We Write Letters

Today's moment of righteous indignation brought to you by the color brown, and the letters W, T, and F.

From: City Elf
To: readers.rep@latimes.com
Cc: molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com; francisco.varaorta@latimes.com; andrew.blankstein@latimes.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 10:21:28 PM
Subject: Identifying the race of alleged perpetrators/victims of crimes

To Whom It May Concern:

I read the story regarding the shooting of a man on the 105 Freeway by an off-duty sheriff's deputy and was interested to know why exactly the race of the shooting victim - a Latino male - was mentioned, but not the race of the deputy. Is it the policy of the Los Angeles Times to only identify minorities in newspaper articles? Am I to assume that the deputy was Caucasian? Am I to assume that because the individual who was shot was Latino that he was somehow more or less at fault in this incident?

I would also like to know whether the Times would have mentioned any possibility that the incident may have been gang-related had the shooting victim been Caucasian, rather than Latino. ("The two men did not know each other, Hocking said, and the shooting was not gang-related.")

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
City Elf