THE DARE CASE TALKS

The City Council's duty in this civil matter isn't to cut the best deal.
It's to find the truth and to do what's right.

Justice may not be grinding exceedingly fine, but it is sure grinding
exceedingly slow in the case of a former Huntsville DARE officer accused of
molesting the very children he was assigned to help.

Twice last month, city officials huddled with the city attorney and two
hired lawyers to discuss "pending litigation." Times reporter Keith Clines
has discovered those talks involved a civil suit filed in 1996 against the
city. That suit accuses former officer Greg Terry of molesting at least
eight children and the city of failing to check his background properly or
to act appropriately when accusations surfaced against Terry.

After a second set of allegations against Terry, he resigned from the
department. Several months later, he committed suicide in Kentucky.

An accuser who came forward and told The Times about the allegations, Jack
Louis Adams, is now in prison, serving sentences for violating parole on
break-in and burglary charges. His mother, Karen Adams, will always believe
her son's relationship with Terry profoundly influenced his criminal
behavior. Many who have heard her story agree.

Because of Terry's death, we may never be able to answer all the questions
surrounding the case. That may eventually be a matter for the courts to
decide. But the information that has come forward so far certainly paints
Terry and the police department in a bad light.

Obviously, four years is much too long to have dragged this case out
without resolution. Maybe that's about to come, since the case is set to go
to jury trial in federal court in Decatur in February. Presumably, the
recent closed-door sessions between the City Council and its legal minions
involve briefings on where the case stands.

We trust that those meetings did not involve discussions about how to
settle the case out of court. Alabama law does not allow that. When matters
reach that stage, the City Council legally must discuss them in public.

The Central Issue

We hope, though, that somebody somewhere in city government has been
focusing on these central issues: Did the city fall short in its background
checks and subsequent monitoring of Terry? If it did, what safeguards have
been put in place to keep something similar from happening again? And,
finally, what is the city's moral and legal obligation to the families who
put their trust in a pedophile police officer - if that is indeed what
happened?

In a case like this, when a public institution like the police department
is involved, the City Council's function isn't to try to cut the best deal
possible. It's to try to find the truth and to try to get justice for any
injured parties.

That's what the City Council really needs to be talking about.