SILENCE SCREAMS SUSPICION

Did David Green have to die?

Police say yes. His family says no.

You would expect that sort of fracture. But we'd also expect more
details about the matter.

Yet a week after the Illinois State Police gunned down Green, the
public remains antsy with questions that cops refuse to answer.

I keep getting calls and questions, gossip and rumors. The bottom
line is this: People don't understand why police had to blow away a
guy growing a little weed at his rural residence.

Maybe there's more to the story. If so, it's about time the state
police pipe up.

So far, details are scant.

At 6 a.m. last Friday, the West Central Illinois Task Force went to
the home of Green, 47, who lived alone in a rented home amid
flatlands and woods outside Glasford.

According to the search warrant, the task force was looking for
materials "associated with cannabis and controlled substance
violations." State police officers served the warrant, while Fulton
County sheriff's deputies secured the area outside.

When officers entered the house, Green was upstairs. Green, armed
with a long gun and handgun, pointed the pistol at
officers. Officers ordered him to drop his weapons, but he
refused. So an officer shot him repeatedly in the chest and abdomen,
killing him.

I've had private discussions with police and others close to the
case. Here are a few more details:

Green was asleep in his bedroom when police rapped on his door. When
they got no answer, they forced their way in.

Police rushed upstairs, where Green waved his pair of firearms. The
standoff lasted a minute or two, with Green ignoring officers'
repeated demands that he drop both weapons. Moreover, Green cussed
angry threats of harm at the officers.

The family questions the likelihood of such a scenario. They paint
Green as a laid-back man who rarely showed anger.

His criminal record appears brief. At age 22, he was arrested in
Peoria County for burglary. He served just less than four years.

In 1999 in Peoria County, he was arrested for possessing marijuana
and drug paraphernalia. His ex-wife said he was caught at a bar with
a hitter pipe that had pot residue inside. The case was pleaded out
as a misdemeanor.

As a felon, he wasn't supposed to have guns. But his family says he
kept firearms at his Glasford residence for the same reason many
country folks do: With police rarely around, they want to be ready
for intruders.

Green's house had no air conditioning, so he had three loud fans in
his bedroom. Maybe, his family says, he didn't hear police when they
knocked on his door.

When they burst in, Green could have become alarmed and grabbed for
his guns to defend himself against intruders. The family wonders if
he was shot before be realized his adversaries were police.

"He believed in God very much," says his stepdaughter, Sarah Stone,
30, whom Green raised. "He always said, 'Do right by The Man, and
He'll take care of you.' "

Not that he always did right. But his good far outweighed his bad,
according to his survivors, who also include daughters Shelby, 14,
Chelsey, 13, and ex-wife Linda Mordue, with whom he remained friendly
in the six years since their divorce.

Green, a Peoria native, married Mordue in 1987. He delighted in
playing with the three children, especially growing beets in their
garden and towing the kids around the yard in a wagon hitched to a
rider mower.

Green had been working construction when the couple decided to start
their own building company. In 1998, however, Green was rear-ended
in a car wreck, and injuries kept him from working for a year.

Meanwhile, their company went under and the couple declared
bankruptcy. Green, on heavy and constant painkillers, grew distant
from his wife.

"It messes with your emotions and feelings," she says.

They divorced, but he stayed close to his teenage daughters, calling
almost daily and visiting them in their West Peoria home at least once a week.

They say he often came through with emergency money, such as when the
girls needed braces and dental work. He didn't have much cash, so
he'd sell tools and get title loans.

His cash-scraping makes the family ask this question: If he had been
selling drugs - enough to prompt a police search of his house - where
was all of the money? Why would he need to take title loans?

"He wasn't a drug lord," his stepdaughter says. "We are proud to
have him as our father. We have no reason to hold our heads down in shame."

After Green's death, police brought drug charges against the owner of
the property, Daniel Matheny, 32, who lived in a house right by
Green's rental home. Matheny was charged with growing more than five
but less than 20 marijuana plants, a Class 4 felony punishable by up
to three years in prison - the state's lowest possible felony.

Police have not discussed the specifics of the charge against
Matheny. He has bonded out of jail, but I could not reach him for comment.

However, Green's ex-wife speculated that Matheny might have nothing
to do with the pot plants. Rather, they likely were Green's, she
says. They had been growing in woods directly in back of Green's
house. Further, she says police found a handful of starter plants
inside Green's house.

She says Green sometimes used the drugs recreationally. But, she
says, maybe he also used them to ebb his continued car-wreck pain.

His daughter Chelsey says, "I did a report in school on drugs. And
doctors say it can be used medically, for pain."

Maybe police have another version of Green's drug use. After all,
someone had to tell police about the pot plants.

What were the circumstances of the tip? Had Green been selling drugs?
Or did a visitor to his house get mad at him for some reason and
decide to rat out a small-potatoes pot user?

A lot of people are interested in the answer to that question. If he
was a dealer - of pot or possibly other drugs - we can understand why
police came knocking. If he was just smoking a little weed, a
door-busting search warrant seems excessive.

I'm not saying police did anything wrong. But their hush-hush
attitude only raises the public's eyebrows.

The Fulton County Sheriff's Department only provided back-up. And
Fulton County State's Attorney John Clark says he knows little about
the particulars of the search; he's waiting for a full report from
state police.

So are the rest of us.

According to protocol, the state police internal affairs division is
examining the matter. The investigation could take
weeks. Yesterday, I couldn't even get a call-back.

Regardless of the outcome of the internal-affairs probe, secrecy is
outrageously unnecessary in this case.

I understand why cops keep their lips tight during investigations
when a criminal is on the loose: Cops don't want to release details
that only the criminal knows.

But his case is over. Cops aren't looking for anyone. Green is
dead. There's no need for secrets.

Police could simply tell the public what happened, and their actions
speak for themselves. If they handled things properly, they have
nothing to hide.

But the delay only makes the public think the state police are trying
to get all their ducks in a row to hide any mistakes.

Even if they truly handled the case right, silence screams suspicion.