Your post does not cover the story fairly. The man had reason to think the boy was stealing his son's bike. As it turns out, it appears the boy was simply moving his son's bike out of the way.

But the man did not know the young man, but he knew the young man was moving his son's bike and he was most likely aware of the epidemic of bike thefts going on around the country.

The man clearly overreacted and he should not have. But there is no evidence that skin color played a role in the man's response. Would you write the same thing if the man had been black and the boy white, based on the facts in your article?

I understand how the man felt. Many people work very hard to buy their child a bike and replacing it is a huge burden on the family's finances. I have had two bikes stolen in my life and it leaves you feeling violated.

Bikes are being stolen routinely where I live and people are getting mad especially because the police seem uninterested in finding the culprits since the dollar value will result in the thief being charged with a misdemeanor and out on the streets the same day.

Bikes are often fenced and shipped south of the border by organized crime rings, if you lose your bike in many cases, you can figure that bike has left the country within 48 hours. This is occurring thousands of times a day and the public is getting angry.

To be clear, I am not justifying the man's actions. He was wrong. But if we don't figure out how to put a stop to these "misdemeanor crimes", I think we are going to see an explosion of vigilante justice.

I hope the boy is okay, but I also hope we look beyond the incident to the underlying reasons why citizens feel the need to take the law into their hands. I also believe it is wrong to presume racism without evidence of it being a factor in this man's response.

The investigation is on going, if racism was a factor in the man's response and he is a police officer than he should be discharged. We don't need racist police officers.

But presuming racism is equally wrong and hopefully we live in a country where people are not presumed racist... just because their skin color is white.