THE NEXT STEP ON DARE Approving a settlement in a molestation case is only part of the City Council's responsibility. It must also make sure it doesn't happen again. A modicum of justice finally may have surfaced in the case in which a former DARE officer was accused of molesting seven youngsters he was supposed to be counseling about not using drugs. A tentative settlement has been reached, and, if the Huntsville City Council approves it when it meets Thursday, the families and their lawyers will share a $3.5 million pot. An attorney for the families says the city is getting off cheaply, and while that statement may be both hyperbolic and self-serving, it could also contain a smidgen of truth. Complaints first surfaced against Greg Terry, the anti-drug officer, in 1993. Yet an investigation and a grand jury reportedly cleared him. Terry served in the program until he resigned in 1995 after he was accused again of molesting kids. He left town and later killed himself in Kentucky. The city would have been rolling the dice in taking such a case to federal court. If those allegations could have been proved, the penalty of its negligence could have been substantially higher. And if the allegations weren't true, why would the city settle? But there's more to this than money, and more that the City Council needs to do than sign off on the agreement. Since the suit was filed, the Huntsville Police Department has declined to discuss the specifics of the DARE program, including what screening procedures were in place when Terry was hired, what changes, if any, have been made to ensure this couldn't happen again and why complaints about Terry weren't handled expeditiously, if at all. Add the fact that Police Chief Compton Owens has publicly expressed concerns about how effective the DARE program is in keeping kids away from drugs, and you can see that the DARE program needs a public airing. The citizens of Huntsville, who are paying $3.5 million, will demand it. No Easy Answer Lives, if not ruined, have been badly harmed and will require time and counseling to heal. Public confidence in the program has been undermined. This is one sordid mess. It would be nice if the city could write a check and make all of this go away. That's not going to happen. What also can't happen is for this kind of thing to happen again. The City Council needs to make sure lessons have been learned from previous mistakes. That's even more important than putting this matter to rest.
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