Normally if a person is violently killed by another person in the United States, the perpetrator is arrested, tried, and sentenced. This didn't happen in the cases of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, or Eric Garner. Even if these cases were only a matter of bad police work, protesting this pattern is warranted, appropriate, and fundamentally American.

Martin Crane's letter, "Focus on curtailing black-on-black crime," (Dec. 20), gets its subject matter cross threaded, and tries to get us to change the subject.

There is a national uproar because justice was not served. Martin Crane's letter tries to hijack our national conversation, and talk about black-on-black crime. That's a different conversation that would usually include arrest, trial, and sentencing. This conversation is about justice, and accountability. There is no elephant in the room, no polluted atmosphere of political correctness, and no irony. The tragedy is real. What if our family members had been treated the way Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner were? God forbid.

I would cause a national uproar.