Ronnie Polaneczky, in a column on philly.com, suggested that a legal and just trial and execution would be “too good,” for the shooter of Officer Cassidy, a Philadelphia policeman shot in the head during a robbery. She also suggested that a proper punishment might be putting the shooter into a room with Cassidy’s friends and family, and letting them have at it.

Really?

So, forget the law that Cassidy died trying to uphold? Forget any ideas about this being a free country? Forget innocent until proven guilty, due process, fair and speedy trials, public trials? This column is shamefully perpetuating mob mentality, not too mention dangerous. If we take Polaneczky at her word, which I’m sure we won’t, barbarism is just cause for barbarism in the other direction. This is exactly what is making the violence in Philadelphia so bad. Murder in response to murder, over and over again.

In that case, wouldn’t Polaneczky’s version of justice give cause to any friends and family of the shooter to come and attack, in whatever way they see fit, the suspect’s family?

The worst part about this is not that Polaneczky said, or thought, what she did. It is that those thoughts were printed in a newspaper, as if it were a viable and reasoned opinion. Angry rants may sell papers, and might be excused by claiming the author is simply saying what everyone else is thinking. But if you really want to contribute to public discourse, maybe you should try saying something everyone hasn’t thought of yet.

I understand the feeling of wanting to get revenge. And if John Lewis Jordan, a suspect identified by police, is convicted, he should be prosecuted and punished. But that doesn’t mean we should bypass precedents that may very well have never been set down before. There’s a reason the founders believed in due process and fair public trials. They, unlike most of us, knew what happened when these practices weren’t followed.