Letter: Look closer at police-shootings data

As much as black lives matter, all lives do matter and the use of lethal force by police when not necessary causing death to anyone must be prosecuted and justice served.

However, when you check the statistics of police shootings for 2015, it is very interesting. There were 1,186 police shootings as of Dec. 26 that year, and broken down by race, 500 were white, 325 black, 200 Latino and the balance of 161 were Asian and indigent. Blue lives lost in the line of duty for the same year was 130.

I just don’t understand the outrage and protests in the black community when almost 50 percent of all police shooting victims were white and about 27 percent were black.

Our country is falling into anarchy with the recent murders of police officers and our leadership from the president, the Department of Justice and on down is doing nothing to stop it and, in many cases, feed that divisiveness.

Are all police officers perfect and above reproach? No. But the vast majority serve the people as heroes and deserve our respect and thanks for their service.

Stop these unruly protests and make sure that the president and Department of Justice have the backs of our police.

This story was originally published July 21, 2016 at 8:03 PM with the headline "Letter: Look closer at police-shootings data."