I was shocked and dismayed Thursday morning to look at your front page and to see the word, "retarded" not only in an article, but in a headline. What decade do we live in, the 1950s, that we are deduced to labeling people by their disabilities? There are at least a handful of other ways to describe the situation that would have brought a whole lot more dignity to the people involved.

Not only that, but the headline read "retarded residents," putting the disability first and the person second. These residents are people. It would have been more appropriate to say, "residents with mental disabilities."

How many newspaper employees did this article have to go through before production, and nobody caught this? Not one person thought this may not be the best thing to print, let alone use in a headline? In the future I urge you to be more sensitive and more aware of possible hurtful labeling.

Jessica Hilden, Minneapolis