Letters: Jaywalking, race and dog owners

Enforce the law

Re “Jaywalking tickets snare hundreds of blacks in capital” (Page 1A, April 15): Jaywalking needs to be addressed in other parts of the capital.

I saw a guy jaywalking while pushing a baby in a stroller across Folsom Boulevard near 51st Street with traffic coming in both directions. When I yelled at him that he should go to the corner and cross with the light, he just made a rude gesture in my direction.

There are times when jaywalking is very dangerous and times when apparently it is a revenue stream.

Lies and statistics

One of my graduate school professors always hammered in to us: “Liars use statistics and statistics lie.”

This article uses numbers and districts. How much research was done on how many crosswalks and controlled intersections are in each district?

These are important factors to be included. Perhaps these controlled intersections are within communities with high minority populations, thus, most of the violations would be reflective of the population.

This is not the fault of law enforcement if the numbers reflect the areas it serves.

Dog owners

Re “Tiny dog back with original owner after custody fight” (Page 3A, April 15): As a zealous dog owner, I certainly empathize with Alec Nygard’s custody battle over his dog, Rosemary, who escaped and wound up at the animal shelter.

Nygard tells us that he “should not have been put in this situation.”

He wouldn’t have if he had microchipped Rosie and collared her with identification tags. Owning a dog requires much responsibility.

 

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This story was originally published April 17, 2017 at 12:15 PM with the headline "Letters: Jaywalking, race and dog owners."