intelligent manner years and years ago.
Carolyn Marisa, city unavailable

To what rights are you referring?: Some people have very short memories. Only a few years ago, senior staff members of New Times were unjustly arrested because [Maricopa County Sheriff Joe] Arpaio and [disbarred former County Attorney Andrew] Thomas didn't like the opinions they were expressing.

Now Stephen Lemons thinks it's okay to violate the civil rights of people like Ready because they disagree with their opinions.
Kevin Walsh, city unavailable