QUESTIONS STILL SWIRL AROUND KILLINGS OF 2 AT JACK IN THE BOX

Nearly two years after two men were killed by undercover detectives
on the parking lot of a Jack in the Box in Berkeley, enough questions
remain that the case should be reopened.

In a story Sunday, reporter Michael Sorkin provided an account of 40
hours of testimony on the case before a St. Louis County grand jury
and follow-up interviews with officials involved. The findings
suggest that the fatal shootings may not have been justified.

Here's some background:

On June 12, 2000, two white undercover detectives working with the
St. Louis County police drug unit -- Dellwood police detective Robert
Piekutowski and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Keith
Kierzkowski -- fatally shot two black men -- Earl Murray and Ronald
Beasley -- on the parking lot of the restaurant in a drug bust gone
bad. Murray was a drug suspect; Beasley was not suspected of any
wrongdoing. Although the men were unarmed, police have said the two
tried to escape in a car and run over the officers. The officers'
defense was that they shot at the car because it was coming toward
them and they feared for their lives.

The case was immediately shrouded in secrecy. Authorities obtained
surveillance tapes, used for security purposes by the restaurant, and
did not release them until months later. St. Louis County Prosecutor
Robert McCulloch insisted that he would never reveal the names,
races, ages or records of the police officers involved (the names
were revealed after 16 months). It was months before the public even
knew how many shots were fired or how many bullets hit the men. The
public had no idea whether the suspects or the police had chosen the
Jack in the Box for the drug buy. (As it turns out, police chose the
location.)

With so much secrecy, it's no surprise that many people were
skeptical that the prosecutor's office would handle the case
appropriately. A subsequent federal investigation, concluded last
year, found that the officers had fired "out of fear and panic," and
that the car had never moved toward them. The U.S. Justice Department
hired collision expert Ken Baker, who said that the car could not
have lurched toward the officers.

But the federal investigation only sought to determine whether the
two men's civil rights had been violated. U.S. Attorney Ray Gruender
said that they weren't, although he found the shooting "troubling,"
particularly in light of Baker's conclusions.

As detailed in Sunday's story, the tapes showed that:

* Only three of the 13 detectives who testified before the grand jury
said that they saw Murray's car move forward in the direction of the
officers who shot Murray and Beasley.

* Four other officers testified that they never saw the car travel
toward the officers.

* Prosecutors never brought independent evidence before the grand
jury to sort out who was right.

It comes as no surprise, then, that civil rights activists here are
concerned about the case. Despite suggestions by some that those
activists are "whining" or coddling criminals, neither is the case.
Their concerns surround the secrecy of the case and what they regard
as a cavalier attitude toward the shootings on McCulloch's part.
During a news conference last year, McCulloch went as far as calling
both men "bums."

Civil rights activists have no interest in coddling criminals; it's
often African-American communities that bear the greatest burden of
drug trafficking. But it's important to note that Beasley had
committed no crime that caused him to be killed by police that day.
And Murray, although believed to be a drug dealer, was unarmed. To
date, drug dealing is not a capital offense.

Ultimately, the case should end up in court, where a final
determination can be made as to whether the Jack in the Box incident
was a crime, or simply shoddy police work in the war on drugs.