ZERO TOLERANCE: CITY MUST NOT ENCOURAGE OR CONDONE POLICE LAWLESSNESS

Depositions and other federal court records show that, under two police
chiefs, officers in a Houston anti-gang task force routinely harassed
citizens and rode rough-shod over their civil rights. The officers were
following a policy of exhibiting "zero tolerance" of crime, however petty,
but the officers and their supervisors tolerated all manner of illegal,
improper and abusive behavior by police sworn to uphold the law.

The court records are the fallout of the 1998 shooting death of Pedro Oregon
Navarro by police officers who improperly barged into his apartment without
a warrant and, in the darkness and confusion, gunned him down. Records now
indicate that the incident was less an improper aberration than standard
operating procedure.

Of the task force's 432 drug-related investigations, officers obtained no
search warrants. Testimony in the case also supports allegations that
officers often stopped suspects based on their appearance, without probable
cause to believe a crime had been committed.

According to the records, Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford received ample
warning from the field that department procedures were conflicting,
confusing and dangerous, and that officers were not playing by the rules.
Bradford took no effective action to correct the problems before the tragedy
that claimed Oregon's life.

Former Police Chief Sam Nuchia, who formed the task force in 1994, admitted
in his deposition that he directed officers to "go to the line, into the
gray area" in searches, seizures and arrests of suspects. Houstonians must
hope that Nuchia, now a state appellate judge with jurisdiction over both
civil and criminal cases, is no longer sympathetic to the trampling of civil
rights he once encouraged.

Officers charged with conducting the nation's war on drugs have a thankless
task, but the absence of thanks does not excuse the systematic violation of
citizens' constitutional rights. If "zero tolerance" has a place in American
jurisprudence, it must apply to infractions, abuses and lawlessness
exhibited by those whose duty is to enforce the law.