FAKE DRUG ACQUITTAL

Dallas can't let story end at this point

"Not guilty!" Those two words set off a bombshell yesterday at the Earle
Cabell Federal Building when a jury acquitted former Dallas police Detective
Mark Delapaz of all charges in what has been the only criminal trial to
sprout from the now-infamous fake drug scandal. That is where several dozen
innocent people, most of them Mexican immigrants, were sent to jail after
being framed with drug evidence that turned out to be billiard chalk.

Mr. Delapaz stood accused of lying on arrest warrants and to authorities,
and of violating individuals' civil rights. Had he been convicted, the
one-time star of the Dallas Police Department's narcotics division could
have spent the next 10 years behind bars.

The jury saw to it that the story didn't end that way.

Be that as it may, it is way too early to talk of endings. This verdict
represents a new beginning. It places in even sharper relief the central
questions that remain unanswered nearly two years after the scandal
unfolded:

How did this tragedy occur?

Who is accountable?

What steps have been taken to assure it never happens again?

And what has become of justice?

Clearly, for the victims who sat in the courtroom and gasped when the
verdict was read, who stared into the bright light of television cameras
and, with tears streaming down their faces, proclaimed the system in this
country to be no more upright than the one in the country they left behind,
justice has not yet been served.

Neither has it for Dallas residents, people of good hearts and minds who
shouldn't have to tolerate fake drug scandals in their system of justice.

So much for letting the federal courts handle this case. Now's the time for
local officials to rise up and demonstrate leadership. Mayor Laura Miller
can jump-start her investigatory commission, City Manager Ted Benavides can
get serious about an internal police investigation, or Dallas County
District Attorney Bill Hill can subpoena his way to the bottom of the case.
Whatever.

It's time for Dallas to take charge of its future.