PROTESTERS DECRY RESULTS OF MENA INVESTIGATION

Placard-carrying, slogan-chanting protesters rallied outside Denver's city
hall on Saturday, continuing to question a "no-knock" drug raid that ended
in a man's death.

The peaceful gathering, watched from a distance by horse and motorcycle
officers, came a day after a special prosecutor exonerated the SWAT team
members who shot and killed Ismael Mena but filed perjury charges against
the patrolman who obtained the warrant for the raid.

"We have so empowered police departments that they can regularly kill people
with impugnity, can regularly sentence people to death without benefit of a
trial," George "Tink" Tinker, an official in the American Indian Movement,
told the crowd.

The felony perjury charges filed against Denver officer Joseph Bini, who
wrote the warrant, weren't enough for the roughly 210 on the front steps of
the City and County Building.

They carried signs that read, "No Knock, No Justice" and "Arrest the Swine"
and "Justice for Mena."

Bini, who has five years on the job, was accused of lying in the sworn
affidavit he filed to obtain the search warrant. As a result, Thomas said,
the SWAT team was sent to the wrong house.

But the special prosecutor, Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas,
ruled that SWAT team members were justified when they shot and killed Mena,
45, because he threatened them with a .22-caliber handgun, eventually firing
three bullets.

Members of the Justice for Mena Committee, which organized Saturday's rally,
contend, among other things, that the revolver was planted.

LeRoy Lemos, a member of the committee, demanded that it be represented on a
panel organized by Denver Mayor Wellington Webb to look at the city's
policies on no-knock warrants.

"For the process to be viewed by the public as legitimate and unbiased, the
... panel must include private citizens," Lemos said.

Mena, a Mexican national, was working a night job at a nearby Coca-Cola
bottling plant and living in an upstairs bedroom at 3738 High St. On Sept.
29, the SWAT team, working with the warrant written by Bini, burst into the
home.

Mena, who might have been asleep when the raid started at 1:47 p.m., died in
the confrontation with SWAT officers.

No drugs were found in the home or on his body. The next day, those officers
learned that the warrant was probably wrong and that they should have raided
the house next door, 3742 High St.

But it wasn't until Dec. 2 -- after media reports about the incident -- that
a special prosecutor was named in the case. The move was made after it was
disclosed that an investigator in the Denver district attorney's office was
the brother of one of the SWAT officers.

Lemos blasted Thomas' ruling on the shooting itself.

"The results were exactly what we expected -- a rubber stamp of the DPD
investigation," Lemos said.

The group listened for more than an hour as speakers urged them to take
action to prevent another situation like the one that ended in Mena's death.

"You have to watch the government every minute of every day," said Marge
Taniwaki of Making Waves -- Asians in Action.

Steve Nash, representing a group called End the Politics of Cruelty, accused
the Denver Police Department of a series of cover-ups in officer-involved
shootings and other misdeeds.

The protesters called for the resignations of Webb, Manager of Safety Fidel
"Butch" Montoya, Police Chief Tom Sanchez and Capt. Marco Vasquez, commander
of the District 2 station where Bini is assigned.