WEBB SAYS HE KNEW ABOUT MEXICO KILLING

City also knew that man slain in mistaken raid was arrested on gun charge 2
weeks before

Mayor Wellington Webb said Wednesday that he knew a year ago of the claim
that Ismael Mena was in the U.S. hiding out after killing a man in Mexico.

Webb also said the city knew that Mena had been arrested two weeks earlier
on a concealed weapons charge inside the crack house that was supposed to
have been raided when police mistakenly were sent to the wrong address and
killed him.

Mena was shot to death in his bedroom when he refused officers' orders to
drop a pistol and the city settled with his family for $400,000 before a
lawsuit was filed.

Mena rented an upstairs room at 3738 High St., next door to the crack house
operation at 3742 High St. A police informant provided the wrong address,
resulting in the botched raid on Sept. 29, 1999.

No one in the investigation has been able to explain why Mena was carrying
a gun inside the neighborhood crack house on Sept. 14, 1999. A week later,
the informant did a drug buy in the alley behind the houses and miscounted
the addresses.

The raid occurred eight days after that.

But Webb said that information played no part in negotiating the settlement
with the family.

"I came up with an amount that was based upon what I thought was fair,
given the actuarial tables and the fact that he was in the country
illegally," Webb said.

Critics of the deal have said the amount seemed low for a man killed during
a botched drug raid.

The disclosure is among new information being made public on the background
of the man whose death has become a rallying cry for revamping police
no-knock raid procedures and for retooling the city's war on drugs.

On Sept. 14, 1999, a Denver police officer and a parole officer went to
3742 High St. looking for a reported parole violator, according to a police
report on file in Denver County Court.

Several men including Mena were inside the house, which was suspected of
being a crack house.

Officer Mike Hall frisked Mena and found him carrying a .380-caliber black
handgun. Mena was arrested and spent the night in city jail. He pleaded
guilty in the morning and was released for time served. The gun was
confiscated and destroyed.

Mena told another tenant in his house about noon on Sept. 29 that he had
been to court that morning for a hearing related to the gun charge. The
raid occurred about two hours later as Mena tried to nap before going to
his night-shift job nearby.

The information about Mena being involved in a killing had been rumored
outside official circles for more than a year.

Mexico's Consul General Carlos Barros who helped represent the family
during the aftermath of Mena's fatal shooting said he was unhappy the
family did not tell him about the killing.

"I resent that," said Consul General Carlos Barros. "The truth will always
come out."

However, Barros said, Mena was still an innocent victim, who was working,
albeit without authorization, and was killed in his own bedroom.

Mena's background provides a possible explanation for why Mena would raise
a .22-caliber handgun at a heavily armed police SWAT team staring him down
in his bedroom on Sept. 29, 1999.

"He was thinking the police were coming to arrest him for the murder in
Mexico," said Kirk Miller, president of the Denver Police Protective
Association.

Capt. Tim Cuthriell, commander of the SWAT unit, said Mena's arrest two
weeks earlier could have led him to expect a return visit once authorities
traced his name and found out about the killing.

But Mena couldn't have known police were in his room by mistake.

Webb said an investigator hired by the city wasn't able to confirm that
Mexican authorities were still looking for Mena in connection with the killing.

Allegedly, Mena confronted the family of a young man who impregnated one of
Mena's 16-year-old twin daughters. During an altercation, Mena allegedly
killed one of the family members, Angel Isaac, 23.

But the city's report was given to the Mena family attorney, Robert Maes,
and the arbitrator, former U.S. District Judge Jim Carrigan, during
arbitration negotiations last year.

Maes said this week he didn't confirm the information about the killing
with Mena's family until after the settlement was reached.

Staff writer Hector Gutierrez contributed to this report.