A POLICEMAN'S DEATH

EDWARD M. TOATLEY, Maryland state trooper, undercover narcotics detective
and a man who liked his work, was doing something Monday night that he'd
done many times before: making a drug buy as part of an investigation. He
handed over the money, $3,000, to the man he had met with as they sat in a
vehicle parked in Northeast Washington; then he waited for the seller to
get the drugs. Instead, the man came back with a gun, threw open the door
and shot Mr. Toatley to death, police said.

Edward Toatley was, by the testimony of those who knew and worked with him,
one of the best: hard-working, enthusiastic and unflagging in a dangerous
line of police work, a good friend, a leader in police organizations,
father of three. Unfortunately, most of us come to know about people like
him--people who are doing the public a great deal more service than they
have to--only in times of tragedy.

We've had a lot to say in recent years on victims of police gunfire. It's
worth saying something now about the dangers police face and why few of
these shooting cases lend themselves to simple sloganeering. By
coincidence, on Tuesday a Prince George's County grand jury refused to
indict a policeman who'd fatally shot a man in a confrontation; the
policeman said he mistook items the man was holding (cell phone, wallet,
keys) for a gun. "These cases are very difficult, but police officers do
get the benefit of the doubt," said the county prosecutor, Jack B. Johnson.

Nearly 700 police officers were slain in the line of duty in this country
between 1989 and 1998--nine out of 10 by firearms, mostly handguns. Ours
is, in too many areas, a sort of hair-trigger society, in which peace
officers are regularly faced with many more urgent and potentially deadly
decisions than they ought to be. A sudden move by a suspect, an ambiguous
object wielded in the dark, the knowledge that failure to act quickly and
decisively can be fatal--these things are always on the minds of the people
patrolling the streets of this dangerously overarmed nation, especially
after someone like Edward Toatley is lost.