Re: the nude couple walking their dog down Hayden Rowe at 6:30 in the sweltering July morning.

So glad we have such stalwart guardians of public morals keeping their eyes peeled to report such imminent dangers to the common weal. Who knows what they might use to break and enter. (For all we know, Lucy, the little gangster’s moll, was probably packing under that fur coat of hers.)

And what a relief the police didn’t wimp out and stoop to peaceable conflict-resolution, doing something as undramatic as advising or escorting them home, but rather escalated it to a full-scale confrontation, foot chase, physical blows, hospitalization, arrest, arraignment, etc. — all to the tune of our tax dollars.

We wouldn’t want such menaces to public safety as these unarmed, unshod, ungarbed vigilantes at large. Better they be speeders, tailgaters, cell-phoning drivers, maskless virus vectors huffing in your face — then they’re right in line with conventional society scofflaws we all know and cherish. But airing out the birthday suit? Full extent of the law!

And lucky that Lucy was such a “nice dog,” she didn’t decide while her devoted owners were being pursued, accosted, manhandled by threatening strangers, to give chase also, and help herself to a bite of police butt for breakfast.

— Margaret Barton, Hopkinton

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