Tank Rampage

* Re your May 19 editorial: It’s certainly true, as you say, that “many hard questions will have to answered by National Guard officials” about how security at the armory in San Diego could have been so porous as to allow a tank to be stolen. But I think the San Diego Police Department also has some hard questions to answer.

For example: Even though, as reported, the “apparently deranged” driver violently resisted being manhandled out of the tank, why was it necessary for the police to shoot him dead? Had they no device at hand to simply knock him out so they could drag him out? Where were their nightsticks?

MIKE ALEXANDER

Burbank

* One more example of police overreaction and a poor deranged man is killed. Shawn Timothy Nelson, driver of the tank that rampaged down the streets of San Diego, injured no one and seemed intent only on property damage (May 18). He didn’t chase pedestrians or go after occupied cars. Yet when his tank was finally stranded on a cement divider in the middle of the freeway, the police cut open the hatch and shot him dead. Why?

The official excuse is that Nelson was trying to start the stalled tank, but a canister of tear gas or even a squirt of mace would have effectively incapacitated him. If neither were handy, a wounding shot in the shoulder would do. No wonder paranoids are joining armed militia groups when they see peace officers can’t be trusted to keep their heads and use only necessary force.

PAMELA De MAIGRET

Los Angeles