To the Editor:Editor's note: Published poet Polly Brody is a former longtime Newtown resident.

Regarding the event in Tulsa, Okla.:

The execution of a black man, whose hands were in the air, who was unarmed, who was not in physical contact with any law enforcement person, and who was tazed just before he was fatally shot, should cause us all to question the bald impropriety of that officer being put on "administrative leave" rather than being charged with second degree murder, or at least homicide.

If any civilian had fatally shot another person, in the same circumstances as did that officer, we can be certain an arrest would follow immediately, and charges would have been made.

There have been continuous examples in these recent years of police shootings to kill, and killing, when the circumstances did not require that lethal act. We know without ambiguity that almost all such cases involve killing male persons of color.

All too many of these cases accompany some minor infraction or misdeed that starts the confrontation, perhaps simply protesting or not cooperating with initial demands to submit. The males of color whose lives have been taken in these situations were not "terrorists" chased down or come upon in the commission of murderous acts.

I, personally, feel angry indignation and a deep revulsion at the inequality of justice meted out to certain ethnic groups in our so-called egalitarian American society.

Polly Brody,

Heritage Village, Southbury September 22, 2016