Stories can make you feel sadness, frustration, exhilaration. Leah Sottile’s “Did James Plymell Need to Die?” made me angrier than I can remember feeling after reading any story. The graphic showing Plymell’s officer contacts reveals 47 incidents from 2012 to 2019. And the officers involved in the Taser attack claimed they did not know Plymell? Ignorance is no excuse for murder. Every officer in Oregon’s Albany Police Department should have been intimately aware of Plymell and his mental health issues well before the minor incident that ended his life. Leadership starts at the top. Officers should have known better even without the head’s-up. Thank you, Leah, for following through big-time on a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Richard Trout
Hobbs, New Mexico

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Did James Plymell need to die?

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Ignorance is no excuse for murder

by Richard Trout, High Country News
May 1, 2021

<h1>Ignorance is no excuse for murder</h1> <p class="byline">by Richard Trout, High Country News <br />May 1, 2021</p> <p><span class="s1">Stories can make you feel sadness, frustration, exhilaration. Leah Sottile’s “<a href="https://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/53.3/north-law-enforcement-did-james-plymell-need-to-die" target="_blank" data-linktype="external" data-val="https://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/53.3/north-law-enforcement-did-james-plymell-need-to-die" rel="noopener">Did James Plymell Need to Die?</a>” made me angrier than I can remember feeling after reading any story. The graphic showing Plymell’s officer contacts reveals 47 incidents from 2012 to 2019. And the officers involved in the Taser attack claimed they did not know Plymell? Ignorance is no excuse for murder. Every officer in Oregon’s Albany Police Department should have been intimately aware of Plymell and his mental health issues well before the minor incident that ended his life. Leadership starts at the top. Officers should have known better even without the head’s-up. Thank you, Leah, for following through big-time on a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. </span></p> <p><em><span class="s1">Richard Trout<br /></span><span class="s1">Hobbs, New Mexico</span></em></p> <div class="wp-block-group hcn-print-edition-box"> <p>This article appeared in the <a href="/?p=187875">print edition of the magazine</a> with the headline <span class="hcn-magtitle">Ignorance is no excuse for murder</span>.</p> </p></div> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/53-5/letter-to-the-editor-ignorance-is-no-excuse-for-murder/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://country-survey-collabs.info Country News&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/www.hcn.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cropped-HCN_Logo-Monogram_White_Sq-2.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;amp;quality=100&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://country-survey-collabs.info/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=121267&amp;amp;ga4=G-0NS3WVPPTN&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/53-5/letter-to-the-editor-ignorance-is-no-excuse-for-murder/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hcn.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</p> Copy to Clipboard

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