RAID PROBE FINDINGS TO BE RELEASED FRIDAY

Feb. 2 - Findings of a special prosecutor's investigation into the
no-knock-raid and shooting death of Ismael Mena are expected to be
released Friday.

The probe, headed by Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas,
has focused on the details of the Sept. 29 shooting that left Mena
dead and SWAT team officers accused of raiding the wrong house.

The house next to Mena's northeast Denver home was a known crack
house, which police raided a month later in another no-knock raid.
Mena had been arrested there in September after police found a gun on
him.

Thomas also is expected to discuss whether the search warrant leading
to the deadly raid on High Street was accurate and legally obtained.
But whether Thomas will get into the most recent allegations
surrounding the controversial shooting is unclear.

The latest controversy centers on whether high-ranking Denver police
tried to persuade another officer to doctor up paperwork in order to
falsely show that there had been a history of problems at the Mena
house.

Thomas was tapped to look into the case in December, after Denver
District Attorney Bill Ritter, normally the one to review city police
shootings, revealed that his chief investigator Bill Haney is the
brother of Officer Mark Haney, one of the SWAT team members who fired
at Mena.

Ritter points out in court documents that evidence suggests SWAT
Officer Ken Overman as the one who fired the bullets that killed the
45-year-old Mexican immigrant. But because Ritter couldn't say for
sure if Haney's gun caused any of Mena's wounds, he called for a
special prosecutor.

Jeffco DA spokeswoman Pam Russell said details of the investigation
would have come out sooner had it not been for a trial that is keeping
a projector tied up through the week. Thomas is expected to show
photographs and diagrams that will outline how the shooting occurred
and what analysis his office employed in making its findings.

"I'm sure he intends to walk (everyone) through the whole event and
give a clear idea of what happened," Russell said.

Police raided the Mena house six days after Officer Joseph Bini
obtained the no-knock warrant based on information he was given by a
confidential informant, records show.

Bini, a four-year veteran of the force and a member of the
Neighborhood Police Officer Unit, said in his affidavit for the
warrant that he dropped off his informant on Humboldt Street near St.
Charles Park - four blocks from where Mena lived - to make an
undercover buy of crack cocaine.

Although the warrant says Bini watched his informant make his way
toward the Mena's house, it doesn't indicate whether Bini actually saw
the drug purchase, the house where it occurred or anyone matching
Mena's description.

The affidavit merely gives a narrative of the drug buy between the
informant and two men, although it describes the home's exterior in
great detail.

Police have said that Mena fired at them after they came upon him
crouched in a bedroom, and they retured the fire nine times after
Mena, the father of nine, allegedly refused to drop his gun.

An independent investigator hired by the Mena family maintains that
police fired their guns through a bedroom door that Mena was hiding
behind, an allegation the department has vehemently denied.