Three weeks ago you published a letter (“Cartoon’s criticism of police is not amusing,” Dec. 9) about police violence which went unchallenged in your paper last week. It was refuted by the report of the Department of Justice (“Feds vs. SPD,” Dec. 17 in Seattle Times).

Some highlights from the report:

1. We find that SPD engages in a pattern or practice of using unnecessary or excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 14141.

Specifically: When SPD officers use force, they do so in an unconstitutional manner nearly 20 percent of the time.

2. SPD officers too quickly resort to the use of impact weapons, such as batons and flashlights. Indeed, we find that, when SPD officers use batons, 57 percent of the time it is either unnecessary or excessive.

3. In 2010, just 20 officers accounted for 18 percent of all force incidents. Yet, SPD has no effective supervisory techniques to better analyze why these officers use force.

4. Of the cases that we determined to be unnecessary or excessive uses of force, over 50 percent involved minorities.

The Seattle Times documents two incidents from 2010. In one case officers were shown stomping on a prone detainee accused of robbery.

In the other a teenage girl was stopped for jaywalking. Her friend pushed the police officer, who the punched her in the face. It also reported that the justice department has opened a criminal investigation into the death of John T. Williams, the woodcarver shot to death by a police officer.

I believe that most police officers are an honest and hardworking part of the 99 percent. The few rotten apples have not been removed as they should have been.

Norm Keegel, Bainbridge Island