MAYOR GETS CLUE, FINALLY

Mayor Wellington Webb finally has decided that the citizens
of Denver, if not Hizzoner himself, have had enough.

Better late than never, I suppose.

The mayor last week announced a list of "reforms" he wants imposed on
the Denver Police Department, including a couple of changes that could
- - and should - restore a long-missing sense of trust between the
department and the citizens that cops are supposed "to serve and to
protect." In recent months and years, it has seemed that too many
Denver police have been mostly concerned with "serving and protecting"
themselves.

Month after month, year after year, symptoms of disease have been
detected in the city's police department, but the diagnosis has been
pathetically limp - take an aspirin, get some sleep and it will get
better.

Well, it kept getting worse.

As the mayor and his appointed minions kept prescribing drowsiness,
the cancer spread and the symptoms became too severe to ignore:

- - High-speed chases that made no sense and too often resulted in
tragedy.

- - Police brutality that went unacknowledged.

- - Files on probes into police misconduct that were kept
secret.

- - No-knock raids that suspended citizen rights became more common,
with no apparent increase in citizen safety.

The list - started many, many years ago - just kept getting longer,
and the death toll kept rising,

Finally, Ismael Mena died, shot eight times by bullets fired from
police guns under the authority of a faulty search warrant and
defended for two months by police administrators and their political
supervisors in the mayor's office, trying to protect their political
hides.

And the citizens finally made it clear that they had had
enough.

That was before the mayor and his sidekick down in the town marshal's
office, Butch Montoya, would even admit that there might be trouble in
Dodge.

Now, almost two months later, our elected leader has said it has gone
too far. And he has ordered a complete review of police policies,
trying desperately to catch up with the runaway flock he is supposed
to be leading.

Aren't politics wonderful?

The mayor's sudden enlightenment is encouraging, after so many months
of deft, defensive footwork. (How does he do that in those size-32
Nikes?)

After months of denial, he is leading the call for reform - despite
his stonewall defense of the police and his persistent assault on the
media. Out of nowhere, it seems, something is wrong down at the
headquarters at DPD Blue - and it has to be fixed NOW.

He's right, no matter how late.

His agenda seems to be in proper order, especially its emphasis on
prying open police-discipline files and evaluating no-knock warrant
standards.

But two glaring questions remain: Why, after all this turmoil, did his
cabinet appointee in charge of such policies, Safety Manager Butch
Montoya, continue to tolerate the mischief? And why is he still employed?