Police justified in shooting deaths

Re: Police shootings loom over election, opinion column by Jack Lessenberry, July 20.

Mr. Lessenberry’s column is a terrible example of yellow journalism.

He states that police target mostly black males. That is totally false. More whites and Hispanic people die from police shootings than blacks.

Ninety-nine per cent of those shootings are against criminals who are resisting arrest and/or threatening police. The recent shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are two examples of this. Sterling had a very long criminal record including the rape of a 14-year-old girl. He was carrying an illegal weapon. The officers Tasered him, but he kept resisting and was reaching for his gun.

Castile was wanted for armed robbery and was carrying a legal gun which he had on his lap and reached for it when the (Hispanic) police officer stopped to question him. These two men are not victims of police. They were criminals.

The two killers of the eight officers who were murdered were both members of radical Islamic groups. A fact Mr. Lessenberry ignores completely.

Micah X. Johnson was not a “loner” as Lessenberry claims. He was a member of a radical Islamic group. The police had no choice but to kill this man with the robot because he would not stop shooting at them, trying to kill them. There was nothing “sinister” about it.

Is it so difficult for journalists to tell the facts instead of printing the liberal viewpoint and kissing Barack Obama’s feet like the left-wing media are doing?

Very sad that this kind of journalism is so prevalent nowadays. JOAN JONES, Windsor