Replica gun shooting isn’t an example of police misconduct

I am retired after 30 years in federal law enforcement most of which was spent in Baltimore where I was born and raised. While I agree with the majority of your editorial (“Us vs. them: Baltimore police still at odds with community,” April 30) I take exception to lumping a shooting of a “teenage boy who was holding a replica gun” in with the horrendous abuses by police you mentioned. They include the intentional coughing at a local resident during this scary COVID-19 pandemic and the alleged lying to the FBI about cocaine sales, and the whole Gun Trace Task Force debacle you have covered so well (I do support the use of the airplane for crime solving but to me that’s a separate issue).

It is impossible to distinguish a replica gun from the real thing in the split second timing required of police in a shoot or don’t shoot situation. There are far too many real weapons on Baltimore streets for police to assume a weapon is not a threat. How many dead or wounded police are acceptable to prevent the unfortunate shooting of teenage boy who had no legitimate reason to be playing with a replica during these most difficult times?

I don’t want anyone shot, justifiably or otherwise, but while the police have a long way to go in correcting the major issues in Baltimore they have caused. But the people also have a responsibility and that is to not taunt already outweaponed police with an object indistinguishable from a lethal weapon.

Dave Cronin, Owings Mills