THE NEXT STEP ON DARE

Approving a settlement in a molestation case is only part of the City
Council's responsibility. It must also make sure it doesn't happen again.

A modicum of justice finally may have surfaced in the case in which a
former DARE officer was accused of molesting seven youngsters he was
supposed to be counseling about not using drugs.

A tentative settlement has been reached, and, if the Huntsville City
Council approves it when it meets Thursday, the families and their lawyers
will share a $3.5 million pot.

An attorney for the families says the city is getting off cheaply, and
while that statement may be both hyperbolic and self-serving, it could also
contain a smidgen of truth.

Complaints first surfaced against Greg Terry, the anti-drug officer, in
1993. Yet an investigation and a grand jury reportedly cleared him. Terry
served in the program until he resigned in 1995 after he was
accused again of molesting kids. He left town and later killed himself in
Kentucky.

The city would have been rolling the dice in taking such a case to federal
court. If those allegations could have been proved, the penalty of its
negligence could have been substantially higher. And if the allegations
weren't true, why would the city settle?

But there's more to this than money, and more that the City Council needs
to do than sign off on the agreement.

Since the suit was filed, the Huntsville Police Department has declined to
discuss the specifics of the DARE program, including what screening
procedures were in place when Terry was hired, what changes, if any, have
been made to ensure this couldn't happen again and why complaints about
Terry weren't handled expeditiously, if at all.

Add the fact that Police Chief Compton Owens has publicly expressed
concerns about how effective the DARE program is in keeping kids away from
drugs, and you can see that the DARE program needs a public airing. The
citizens of Huntsville, who are paying $3.5 million, will demand it.

No Easy Answer

Lives, if not ruined, have been badly harmed and will require time and
counseling to heal. Public confidence in the program has been undermined.
This is one sordid mess.

It would be nice if the city could write a check and make all of this go
away. That's not going to happen. What also can't happen is for this kind
of thing to happen again.

The City Council needs to make sure lessons have been learned from previous
mistakes. That's even more important than putting this matter to rest.