USE INFORMANTS WITH CARE

Mar. 13 - Denver's brand-new interim police chief already has made a wise
policy change for the city's beleaguered police department.

Officers can no longer use confidential drug informants - not unless they
are under the supervision of an experienced narcotics detective.

Indeed, narcotics detectives will even watch when a street officer's
informant makes undercover drug buys.

The new edict by interim Chief Gerry Whitman should keep rookie officers,
street cops and neighborhood patrol officers from overstepping their bounds
and venturing into unchartered territory - the territory of drug dealing
best handled by officers with narcotics expertise.

Whitman says his policy is temporary, until a committee of Safety Manager
Butch Montoya, District Attorney Bill Ritter and presiding Denver County
Judge Robert Patterson review the city's no-knock raid policy.

That review is sorely needed in light of the September slaying of Ismael
Mena, who was killed in a badly botched no-knock raid that police waged on
the wrong house.

A perjury charge against Officer Joseph Bini, accused of lying in an
affidavit to get the no-knock search warrant, prompted Whitman's temporary
policy change.

Bini had worked with narcotics detectives in the past, but he also had been
allowed to run his own drug investigations. And the sloppy drug case that
led to Mena's death is evidence of what can happen when inexperienced
police officers are allowed to oversee drug cases - a trend that, until
now, has been common in the Denver Police Department.

Whatever results from the committee's review of no-knock raids, we hope
that Whitman's policy is retained so that Denver's most inexperienced
police officers no longer can undertake drug cases on their own.