JURY NOT AFRAID TO CALL CHARGES AS THEY SEE FIT

Finally, charges that fit the crimes. Members of a Hampton grand jury
provided those charges Monday when they directly indicted Drug Enforcement
Administration agent Joseph Armento for malicious wounding and using a
firearm in a felony. The grand jury also took a lower court recommendation
and charged Armento with a third felony, shooting into an occupied vehicle.

Now comes the hard part - making the charges stick.

The grand jury's actions make sense based on what the federal drug agent
allegedly did. Armento reportedly went out drinking with five other agents
Jan. 13. He got thrown out of Rooney's Grille & Bar along with two other DEA
agents for being disorderly. In the parking lot outside the bar he picked a
fight with three strangers who
apparently did nothing to provoke him. When one of them pulled a gun,
Armento whipped out his government-issued 9mm semiautomatic pistol and
unloaded its 13 rounds in a hail of gunfire that wounded two of the strangers.

Now, he faces up to 20 years in prison on the malicious wounding charge and
a non-negotiable three years in prison if convicted of the weapons charge.
Those are consequences that should inspire him to seek a deal that may keep
him out of prison, but which still forces him to confront his outrageous
behavior.

Hampton police seemed reluctant to give Armento any incentive to do that.

The cops charged Armento with shooting into an occupied vehicle and unlawful
wounding, a less serious charge than malicious wounding and one that did not
allow a concurrent charge of use of a firearm in a felony. At a March
preliminary hearing, General District Judge Bonnie Jones let the shooting
into an occupied vehicle charge stand. But she threw out the unlawful
wounding charge, forcing Hampton prosecutor Linda Curtis to go directly to
the grand jury for the malicious wounding and firearm indictments.

Jones reacted to an obviously tentative investigation by Hampton police. The
cops couldn't definitively prove that Armento's gun was the only one that
had been fired on the night of the crime. Testimony revealed that at least
one DEA agent urged Armento not to turn over his gun to the local cops. The
cops didn't charge that guy with obstruction of justice. Even though
officers at the scene smelled alcohol and noticed slurred speech among the
agents, they didn't test any DEA types, including Armento, to scientifically
determine blood or breath alcohol levels. In fact, police at the scene
questioned no federal agents in any detail except Armento. They didn't take
possession of all the agents' weapons at the scene for forensic tests. They
let the other agents drive away in government-owned vehicles, knowing the
agents had been drinking, but apparently too indifferent
or intimidated to discover if the G-men were driving drunk.

By the time Armento stands trial, his two wounding victims will have
suffered through their own days in court as criminal defendants simply for
being the objects of Armento's wrath. Twenty-year-old Joey Turk, who pulled
a gun in reaction to Armento's verbal taunting, already has been convicted
of brandishing a firearm. He got a $250 fine and a suspended 12-month jail
sentence.

Next week, Armento's other victim, 21-year-old Jason Temple, goes to court
for a preliminary hearing on drug-dealing charges. The charges stem from
marijuana and cocaine police claim to have found in Temple's
truck after Armento shot Temple in the chest.

The drug charges are one more strange twist that looks like a lame attempt
to mitigate the case against Armento. Temple did not drive his truck to the
scene of the shooting. His roommate drove it. Temple arrived at Rooney's
later. He only got in his truck a few moments before Armento shot him.

Police won't say what quantity of drugs they collected from Temple's truck.
But that aside, Temple clearly was unarmed and not the focus of any DEA
investigation undertaken because Hampton Police Chief Pat Minetti invited
Armento and his pals to town. Before he shot Temple, Armento never told
Temple he worked in law enforcement. He just yelled and cursed at the
younger man. When he was wounded, Temple wasn't fleeing from a federal
agent; he was trying to avoid a liquored-up loose cannon who set upon him in
a parking lot.

With the new indictments the loose cannon looks at last down a barrel that
may compel him to bargain a plea to lesser charges that still make him
accountable for his betrayal of hardworking, law-abiding cops.

At the same time, Chris Hutton, the judge scheduled to preside over
Armento's trial in Circuit Court, faces the very challenge that vexed Bonnie
Jones:

He must try to squeeze justice out of a case where investigators tiptoed
around critical evidence.