Letter | Why would The Sun News take the word of a Myrtle Beach criminal over that of officers?

Editor’s note: Prosecutors initially said Julian Betton shot at the drug agents, forcing them to return fire. They repeated that claim more than a month later in a forfeiture petition filed at the Horry County Courthouse. An independent investigation found that Betton did not shoot.

I was enlightened to read in your “Dear Reader” column, “Asking questions: It’s what good journalists do,” that journalists have rules, especially after the examples that have been shown lately: The Brian Williams saga, who misrepresented the truth, and the reporter from "Rolling Stone" who made up a story that was published as truthful news.

I am confident that such a scandal could never occur at The Sun News, where I am sure that the ethical and journalistic standards, coupled with the attention to detail and accuracy under your watchful eye, could never happen.

However, do check with the person responsible for your crosswords puzzles. The one published Monday was a reprint of the one published in your Saturday edition. I digress.

Your opinionated editorial leads one to believe that a group of men broke into a house that Julian Betton was in and shot him 9 times, leaving him in a coma and paralyzed over 8 ounces of pot that he was allegedly planning to distribute.

I send my prayers and best wishes to Betton for a full recovery, and for his family.

If this interpretation was what you intended, you accomplished you goal. You are restating your leftist agenda that police are bad and should not be trusted, while a criminal who intended to distribute an illegal substance should not have been shot over 8 ounces of pot.

I am very confident, with your journalistic integrity as it is, that your reporters Claire Byun and Charles Perry are busy researching who Betton was allegedly planning to distribute the pot to and that no minors were the intended customers.

I guess that I can see why you are questioning the integrity of the three officers involved in the shooting because of the unsubstantiated early reporting that has not been proved, or you would publish it as fact that Betton shot at the officers.

I have not read anywhere that the officers claimed that they were shot at, just that Betton was raising a gun at them. Did I miss something?

By your editorial and by logical reasoning you are saying that the officers involved are neither to be trusted nor their word taken as truth when they said they announced themselves upon entering Betton's dwelling.

Further, by your logic, SLED investigators must be complicit in hiding the facts during their investigation since Betton’s word can not be questioned.

Have you reported your findings to Gov. Haley so she can launch a task force to investigate these SLED investigators?

I guess that, based on your editorial, The Sun News stands for legalizing pot since it was only 8 ounces?

I am glad to see your journalistic standards are so high that you run down the honor, dignity and honesty of those brave men and women who put their lives on the line daily to protect ourselves and our property by enforcing the laws passed by the various cities, county and state legislatures.

Way to go!

The writer lives in Myrtle Beach.

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 9:23 AM with the headline "Letter | Why would The Sun News take the word of a Myrtle Beach criminal over that of officers?."