MENA'S KIN STRUGGLE TO ACCEPT HIS LOSS

March 12 - LOS ANGELES - For the first time, Maria del Carmen has left the
family ranch in central Mexico, embarking on the same journey north that
defined the life of her husband, Ismael Mena.

While she knows Denver police killed Ismael last year, "many things I still
don't understand," Maria said, sitting last week in her son's rented home in
south-central Los Angeles. "I want to know." She knows police made a
mistake, bursting into the house where Ismael was sleeping in a botched
no-knock drug raid.

She knows lawyers now will try to negotiate monetary compensation for that
mistake.

And early this week, Maria plans to visit Colorado with her eldest son
Heriberto, 21, a restaurant waiter in Los Angeles, to participate in those
negotiations.

But 48-year-old Maria is struggling to find a new way to live - and answer
questions her younger five children in Mexico, ages 8 to 17, are asking
about Ismael's death.

Beyond any financial deal, Maria wants to know details such as why Ismael,
who never mentioned guns to her, apparently carried one in Denver.

She wants to ascertain whether, as police allege, he fired at officers,
defensively or otherwise, during that early afternoon drug raid Sept. 29.

For all their lives, the nine Mena children grew up counting on their father
far away, "knowing that he would return, like before," Maria said.

"They always had this idea their father was going to return." Ismael Mena
was one of the tens of thousands of Mexican migrant workers who help keep
the Colorado and United States economies moving. The migrants trying to keep
their families back home alive are instrumental in filling jobs that pay $8
or less an hour - roughly a quarter of U.S. jobs.

A few days after the shooting, the telephone rang on the family ranch -
Maria's sister Esperanza calling from Los Angeles, saying something cryptic
about Ismael maybe not coming home in the future.

Maria was busy sewing and cooking just then, with the television blaring and
children playing.

"I was thinking he was sick, not dead," Maria said.

When Maria grasped he was dead, she managed to hide it from the youngest
children until the next day. To this day, she said, all of them are
struggling to accept that their seldom-seen yet beloved provider no longer
is out there at all.

"Now we are alone. Now we have no one. Now we are completely alone." Maria's
journey to the United States began in February in mountainous eastern
Jalisco state, where Ismael and Maria's families have lived for generations.

She entered bustling Guadalajara, Mexico's aspiring "Silicon Valley South."
The airplane she caught at the airport there was scary, seemingly teetering
from side to side as it rose, she said.

In Los Angeles the past two weeks, she's seeing first-hand what before she
only knew from Ismael's telephone calls and letters.

"He would say, "Everything is more easy.' He had his car. He said, "There's
plenty of things. . . . It's different.' "

And she agrees. She's even considering whether her whole family might move
north. Her oldest sons here certainly are making their way - 19-year-old
Jose working at a bed factory despite his congenital disability and
Heriberto impressing customers and supervisors alike in the restaurants
where he waits on tables.

In Denver, Maria is expecting to stay in a hotel. She'll enter a Lower
Downtown office where lawyers - guided by former federal judge James
Carrigan - are to begin arbitration Thursday.

Attorneys representing Denver are offering $150,000 as compensation for the
police slaying of Mena. For the family, attorney Robert Maes seeks $5.5
million.

"He is a completely innocent victim," Maes said of Mena.

The botched no-knock raid was a factor in Denver Mayor Wellington Webb's
decision to force Police Chief Tom Sanchez to step down last month, and it
sparked official scrutiny of police and judicial practices in obtaining
no-knock warrants.

An FBI probe of possible civil rights violations continues, according to
U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Christine DiBartolo.

Prosecutors filed perjury charges against the Denver police officer who
signed an affidavit to obtain the warrant to raid the house at 3738 High St.
where Mena rented a room.

"We did have the wrong house," Webb said. "There's no way to compensate for
a life that's been taken. You have a real empty, sick feeling inside." But
Webb also said: "We also have to protect the taxpayers of this city. I'm
worried about the precedent set." Denver is a self-insured city, not paying
premiums to any insurance company.

Previous wrongful-death settlements have reached $260,000 - nothing close to
what Maes is seeking for the Mena family.

But Denver officials are accustomed to big requests, Assistant City Attorney
John Eckhardt said.

People claiming mistreatment at the hands of the city sought $196 million
from Denver last year, Eckhardt said. The city paid out $1.2 million - a
figure that he said has remained relatively constant over the years.