SCANDALS SPOTLIGHT DENVER POLICE FORCE

ISSUES: This week, the city paid $400,000 to family of a man wrongly
killed and was fined $10,000 in another case.

DENVER -Despite a sharp decline in crime, Denver's finest are under
the gun in the worst series of police scandals since the city was
known as the "crooked-cop capital of the United States" in the 1960s.

This week, the city paid $400,000 to the family of a man killed in a
raid at the wrong house, was fined $10,000 by a federal judge for
failing to cooperate with a police brutality investigation, and swore
in a new cop who admitted he once used cocaine and LSD.

Last month, Police Chief Tom Sanchez was ousted in the fallout from
the SWAT raid. Police also have been criticized - and cleared of
wrongdoing-in recent beatings, taped by TV crews, of three suspects.

City Councilman Ed Thomas, who spent 22 years as a Denver officer,
said Denver has become one of the most prosperous cities in the nation
under Mayor Wellington Webb, with crime dropping 25 percent from 1992
to 1998.

But, he said, the police controversy could become "Webb's snowstorm,"
referring to a major snowstorm that crippled the city for a weeks
costing Mayor Bill McNichols his job in the 1982 election.

Acting Police Chief Gerald Whitman said he does not believe the
problems are insurmountable.

"I think we are suffering from the same problems affecting other
departments. We're going to try to look at their problems and get
ahead of the curve. We want to prevent those things from happening,"
he said Friday.

The police force was last rocked by controversy of this magnitude when
54 cops were charged with operating a burglary ring from 1954 to 1962
and became known as "The Burglars in Blue."

Most were convicted and went to prison.

"Cops would stand watch outside businesses and homes while colleagues
stole dresses and appliances and cracked safes," historian Tom Noel
said. "With perhaps a million dollars in ill-gotten gains, it made
Denver the U.S. crooked-cop capital."

The recent spate of problems began in 1997 when officers were caught
by a TV news camera beating Gil Webb Jr., whose vehicle smashed into a
patrol car and killed an officer. Webb is serving prison time after
being convicted of vehicular homicide, assault and driving a stolen
car.

On Sept. 29, Ismael Mena, 45, was shot to death after officers broke
into his bedroom in a so-called no-knock raid on the wrong house.

Police said he threatened them with a gun.

Two police officers were cleared of wrongdoing. Officer Joseph Bini,
who requested the raid, is charged with perjury for allegedly lying
when he said he saw an informant going into Mena's house to get
cocaine. The correct target was a suspected drug house next door.

The shooting prompted a public outcry over no-knock
raids.

A panel assembled by the mayor is considering a temporary
ban.

"No matter what the misconduct is, the police are always exonerated,"
said community activist LeRoy Lemos, who has led protests about Mena's
killing. "People are outraged that there was so much cover-up and lack
of valid information from the police department from the beginning.

...They operate under a shroud of cover, put out misinformation and go
on character-assassination rampages."

City officials have agreed to pay $400,000 to Mena's family to settle
claims stemming from his death. Sanchez stepped down as police chief
after Bini was charged Feb. 4.

In a separate case, city attorneys have drawn the ire of a federal
judge who ordered them to release 3,000 internal-affairs files to
attorneys representing a man in a police-brutality lawsuit.

The judge ruled the city had violated his earlier orders to hand over
the documents, and he fined Denver $10,000. City attorneys have
appealed, contending they were complying with the order.

That case arose from Mathew Combs' allegations that police officer
Timothy McAleer beat him unconscious after a 1998 traffic accident.
Police have denied the allegations.

One of the city's newest officers, Ellis Johnson ii, 40, was hired
last year even though he admitted that he had used LSD and cocaine.
Sanchez opposed the hiring; Manager of Safety Butch Montoya overruled
him.

Johnson declined to comment after graduating Friday from police
academy.

Thomas, the former cop on the City Council, pointed to the huge police
corruption scandal that has erupted in Los Angeles since a former
officer was caught stealing cocaine from an evidence room and then
revealed disturbing abuses in an anti-gang unit.

"If the lax hiring practices that have been approved by Butch Montoya
creates the kind of atmosphere that we had in 1960 and that we have
now in Los Angeles, he should apologize to the citizens of Denver in
his resignation letter," Thomas said.