Traffic Stops

How wonderful it is to see The Times has brought us another misguided anti-police article (“United by Anger,” Nov. 6).

I have made numerous traffic stops of people of all races in the Los Angeles area, none of these stops based on race. Many stops, regardless of race, go like this: The officer makes the stop and approaches the driver. The driver asks the reason for the stop, the officer tells the driver. The driver thinks the reason in trivial, or does not agree with it and questions the officer. When the officer refuses to back off and issues a citation regardless of the excuse, the next statement the person makes is usually “You don’t like (fill in the race) people.”

Several times I have let people off with warnings. Still they will tell me the reason I did not issue a ticket was because I had no reason to stop them. The only reason they were stopped, they will claim, is because they were of a certain race. The problem is not the officer, the problem is the people being stopped have come up with a politically correct excuse for being stopped, instead of accepting responsibility for their own errors.

THOMAS REID

Chino