Where are the police when innocent people are getting killed?

It is sad to know that we now live in a city where you cannot go to the store without having to worry if we will make it back home ("Woman, 19, fatally shot Saturday in city apparently just a bystander," March 15). The police are never where they need to be — they are too busy pulling over people and passing out unnecessary parking tickets when they could be looking out for real crimes.

Every time you turn on the news you see someone else has just been killed and then you also see how the city wants to make cuts in their budgets that will impact us tremendously. The city officials are too busy counting the money that they say they do not have and need to be counting the bodies that keep stacking up.

This recent killing of Tanise Ervin could have been avoided if the police were where they are supposed to be, if the prosecutors were tougher with their prosecutions for the right crimes, and if everyone would finally take a stand against these murderers and start turning them in. I do not feel safe in the city of Baltimore. I fear for my family as well as myself when we leave our home, and I'm sure that there are many who share my feelings.

Sherice Williams, Baltimore