Editorial: Collier Sheriff's Office

His office's mission statement is succinct: "The duty of the Collier County Sheriff's Office is to preserve and protect the lives, property, and constitutional guarantees of all persons."

Against that background, Hunter should be congratulating a WZVN-TV (ABC-7) reporter armed with a radar gun clocking off-duty Immokalee deputies in patrol cars going over 100 miles per hour on two-lane Immokalee Road. Scott Madaus' story that aired Thursday said the videotaped officers were headed home from work in the wee hours of the morning.

But Hunter's office is not thanking the reporter. His office is in bunker mode.

The Sheriff's Office response as it appears on the Web site colliersheriff.org can be read by clicking one of the links above to the right. It alternates between vilifying the reporter's motives and promising a full investigation, perhaps even with an order for the reporter to be part of it -- as if he has done something wrong.

Now that Hunter, who at first declined to watch the video, has had the same opportunity as the public to see it, the investigation's direction seems straightforward. Hunter needs to ask what the speeding deputies have to say for themselves and about the danger to the motoring public of 100-plus mph speeding -- in broad daylight as well as darkness. Then let us know what they say. Then let us know what he intends to do about it. Then reconsider his attitude toward the reporter and his story.