I GREW UP in Rome. My father was an editor of the Rome News-Tribune and a Floyd County commissioner, a man who took great pride in Rome, and instilled that pride in me. I have until recently considered Rome to be the epitome of what gracious small-city living should be; I have missed living in Rome since relocating to Marietta years ago.

That has all changed in recent weeks, though, as I have witnessed the nightmare that members of my family have been forced to endure — and the absolute unwillingness of the Rome City police department to enforce the law or protect the population.

My nephew and his family live in the same home where my father lived in West Rome, just off Paris Drive — the home where I grew up. I could think of no finer place for them to raise their own children. In recent months, though, they have had to endure repeated car thefts, vandalism, gunshots fired in the neighborhood dangerously close to where children sleep and thuggish behavior. The Rome police department has refused to do anything to protect the law-abiding citizens of this area. What was once a close-knit neighborhood now has to endure night after night of frustration, fear and apprehension — and the police, who know where the criminals live, do nothing to protect the residents or to enforce the law.

This isn’t what Rome used to be like. The Rome city police department should be ashamed of themselves for letting the city deteriorate, and for neglecting their sworn duties in such callous disregard of the needs of the population.