EDITORIAL:National Night Out is needed

Nearly a year ago, two Huntington Beach police officers shot and killed 19-year-old Ashley MacDonald. The shooting, which Orange County authorities eventually decided was proper, sparked a weeklong protest outside police headquarters. Critics said the police should have done more to subdue the 120-pound woman and shouldn’t have felt so threatened by the 4-inch blade in her hand.

Just this month, the girl’s parents filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the officers, the city and Orange County.

With all this fresh in everyone’s minds, and with the recent reminder in the form of the lawsuit, it puzzles us why city officials did not take a more prominent role in organizing National Night Out activities this year. National Night Out is an annual event that promotes friendly get-togethers with local police and their neighbors. It aims to get citizens more involved in aiding the police as well as to dispel negative stereotypes some folks have of their protectors.

But Huntington Beach remained passive this year when it came to National Night Out. It was mentioned in the city newsletter, but it had the wrong phone number for citizens to call for more information.

Several calls from this newspaper for more information went unreturned for days so we can only imagine residents had the same problem. We got the impression the city was willing to help anyone out if they wanted to organize a National Night Out, but they weren’t going to get anything started.

And that’s a real shame. We know Huntington Beach’s finest are hard-working civil servants who have sworn an oath to serve and protect us. We should be very grateful there are those among us who are willing to risk their lives to help us. It would be nice to meet them under better circumstances than just at court when we’re paying a ticket.