A warped view of Berkeley

Re “Student’s slaying reveals two worlds in Berkeley,” May 5

Your article’s opening -- “the world-class university and multimillion-dollar hillside homes with sweeping views versus the poor and working-class bungalows and apartments of the flatlands” -- makes a gross generalization about Berkeley.

My husband and I own one of those “working-class bungalows” worth more than $750,000 and have worked incredibly hard to send both our sons to excellent schools (one currently studies engineering at UCLA.) Our sons are not in any way “who they are” because of their Berkeley flatland address, and frankly, their address is a fine one.

The violence and crime you report has nothing to do with growing up in the Berkeley flatlands, and it has everything to do with one disturbed and now allegedly criminal young man and the culmination of whatever led to this crime.

Deborah Fortune

Walton

Berkeley