HARSH LESSONS FROM A BAD BUST

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch, the County
Police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency have badly mishandled the
deadly Jack in the Box drug bust from the day it happened two years ago.

The DEA risked the lives of innocent bystanders by choosing the parking lot
of a busy fast food restaurant, in the late afternoon, as the place to
arrest a two-bit drug pusher, Earl Murray. DEA agents botched the effort to
block Murray's car from the rear. Two officers fired 21 shots, killing
Murray and his passenger, Ronald Beasley, on the mistaken belief that
Murray's car was moving toward them. St. Louis County Police Chief Ron
Batelle improperly prejudged the incident by immediately concluding the
shooting was justified. The top DEA official cleared his men, even though
an internal investigation is supposedly still under way.

And then there's Mr. McCulloch. He refused for months to release key
details, such as the names of the police officers who did the shooting and
the number of shots fired. He called the two dead men "bums." He refused
all but the most cursory contact with the African-American community, which
was understandably upset by the police shooting of two African-Americans.
He failed to order a reconstruction of the incident by an accident expert.
His prosecutors failed to vigorously question the shooting officers about
the discrepancy between their stories and the accounts of other officers
who said the car was not moving forward. He refuses to believe a federal
accident expert who concluded that Murray's car never moved forward or
shifted out of reverse. He fails, even now, to acknowledge that the car was
not moving toward the officers, and he remains blithely unaware of
important details of the incident.

Post-Dispatch reporter Michael Sorkin provided an account of the
mishandling of the investigation, after listening to hours of tapes of the
county grand jury that cleared Dellwood Det. Robert Piekutowski and DEA
agent Keith Kierzkowski. After much prodding, Mr. McCulloch released an
unprecedented amount of information about the case. But rather than
removing a cloud from the investigation, the additional detail provides a
devastating indictment of Mr. McCulloch. The only way for him to salvage
the investigation and win back a modicum of confidence from the community
is to take the new evidence from the federal investigation before another
county grand jury. Some in the community may simply not believe him,
period, regardless of what he does.

The evidence about the car not moving forward could help state prosecutors
make a manslaughter case against the officers, even though it was not
enough to justify federal civil rights charges. To make the federal case,
prosecutors would have had to show that police acted with a "bad purpose."
State prosecutors would not have to demonstrate that much criminal intent.

By taking the case to a new grand jury, Mr. McCulloch could not only take
advantage of the federal accident reconstruction, he could also closely
question the shooters about their faulty recollection of events.

Civil rights leaders are kidding themselves, however, if they think this is
a clear-cut case. A new grand jury could easily come to the same conclusion
as the old one: that the officers acted reasonably and in self-defense.
Murray was clearly trying to escape. His car's tires were screeching. The
auto's movement away from the officers had come to a stop and the front of
the car had dipped down. If the car had shifted into drive it would have
lurched toward the officers. Even if the officers' split-second decisions
were wrong -- with tragic consequences -- they may have been reasonable.

It may be that justice in the Jack in the Box shootings won't be found in
the criminal justice system. One answer may be a permanent citizen review
board with teeth, unlike the ad hoc review board that conducted a
disappointing investigation of the Jack in the Box shootings. Another
answer might be the model settlements that Attorney General John D.
Ashcroft's Justice Department has negotiated with police departments in
Cincinnati and the District of Columbia. Those settlements require
additional training in the use of force and outside monitors to measure
results.

The needless deaths of a drug pusher and his unlucky friend are tragedies.
But it would be a crime if the door is closed on the Jack in the Box
shootings without Mr. McCulloch and other law enforcement officials
learning anything from what they did wrong.