OUTSIDE LOOK BEST IN POLICE SHOOTING PROBE

As Mayor C. Jack Ellis put it, bringing the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation into a police shooting in which a man was killed in no
way impugns the police department's capability of policing itself. Nor
does the GBI's involvement in any way suggest wrongdoing by the two
officers involved. The idea is to clear the air with an independent
investigation.

However, there do seem to be some loose ends in this particular case -
namely a missing gun. Initial police reports said two men fired on the
officers during a late-night drug stakeout. In the exchange of
gunfire, one of the two men was hit twice and later died, the other
escaped. But no gun was found on or near the fatally wounded man. At
week's end the gun was still missing despite a thorough search - and
so was the man who escaped.

Police Chief John Vasquez, whom the mayor says fully supports the
decision to call in the GBI, said last week that other officers were
in proximity to the scene and that other witnesses and evidence
provided the basis for a sound decision on what happened. Vasquez also
said that apprehending the man who escaped was not essential to the
investigation.

One might assume that the man who escaped picked up the gun. However,
the suspects were said to have been fleeing in different directions.
Another possibility would be that only the man who escaped fired a
weapon. But the police account says unequivocally that "both men fired
several shots at the officers."

The two officers were part of a five-member police team staking out a
drug-crime area in east Macon. Ellis indicated that one factor in
calling in the GBI was the sensitivity of a neighborhood not known to
be police-friendly. That, he said, has led to innuendoes and rumors in
the community. We want "to get at the truth," the mayor said.

Neither innuendoes, rumors, nor speculation moves us closer to that. A
thorough investigation should - with steady oversight from the GBI.
Bringing it into this was the right call.