CALL THE FBI

It's no surprise that the FBI has agreed to investigate the Denver police
handling of a Sept. 29 no-knock raid in which a Mexican immigrant was shot
to death.

U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland formally requested the investigation Wednesday
after conferences with Department of Justice officials. The same day,
Mexico's consul general, Carlos Barros, had denounced the drug raid in which
45-year-old Ismael Mena, a father of nine, was killed. Police found no
evidence of drugs.

Denver Police Chief Tom Sanchez has said there is evidence Mena fired a gun
more than once. Mena was hit eight times, but what police have not said is
when Mena fired his gun. It matters whether Mena fired before police did or
whether in physical reaction to being shot himself.

Sanchez, informed of the FBI probe, said quite rightly, "We're open to
scrutiny," adding, "If somebody dropped the ball on this one, we need to
find out." Sanchez was referring to criticism that the police relied upon
inaccurate information furnished by a drug informant who told police he had
purchased crack cocaine at the house where Mena lived.

In our view, the FBI probe could and should have been avoided if the Denver
Police Department and district attorney's office had simply acted with
greater urgency.

There is no good reason why investigations of potential criminal police
conduct should take so long. It's approaching 12 weeks since Mena was
killed, yet a special prosecutor was only recently appointed to handle the
local investigation. It is not as if this

case is especially complex. There are limited numbers of witnesses and
limited physical evidence, yet the mystery of exactly what happened has been
allowed to deepen and widen, a trend helped along by the silence from
Denver's official public agencies.

No reasonable person would want to establish strict timelines for resolving
disputes like this, but isn't it obvious that 10 or 12 weeks is simply too
long and bespeaks a casualness in the Denver Police Department and district
attorney's office that is simply intolerable?

The FBI probe is welcome, if for no other reason than because it can be
presumed to be objective and complete. That is more than can be said for
what has happened thus far.

While it's too early to say if criminal acts were committed, it's not too
early to say that serious mistakes were made.

The public is entitled to know more than whether "somebody dropped the
ball." That the ball was dropped seems obvious to nearly everyone. What
needs to be determined is who dropped the ball and how. The Denver Police
Department can't have it both ways, denying problems while offering partial
solutions.

By putting into effect changed policies for the approval of no-knock
warrants, the department has tacitly admitted that supervision in this case
was deficit.

What remains to be determined is not only whether criminal charges may be
warranted, but whether further administrative changes are required.