To the editor:

Police loudspeakers are awful alarm clocks. At 8 a.m. Monday, police drove through the Wakarusa Festival campgrounds blaring an ultimatum from their PA systems: Leave the campgrounds by noon. No “hope you had fun” or “drive safely” or “come back next year.”

In the four-hour line to get in Thursday, not a single police officer was visibly directing traffic or checking on people in their vehicles in the heat. With windows rolled up, they trolled the sidewalks.

That behavior summarizes the entire police presence at the festival: They were clearly not interested in public safety; festival attendees were thorns in their sides and not a group of citizens to be treated with respect.

From the constant drone of officers on old gasoline golf carts to the mob of police standing around watching stage gates for no apparent purpose other than intimidation, the behavior of law enforcement was one big overreaction and demonstrated apathy for attendees’ rights. No reasonable person could have watched the police over the four days and believed they were there to do anything other than wage their own miniwar on drugs. Most people at festivals such as this are already suspicious of law enforcement, and these agencies only galvanized that suspicion.

I used to worry about mad cow disease or avian flu making it to Kansas. I should have worried about the epidemic of mindless overreaction by law enforcement and demonstrations of force that have been happening all around the country. Lawrence, Kansas, has been infected.

Rob Dewhirst,

Lawrence