Epidemic of Violence in Black Neighborhoods

Re “A Pain That Won’t Go Away” (April 25), on the slaying of Kermit Mallet: My heart and prayers are with the Mallet family, and I feel their pain as well. I grew up in South Los Angeles during a time of peace, community and enjoyable times. However, change can be a plus or minus, and the continuously senseless shootings of productive African American men is very disheartening.

The killings are so much bigger than police brutality because the majority of these horrendous crimes, unfortunately, are black-on-black violence. I do not have an answer, but productive and working-class citizens should not have to live in fear in their own neighborhoods. One caveat: Every African American man who is killed is not a gang member, and it would behoove the media to thoroughly check their sources before making such an erroneous assumption.

Paula Mitchell

Los Angeles

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It was heart-wrenching to read the story of the family who lost their only son to gun violence. The Mallet family’s tragedy is a story that must be told, as should every story of every family that suffers the loss of a family member to gun violence. These are not simply statistics; these are real people struggling to understand and live with the pain of loss every single day without their loved ones.

This epidemic of violence has to stop. Keep these stories in our faces every day if that would help us to remember how wrong we are to sit by and do nothing. Until we wake up and take off the blinders and demonstrate outrage at this violence, this endless and deadly cycle will never cease.

Frances Terrell Lippman

Los Angeles