Opinion

Monday Briefing: Veterans Day, shootings and (awful) NY sports

Riverhead just recognized quite a Veterans Day.

Just a few months before all American troops are due home from Iraq, we saw average citizens, businesspeople and fellow soldiers all get involved by putting together a slew of activities ranging from a pro-bono wedding celebration for an Army couple from Riverhead to local tech students rebuilding a car in honor of a fallen Sag Harbor soldier — complete with an airbrushed painting of the late Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter.

Veterans Day in Riverhead kicked off with a 24-hour fundraising event that started Thursday afternoon and went through Friday. People ran or walked around downtown overnight to raise money and awareness for a homeless veterans organization that runs a shelter in Yaphank. Some 120 people participated.

Even local Civil War heroes were remembered at an event with the town historian.

The annual ceremonies at the town’s World War I monument and at Calverton National Cemetery are important. And the organizers and participants who put them together should be congratulated. But it’s good to see so many other people getting involved in so much more too.

• We had another crime in Riverhead happen last night at gunpoint, just a few days after an 18-year-old man was arrested for trying to gun down someone in Polish Town. The teenager s also being accused of shooting another man on West Main Street outside a laundromat. Could it be time for parts of this town to consider the ShotSpotter gun shot location technology being implemented in North Bellport?

Where these three crimes happened is pretty clear. But what’s also pretty clear is there are plenty of guns around town, and they’re in the wrong hands. Why wait until something tragic happens and a terrible crime goes unsolved to start thinking about new crime-fighting technologies.

Maybe we should see how things turn out in Bellport, but not too long. But when it comes to keeping the piece, everything should be on the table.

• I guess you can call this feeling a sports hangover. It took a second this morning, upon waking, to remember what a horrific Sunday it was for the Giants and Jets. And for the few of us still rooting for the Islanders, which got clobbered 4-1 in Vancouver. I was at least hoping for a Sunday night hockey win as a consolation prize. Giants can still win their division, but I’m afraid the Jets are done.

It will be another long road through the playoffs for Gang Green, if the team can make it.