NO-KNOCK RESONATES A YEAR LATER

One year ago today, Francisca Mendivil was returning to her house at 3700
High St. when she noticed Denver police cars everywhere. At first, she was
relieved.

"When I arrived home from work the day it happened, the police had the
entire street blocked off," Mendivil said. "I thought they had arrested the
people running the drug house."

That was the intent.

But all the commotion wasn't at the northeast Denver drug house. It was at
3738 High St. Inside, tenant Ismael Mena, a friend of Mendivil and her
husband, had been shot eight times and killed after 14 SWAT officers burst
into the wrong house. The officers should have been next door, at 3742 High St.

A year later, the reverberations of the botched no-knock drug raid are
still being felt across Denver and the state.

State laws and police policies have been changed, the number of no-knock
raids has been sharply reduced, the police chief was demoted and a new
chief appointed, and lawsuits and criminal charges are pending.

And then there's this: For many, the killing of Mena - a 45-year-old
immigrant from Mexico who worked at a nearby Coca-Cola bottling plant -
cemented a long-simmering distrust of Denver police.

Mary Miera, a member of the Justice for Mena Committee, a group galvanized
to action by the Sept. 29, 1999, killing, says the Denver Police Department
needs to "acknowledge that there is a problem." "You've never heard the
police department say that they had a problem," Miera said. "It's always,
"Well, we've done our best.' Until they acknowledge a problem, what's going
to change, really?"

The city's new safety manager, Ari Zavaras, concedes problems exist and
promises that steps are being taken to correct them.

"I'm acknowledging that several situations have occurred in the past few
months, and I realize we have some issues we need to deal with," Zavaras
said. "If the agency has made a mistake, I'll be the first person to
acknowledge it and to take any steps necessary to address that problem, be
it changes in policy, be it discipline, whatever it may be."

Largely because of the Mena incident, policy changes already have occurred,
and more are on the way. Those changes should be finalized within the next
10 days, Zavaras said.

The department has altered its rules for the approval of no-knock warrants,
including requiring more input from experienced narcotics officers.

The result of the tougher requirements: a 72 percent decrease in the number
of warrants from January to September compared with the same period last year.

"The magnitude of the Mena situation was obviously a factor," Zavaras said.
"We've put a lot more internal controls on it."

The department also has begun holding community meetings throughout
Denver's neighborhoods to give residents a chance to talk directly with
Zavaras, Police Chief Gerry Whitman and other law enforcement leaders,
Zavaras said.

Zavaras also has instituted a policy of openness regarding internalaffairs
investigations.

In the past month, police have issued news releases concerning one officer
under investigation in an alleged domestic-violence case and another
officer for allegedly kicking a car during a traffic stop.

That sort of public disclosure has been unheralded. In the Mena case, for
instance, it took two months before police admitted they had raided the
wrong house.

"The only way to get the public's trust back is to release more information
than necessary," Zavaras said. "My intent in sharing more information is
not to embarrass police officers, but to let the public know what's going on."

Cynthia Gallegos grew up in the Five Points neighborhood and lived there
for 18 years. She is also a member of the Justice for Mena Committee. She
says Zavaras, Whitman and the police department have a long way to go
before they can overcome the damage wrought by the Mena killing.

"Do I feel that the confidence level of the police department has
diminished? Yes," Gallegos said.

"Do I feel there has been effective change in the police department? No. Do
I feel that the community has confidence in the department? No."
"Historically, they've gotten away with murder," she added. "People of
color just throw their hands up and say, "Why should we even try?' "

Peter Boyles, host of a popular radio talk show, says the Mena incident was
a defining moment for Denver police.

"What's interesting is that whenever someone talks to me about all the
ongoing scandals in the police department, they always mention Mena," said
Boyles, who was sued for defamation by the SWAT team in April over his
radio shows on the Mena case.

Considering all that's happened since Mena's killing, it's easy to see why
it's still such a hot topic.

