RETURNING INTEGRITY TO PROBES

Feb. 7 - The government has no greater power than its police power - the
ultimate authority to deprive a citizen of freedom - or of life itself.

It should not be exercised casually, and it should not be taken for granted.

It is the exercise of that single power of government - how it is used and
how it is restrained - that most dramatically defines one society from
another.

In America, its citizens are not only supposed to be protected by the
police, they also are supposed to be protected from the police.

Those lines were dangerously blurred in Denver on one afternoon last
September, and they remain disturbingly out of focus today.

They shouldn't be so fuzzy, and someone needs to bring them into sharp focus.

A report by District Attorney Dave Thomas has concluded that Denver police
were justified in killing a man in his home last September, even though
they raided his residence by accident. His report, however, was
unconvincing to many people.

Thomas, the prosecutor of suburban Jefferson County, was assigned the case
because Denver's own prosecutor, Bill Ritter, declared that his office had
a conflict of interest. In such circumstances, cases are routinely traded
among metro-area prosecutors. It is routine for the Denver DA to handle
special investigations for suburban prosecutors and vice versa.

They all belong to an exclusive, five-member club that has one rule - you
handle my sensitive cases, and I'll handle yours.

While acknowledging small conflicts of interest to avoid sensitive cases,
they have created a much larger - and potentially more serious - conflict
that they seem comfortable with.

The system needs to be changed.

Attorney General Ken Salazar needs to enlist the support of Gov. Bill Owens
to propose an alternative to the DAs' daisy chain. He should empanel a
small committee of former district attorneys, judges and citizens outside
of law enforcement to study the problem and propose a solution.

It needn't be a committee of 100 - a well-balanced membership of a dozen or
so should be adequate, and their deliberations should be conducted in full
public view.

Too many unanswered questions remain after Thomas' report on the Sept. 29
shooting death of immigrant worker Ismael Mena by a black-hooded squad of
Denver SWAT officers. Even Thomas' own integrity could be questioned given
the inadequate nature of his report.

Such questions shouldn't be left unanswered. Even Thomas, always known as a
respected and fair prosecutor, deserves better.

The dilemma isn't new.

The integrity of investigations into police killings has always been in
doubt in Denver and its surrounding counties. The police don't deserve such
doubt, but citizens deserve a system with greater accountability.

Salazar and Owens ought to put an end to such mutual distrust by
recommending a better system.