Garcia and the Dead

Regarding “Grateful Garcia” (May 25):

As a longtime fan of the Grateful Dead, I was both pleased and horrified by your article. It did, more or less, cast the Grateful Dead and the Deadheads in a well-deserved positive light.

However, that was tainted by your reference to the “drug-related death of a 19-year-old male” after a Dead concert at the Forum in December, 1989.

As attested by the coroner’s report, the UC Santa Barbara student died as the result of a chokehold by a member of the Inglewood Police Department. The student died in police custody. It was not simply, as your article put it, “a drug-related death.”

JASON MANDELL

Beverly Hills