Officer Joseph Bini - whose search-warrant request contained a bad address,
which led to the SWAT team's going to the wrong house - faces a perjury
trial next month. He allegedly lied in the warrant request, stating that he
knew that the address given to him by an informant was correct. It was
later revealed that the informant miscounted houses and gave the wrong address.

The SWAT team has been cleared of wrongdoing in the shooting because Mena
fired his .22-caliber handgun at officers when they stormed the house.

Whitman, Zavaras and Mayor Wellington Webb have revamped department
policies, including taking a closer look at no-knock raids. Among the
changes: Veteran narcotics detectives have become oncall experts to
supervise less-experienced street officers investigating drug cases. The
narcotics detectives act as consultants in no-knock cases.

The time frame for executing a no-knock warrant after obtaining one from a
judge was reduced from 10 days to three. The raid that led to Mena's death
was based on a 6-day-old warrant. "There's been such a dramatic reduction
in the number of search warrants this year, and they're being executed
quickly," Whitman said. "I'm not saying volume created a need for us to
hang onto them longer - I'm just saying that we're seeing them executed
quicker."

From Jan. 8, 1999, until Sept. 21, 1999, police issued 95 no-knock search
warrants. From Jan. 14 to Sept. 14 of this year, there were 27.

"I think this policy with immediate-entry search warrants deals with some
of the possible problems with warrants," Whitman said. "We're looking at
the warrants more carefully and trying to deal with these issues. Obviously
we've got to work with the community and we've got to be open with the
public about what we do right and what we do wrong."

Whitman was named interim police chief in February upon the ouster of Tom
Sanchez. He became permanent chief in July, and one of his first actions
was to shake up his command staff, including a reassignment of Vince
DiManna, the captain of the SWAT team during the Mena raid.

Another change that stemmed from Mena's killing was Senate Bill 208, signed
into law by Gov. Bill Owens in May. The measure tightens restrictions on
how noknock warrants are obtained. A prosecutor now must sign the warrant
request before it's submitted to a judge. The law also mandates up-to-date
and accurate information in the requests, and a declaration that the
no-knock raid is necessary. "Let's not make room for all this sloppiness
where people can get killed," said state Sen. Jim Congrove, R-Arvada, who
sponsored SB 208. "The officers who entered the house put their lives in
danger because of sloppy police work. I place the blame with the police
department."

Accepting that blame, the city settled with Mena's family - a widow and
nine children - for $400,000 in March.

But community members say the family's lawyer should have fought for more.
They also say the changes made by the police department over the past year
aren't enough.

"I think what this did is that it put the police department on notice that
the whole community is watching them now," Miera said. "There's always been
mistrust. But this case proved that what we always suspected happens: that
they can't monitor their own people."

Gallegos and Miera say Robert Maes - the Denver lawyer hired by the Mena
family - settled the case for too little money.

"Robert Maes did not do this family justice," Gallegos said. "This case
should have gone to trial." Maes disputes the criticisms, saying the
Mexican Consulate also aided the Mena family during mediation, making sure
the family clearly understood the details. Maes said the family decided to
settle rather than risk years of litigation and get nothing.

He said the Justice for Mena Committee has its own political agenda.

"They saw this case as Denver's civil rights case of the century," Maes
said. "They wanted the mayor fired, they wanted the police chief fired,
they wanted everyone fired. A jury might have issued a verdict in excess of
($400,000) had we gone to trial. That's always a possibility. But there was
also a possibility that we would have gotten nothing. This is a large, poor
family."

Maes said Mena's widow, Maria del Carmen Mena, has begun receiving payments
and was able to buy a home in Mexico. The Mena children who remain in
Mexico are able to go to school, and the family has a regular income.

The payments will continue for 25 years.

FEWER NO-KNOCKS:

Since the Ismael Mena shooting, Denver police executed 72 percent fewer
immediate-entry warrants than they did in a corresponding period of last
year. From Jan. 8 to Sept. 21, 1999, they executed 95 no-knock warrants.
From Jan. 14 to Sept. 14, 2000, they executed 27.