Dear editor:

The career-ending punishment of Powell police officer David Salters has weighed on me. Even more so when compared to how Cody Mayor Lee Ann Reiter skated by almost consequence-free after doing far worse. There is really no comparison. Having talked with many people about this, I know I am not the only one.

Salters was off duty, not on call, when the department woke him with a middle-of-the-night request to help transport an inmate. He had no reason earlier that evening to think he would be needed. But when the call came, he got up and went in anyway.

That is what a lot of us would call going above and beyond.

Yes, department policy is department policy. But the facts matter. His blood-alcohol level was below the legal limit, and a later, more reliable test showed it was substantially lower still. Cody police found no cause to arrest or cite him for DUI. He was not drunk.

Even so, he lost his job.

Now compare that to Cody Mayor Lee Ann Reiter.

She was not called out of bed to help anybody. She was not responding to some unexpected situation. She was out drinking and then got behind the wheel severely intoxicated.

Not buzzed. Not borderline. Well over both the legal limit and the line any responsible adult would recognize.

She later pleaded guilty to DUI after being caught driving with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit. We are fortunate that night did not end with an innocent person or the mayor herself injured or killed.

And what happened to her?

Six months of unsupervised probation. A few hundred dollars in fees. Deferred prosecution. It will eventually just disappear from her record.

I would not even call that a slap on the wrist. It was closer to a reassuring squeeze of the hand.

Reiter said there had been “many lessons learned.” But that rings hollow. What lesson, exactly? That drunk driving is wrong? That getting behind the wheel while intoxicated is dangerous? Those are not lessons a mayor should be learning now. Those are lessons any responsible adult should have learned a long time ago.

And then there were the comments from Judge Joseph Darrah, saying this was probably “embarrassing” for the mayor and that maybe “something good” could come out of it for the community.

That kind of empty talk rubs people the wrong way. Embarrassment is not the issue. Accountability is.

People make mistakes. Of course, they do. Nobody is asking for perfection. But there is a world of difference between an off-duty officer answering a late-night call for help and a mayor out drinking, who then chooses to drive home at a level of intoxication that put everyone else on the road at risk.

One lost his job.

The other kept hers.

That is the kind of double standard that causes ordinary people to lose faith in the system. And frankly, it is exactly why so many people believe there is one set of rules for those in positions of power and another for everybody else.

David Salters paid dearly.

Mayor Reiter has not.

That is hard to miss and even harder to respect.

Sincerely,

Ken Montgomery

Clark