OFFICER KILLS SUSPECT IN FAILED DRUG BUST

Armed 19-Year-old Shot In Back While Fleeing After Struggle

An undercover Louisville Metro Police officer shot a fleeing 19-year-old
suspect in the back late Saturday, killing him, after a struggle for the
officer's gun in a drug bust gone awry, authorities said.

Michael Newby was pronounced dead early yesterday at University Hospital
after the shooting outside a liquor store and small grocery near 46th and
Market streets in the Shawnee neighborhood.

Police Chief Robert White said yesterday at a news conference that Officer
McKenzie G. Mattingly, who fired the shots, was assigned to a police unit
investigating drug activity.

White said Mattingly was trying to buy drugs about 11:45p.m. outside the
commercial area where the liquor store is located when the deal between him
and Newby "went bad."

"There was a tussle for the (officer's) service weapon, a shot was fired,
the subject fled and in the course of that, the subject was shot three
times in the back," White said.

White said Mattingly's gun was fired a total of five times.

Other officers involved in the drug investigation were nearby and
immediately handcuffed Newby, who was lying on the ground, White said. When
the officers realized that Newby had been shot, they removed the handcuffs
so paramedics could treat him.

Police spokeswoman Helene Kramer said police found a .45-caliber pistol
tucked into Newby's waistband, and White said Newby also had drugs and drug
paraphernalia.

White said he did not know whether the officers tried to give first aid to
Newby before paramedics arrived.

Newby was pronounced dead at 12:10a.m. of multiple bullet wounds, Deputy
Jefferson County Coroner Rick Siclari said.

Mattingly, who spent three years as an officer with the Jefferson County
Police Department before it merged last year with the Louisville police,
was placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.

The chief said he hopes to present a preliminary report on the shooting to
the Jefferson County commonwealth's attorney's office this week. He
wouldn't estimate when the investigation by the police department's public
integrity unit, which investigates all police shootings, would be completed.

He said the mayor's Police Accountability Commission will also investigate
the shooting and the department will conduct an administrative review.

Chad Carlton, a spokesman for Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson, said the
department's response to the shooting shows that the reforms Abramson and
White instituted last year are working.

White had spoken to Abramson, Deputy Mayor William Summers IV and
Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel about the shooting by yesterday
afternoon. Carlton said Abramson had been informed of the shooting early
yesterday.

Abramson, in a statement, expressed grief for the families of "the people
involved in this tragic incident" and urged the public to let investigators
do their work.

"I'm confident that Chief White and the newly created public integrity unit
will thoroughly investigate this incident," he said.

"The reforms that Chief White and I put in place last year ensure that our
police department must be fully accountable to the community it serves,"
Abramson said. "Until the facts are in, I will reserve judgment on this
case and I ask the citizens of our community to do the same."

The shooting's details were incomplete last night, but White said that as
part of the "openness" he has tried to instill in the department since he
took over a year ago, he would make information public as it becomes available.

"I would ask that our department and the community at large be mindful that
this investigation is very young," White said. "There are a lot of
unanswered questions. There are concerns that I, like members of this
department and I'm sure members of this community, have that relate to this."

White said he had not spoken with Mattingly and did not know why Mattingly
shot a fleeing suspect.

He said he did not know whether the shooting was justified under the
department's use-of-force guidelines.

He also said he did not know whether Newby had already been a target of the
drug investigation or if he had stumbled into it. He said he did not know
whether Newby had a police record.

Newby's family was already questioning the shooting and the answers they
have received about his death. Jerry Bouggess, Newby's stepfather,
complained yesterday afternoon that the police had told them little.

Because of that, he said, he and other members of Newby's family went to
the police station at Seventh and Jefferson streets yesterday for answers
at the news conference.

The family met first with Lt. Col. Phil Turner during the news conference
and afterward with White.

Kramer said the chief spent about 20 minutes with the family. Afterward,
one member of the family said they had learned little.

"He didn't know anything," Helen Swain, Newby's aunt, said of the chief.
"We already knew what he said. The only thing we can do is continue to pray
and continue to try to find the truth."

She said she was concerned that White would not say what drugs her nephew
was alleged to have been selling.

Bouggess and his wife, Angela - Newby's mother - learned of the shooting
about midnight Saturday when a family friend who had been to the store
called and told them their son was there and he had been hurt.

The couple rushed to the scene from their home, at 906 S. 42nd St., to find
Newby lying on the ground. Bouggess said police stopped the family from
attending to him.

"We told them that we were his parents, but they wouldn't let us cross," he
said. "They told us that no one's been hurt and that no one was shot."

Kramer said the department would investigate whether the family was told
that no one had been shot or injured.

"This is just terrible," Bouggess said. "They treated him like he was an
animal."

Family and friends filled Newby's home to comfort his parents and find answers.

Newby was known as "Li'l Mike." People described him as an energetic young
man with aspirations of becoming a veterinarian. Although Newby left
Pleasure Ridge Park High School without a diploma, he was working toward a
General Educational Development certificate, Bouggess said.

"The family's going to miss him," he said. "He meant a lot to everybody. He
was the only son of my wife."

Swain said her nephew was always dancing and making people laugh.

"He was such a fun-loving person," she said. "He never argued, fussed or
fought." Newby's family said he had had no problems with authorities.

Yolanda LaRue, a family friend who was the first to see Newby injured in
the store's parking lot, said young men in the neighborhood are scared of
police.

Newby's stepfather agrees.

"I feel terror, really," Bouggess said. "The West End has gotten so that
black men not only have to look out for crime, but they have to look out
for the police, too. He always had a fear of the police."

The relatives said they did not know that Newby had a gun, and they said
that if he was involved in illegal activity, they were unaware of it. But
even if he was, they said, that did not justify the shooting.

This was the second fatal shooting by Louisville Metro Police in the past
three months. Officer Tom Hodgkins killed a man in a house on Dixie Highway
in November while the man was robbing a family and holding a gun to the
head of one person.

But the latest shooting appears to be the first during White's tenure that
has stirred some civil-rights activists.

The Rev. Louis Coleman, retired director of the Justice Resource Center,
prayed yesterday with Newby's family and said he would meet with them today
to start planning strategy.

White became chief last January while the department was in the throes of
explaining why an officer had shot and killed James Edward Taylor in the
Smoketown neighborhood, southeast of downtown, in December 2002. Taylor,
though handcuffed, had a box-cutter-type knife and was high on cocaine and
drunk, tests showed.

That incident, like Saturday's, involved the shooting of a black suspect by
a white officer.

"To us, this is vintage James Taylor all over again," Coleman said.

Several other members of the civil-rights community, not including Coleman,
met with White yesterday.