SHOOTING INQUIRY OPENS

Renna Patton watched as Chicago police officer Serena Daniels stood behind a
gray 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass last summer. Then a shot rang out.

Patton heard Daniels shout, ``Oh, s - - -!'' and watched LaTanya Haggerty,
26, fall onto the pavement as police opened the passenger door.

Patton's account of the June 4 South Side shooting came on the first day of
testimony in the police board hearing at which Daniels and three fellow
officers--Michael Williams, Carl Carter and Stafford Wilson--are fighting
for their jobs.

Also Tuesday, the driver of the car, Raymond Smith, admitted he was carrying
a small amount of marijuana on his lap when police approached the car, and
could have been charged with a felony if caught because he was out on bond
on another drug charge.

All four officers are accused of major departmental violations, including
failing to report firing shots during a 64-block chase of the Cutlass and
ignoring an order to call off the pursuit. Daniels eventually shot Haggerty
once at 64th and King, killing her, witnesses said.

``The only person who did nothing wrong is the person who ended up dead,''
Assistant City Attorney Lara Shayne said in her opening statement to Hearing
Officer Tom Johnson.

Haggerty, a computer analyst for Encyclopedia Britannica, was a passenger
getting a ride home from a friend, Raymond Smith, 24, whom she knew since
they attended college.

Lawyers for the officers attacked Smith's claim that he fled because he was
afraid of them. Lawyer Joseph Roddy yelled repeatedly at Smith: ``Why didn't
you get out of the car?''

Smith admitted he had marijuana when police pulled him over but said he fled
because he was scared. ``I was confused and frightened at that point,'' he
said. The incident started at 88th and Cottage Grove, where Williams ordered
Smith to move his car because he was double-parked, talking to a friend.

A block later, Williams pulled over Smith and asked for his driver's license
and insurance card. Smith testified that he refused to roll down the window
because Williams was screaming at him and had struck the car window with his
fist.

Smith fled. The officers eventually boxed in Smith's car at 95th and King,
where Daniels, Wilson and Carter began allegedly firing at the Cutlass.

Tamara L. Cummings, another lawyer for the officers, tried to attack the
city's argument that the officers didn't tell a supervisor about the shots.

She pointed to a dispatch tape containing a muffled transmission from
Daniels that sounded as if she was saying ``shots fired.''

Police dispatcher Luther Conerly testified that he didn't hear the words
``shots fired'' on June 4, but after listening to a tape Tuesday, he
acknowledged that Daniels could have said it.

Even so, the officers didn't contact a dispatcher again for another seven
minutes, leaving their supervisor in the dark, lawyers for the city said.

The officers' sergeant assumed they were no longer chasing the car because
he had ordered them to end the pursuit if it simply involved a traffic stop,
Conerly testified.

The hearing is expected to last at least four days.