Bruce Macintyre lives in a area of southern Orange County which leads
me to believe him to be an educated man. As such he should know that
if a law enforcement agency conducts stops of one group while giving
another group a pass, the group that is stopped will have a large
incidence of arrests ["Race profiling is a good technique for police
use," Letters, June 21].

Macintyre states that "According to Justice Department Crime
Statistics, blacks alone accounted for more than half of most crime
categories."

I believe that Macintyre meant to say that blacks account for more
than half of those arrested in most crime categories. You see, if the
police and other enforcement agencies paid as much attention to the 37
percentile that Macintyre belongs to as is currently being paid to
minority members of the community, you would find that those crime
numbers would start to reflect the makeup of the community.

As it stands now, Macintyre is correct. A disproportionate number of
blacks and browns are filling our correctional institutions.

This is not, as some would have us believe, because browns and blacks
commit more crimes than whites. Statistical common sense should tell
you that if there were more whites in the country they would have to
commit a larger number of crimes.

People commit crimes, not races. There is no clear connection between
race and crime. There is no black crime gene. Over the last few years
a mountain of evidence has been gathered that proves there are more
white drug offenders than black and brown together.

Yet our prisons are not full of young, white male drug offenders. Ask
yourself why is this, and if you are an honest person the answer is
all too plain. Some groups of people are being targeted.

I must say, however, that during the six years I have lived in Orange
County I have had to deal with the police in three different cities on
traffic matters.

Each and every on of these officers treated me with respect and
addressed me as "sir."

Eric M. Washington,
Stanton