Readers React: Violent crime, by the numbers

To the editor: Is it any wonder that there are so many people who do not trust or believe the Los Angeles Police Department? (“LAPD underreported violent crime for years,” Oct. 15)

As you wrote: “When presented with the findings, top LAPD officials acknowledged the department makes errors and said they were working to improve the accuracy of crime data reporting.”

Only when caught, I might add, do they want to improve accuracy.

Charles P. Martin, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: In the world of clinically lame excuses, that rivals “the dog ate my homework.” To buy it, we would have to believe that a many police officers are incapable of accurately categorizing the crimes they see, and that their errors just happened to make the department look better.

I don’t buy it. I think it is far more likely that officers are simply following orders to misclassify violent crimes.

Bart Braverman, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: The LAPD underreported serious crimes for eight years. The city of Los Angeles doesn’t enforce its own regulations on drilling for oil. The Port of Los Angeles failed to enforce environmental regulations stipulated in a court settlement.

The lesson in this week’s headlines is that L.A. needs a good daily paper to bring such malfeasance to public attention. Fortunately, it has The Times. Don’t stop doing what you do so well.

Marvin J. Wolf, Mar Vista Heights

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook