INFORMANT: 'I AM A HERO'

Sometimes Regrets Telling FBI of Police Cover-Up

Alex White maintained a year ago he was a "hero" and risked his
livelihood and life when he told federal authorities Atlanta cops
were trying to cover up the truth about an elderly woman's death in a
botched drug raid.

It is still his mantra.

"I am a hero," White said.

But now he feels abandoned by the FBI agents who for months talked to
him almost every day.

White admits he's become paranoid. He said it's been two to three
months since he spoke to agents. Now, he says, they don't even return
his calls.

"Are they mad at me?" said White, whose birth name is Alexis Antonio White.

He sometimes regrets telling federal agents some Atlanta police
narcotics officers were trying to get him to lie to help them cover
up the circumstances surrounding the killing of a 92-year-old woman
who was shot to death by police one year ago this week.

"They've put a strain on my life," White, 25, said in an interview.
"Where do I go from here?"

White was a certified confidential informant, having worked with
Atlanta's drug officers for four years and considered reliable, when
Kathryn Johnston was fatally shot in her living room by police
executing a no-knock search warrant on a house where they hoped to
find a kilogram of cocaine.

The officers wanted to use White in their operation. He had several
drug arrests and spent two years on probation several years ago for a
cocaine-related charge. But on Nov. 21, 2006, White wasn't available
because he had no transportation to the Neal Street neighborhood in
northwest Atlanta to make an undercover buy for the officers.

The truth of what happened next gradually emerged in news reports,
interviews and law enforcement records and in court testimony when
two narcotics officers - Jason R. Smith and Gregg Junnier - pleaded
guilty last April to state and federal charges: Johnson died in a
hail of police gunfire, and the next day, the officers involved began
working on a cover-up.

They allegedly wanted White to help them.

White's version is police put him in a car and spent hours pressuring
him to cooperate. He says he refused, escaped from the vehicle and
called federal authorities, who placed him in protective custody.

For seven months, federal investigators kept him in a hotel and
called on him often to tell them what he had done and what he had
witnessed police officers doing, White said.

The FBI has repeatedly declined to discuss its investigation.

"Do you know what it's like just sitting around, doing what they
wanted me to do?" White said of his work with the FBI as it continued
its investigation of Smith, Junnier and a third officer who has
pending state charges, Arthur Tesler, as well as APD's narcotics unit
and the rest of the police agency.

In April, White married the mother of his 7-year-old daughter. In
September, they divorced, and he moved in with a friend who lives
more than 20 miles from Neal Street, to a location he wants to keep secret.

White blames the stress of the past 12 months for the end of his marriage.

"It was a lot of things at one time," White said.

He wanted someone with him all the time, but at the same time, he
wanted to be alone. "I just wanted to drift off. I wanted to
disappear," White said.

White sees his daughter regularly and occasionally visits his mother
and his younger sister and brother in East Atlanta, but he otherwise
stays in his apartment and away from people and the city.

With each passing month, White said, he becomes more and more afraid
and more and more angry. He sees law enforcement taking credit "for
something they didn't do" in revealing on Neal Street. 'I'm holding a
grudge," White said.

At the same time, he insists, "This is a new Alex White" and he
refers to the tattoo on his neck that reads, "truly blessed," when he
talks of his new attitude and his intent to be a better citizen.

White, who occasionally works laying carpet but otherwise has no
other job, has written a letter telling the mayor, the police chief
and other officials he plans to sue them over his lost income as an
informant, about $20,000 to $30,000 a year.

The letter also says White will ask to be compensated for his daily
fear of the police and the drug dealers who now know he may have
contributed to their arrests. White says he often sits in his
apartment with a screw driver in hand because he is a felon and
cannot have a gun for his protection.

"I've got to worry about the cops. I have to worry about the people
on the streets [who sell drugs]." White said.

"It's unreal thinking you're going to die, wondering if you're going
to get framed.... I wonder is my phone tapped? Are they following me?
You know how easy it is to be set up when I'm by myself. That's
playing with my mind."

White has mixed feelings about his decision to call federal agents
instead of covering for the officers. Is he sorry for what he did?

"In a way, I am. In a way, I'm not," White said. "I'm sorry the lady
got killed. I'm sorry I said anything [to the FBI]. November 21st
changed my life."