Letters to the Editor: The terrifying decision not to charge the cop in the Costco shooting

To the editor: The inability of the grand jury in Riverside County to indict an off-duty Los Angeles Police Department cop who killed an intellectually disabled man after being attacked by him is just another example of the overreaching power of the police in this country.

First, off-duty officers should not be armed. When police are not in uniform, they are regarded as no more and no less than ordinary citizens.

Yes, the officer was knocked down while he was holding his small child. But that is no justification for declaring himself a police officer and firing 10 rounds at the individual who hit him. Not only that, but both of the deceased’s parents were also shot.

Just consider if there was no gun. An argument might have ensued, police may have been called, and an arrest might even have been made. Instead, we have a terrible tragedy.

We cannot have this lawlessness by the police, and this is not the only high-profile example lately. In Dallas, an ex-officer is on trial for entering an apartment she believed was hers and shooting the rightful occupant dead. Enough!

Frances Vizier, Los Angeles

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To the editor: I find it outrageously unacceptable that an unarmed man and his family can be shot without criminal penalty. In what nation is this legal? Only in those places with terrible human rights records.

That this unarmed man was disabled makes it doubly egregious. This is no different from Ferguson, Mo., where the shooting death of an unarmed man by police in 2014 resulted in large protests (and rightly so).

This is unacceptable, and the Riverside County district attorney should have more courage and integrity.

Jacque Emel, Redlands