Violence is color-blind, inexcusable

More than a month has passed since your Oct. 11 editorial "Black and blue." You were sharing your opinion about the white New Orleans police officers who were filmed beating a 64-year-old black man who supposedly resisted arrest. I just can't seem to forget about your editorial, so I wanted to write to comment. Your article contained two troubling statements.

First, you state, "Police beatings - especially white-on-black beatings - are intolerable and inexcusable." I beg to differ; any police beating is intolerable, whether white-on-black, black-on-white, white-on-Latino, Latino-on-Asian, etc. There is no excuse for the use of brutal force upon any man, woman or child - no matter what his ethnicity. It seems that stating that white-on-black beatings are worse than others just divides us even more. Robert Davis should never have been beaten, no matter what color his skin.

Second, your statement, "Police will never be trusted by poor blacks as long as these incidents keep happening" is puzzling. Only the poor find this type of incident a basis for distrust? Are the poor the only people who need police help? Whether rich, middle-class or poor, I believe that all blacks would be distrustful of police in any city in which incidents like this happen without open rebuke and punishment.

Thank you for your fine newspaper and for sharing your opinion with your readers.

Karen Haughton, Augusta