Letter to the Editor: Statistics are misleading

To the Editor,

In your otherwise excellent August 10 article, "Brookside traffic cameras an "enormous success” says Lake Forest Park mayor despite "messy” bill and mistakes", I was disappointed to see some misleading statistics on race published for a second time. In the piece, the LFP PD are quoted as stating that, "although less than 4% of Lake Forest Park residents are Black, 12% of people who received a traffic ticket in the city were Black" 

As I wrote in my May 28 LTE, comparing those 2 statistics isn't meaningful as an indicator of bias and worse, is actually misleading; the percentage of LFP residents who are Black should be compared with the percentage of Black residents who received tickets.

Gay Armsden
Lake Forest Park