Race generally biggest factor in mishandled arrests

I commend Cedar Rapids Police Lt. Chuck Mincks (Dec. 19 guest column) - to recognize need for change to police use of Tasers if warranted by “credible” data. But, all published data suggests similar disturbing results. How much more data is needed?

He offers what others have when it's time to defend actual/potential racially-charged issues: ties disturbing/problematic results to any other cause(s), other than race, as driving force.

I admit other factors, such as poverty, as he mentions, sometimes impact results, but in this case, I believe that the darker the person's color, the less likely other factors come into play.

Recall the need for the President Obama beer summit: well-off academic is handcuffed in his house, even after realization he is not a burglar. Name me even one case where any police officer, but especially one of color, has so ill-managed any situation involving a white person with the status of above-named academic.

There is no study that details similar ill-treatment of poverty-stricken whites, or any whites, or any other nonblacks.

While poverty can impact situations, race, when it is non-white, is the most important, if not the only, factor that can produce such results.

Unfortunately, studies consistently point to the same old pattern: Blacks, of any economic background, bear the impact.

Thomas Sass

Iowa City