Investigation of Sheriff’s Dept.
I have read, with dismay, your article on the L.A. Sheriff’s Department fatal shooting of Keith Hamilton (front page, Sept. 12).
There is an element that seems to surface over and over again in many of these related cases. Police face a mentally deranged or mentally disoriented person who does not, perhaps cannot, follow their directions. They then seem to jump to the conclusion that that person is on some drug and is therefore extremely dangerous and they resort to extreme conditions.
May I suggest that this is part of the mentality developed by the “War on Drugs”? Drugs have now become the big bogyman justifying all types of anti-human behavior. And if this person was on drugs is that sufficient cause to do him in?
ROBERT KEREKES
Moorpark
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