POLICE SPLIT WITH DRUG UNIT

Chicago police have temporarily pulled out of a federal drug task force
because of tensions over the investigation of the Union Station shooting
that left an officer wounded and a suspect dead, officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration took more than a day to give
police investigators access to a DEA agent involved in the Dec. 12
shooting, police said.

A Chicago police officer detailed to the drug interdiction task force was
shot in the leg during a confrontation with two gunmen. One man died and
the other was wounded. The DEA agent shot both gunmen and accidentally
wounded the officer, police said.

Police said the DEA should have made the agent available to them for
questioning on the day of the shooting.

"All we wanted was an unofficial account of what happened," a police source
said.

Police supervisors conduct informal interviews with officers involved in
shootings within hours of the discharge of a weapon. A formal interview
comes later.

"We can't have a situation where we follow one set of rules and our partner
agency works on another set of rules," said Thomas Needham, chief of staff
for police Supt. Terry Hillard. "We have to be on the same page."

The Police Department withdrew a sergeant and eight officers from the task
force Dec. 18, said David Bayless, a police spokesman.

"We have no problem with the shooting itself," Bayless said. "The DEA agent
was a hero. He very likely saved the life of a police officer."

Police hope to meet with DEA officials next month to discuss the agency's
rules for investigating shootings. Hillard also would like to review
guidelines for other agencies that work with the Chicago police on task
forces, Needham said.

A spokesman for Chicago's DEA office did not respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms requires agents involved
in shootings to speak with an internal affairs investigator from
Washington, D.C., before speaking to police, said Tom Ahern, spokesman for
ATF. The process usually takes several hours, he said.

Despite the controversy over the investigation, police said they're happy
with the performance of the task force, which was formed in the 1980s.

In the last five months, the task force has seized $665,000 in cash, 130
pounds of marijuana, about 15 1/2 pounds of cocaine, about 11 pounds of
crack, 22 pounds of methamphetamine and 10,000 tablets of Ecstasy, police said.

When the Chicago officer stopped a suspicious man for questioning after he
stepped off an Amtrak train from New York, another man pointed a gun at the
DEA agent. The agent emptied his five-shot pistol and wounded the man,
police said.

Then the agent grabbed the wounded man's gun and shot the second suspect,
who was pointing a gun at the Chicago officer's head. Andrew Ross, 25, was
killed, and Daniel Wentworth, 26, was seriously wounded. Wentworth faces a
murder charge in Ross' death because prosecutors said he was responsible.

Contributing: Maureen O'Donnell