WE NEED THE WHOLE TRUTH

At this point, we have a lot less to be thankful for than we might have.

We still have no real answers in the death of Kenneth B. Walker, the
unarmed man fatally shot almost a year ago by a Muscogee County sheriff's
deputy after authorities said he failed to comply with commands to show his
hands.

Today, we don't know any more than we did Dec. 10, 2003, the night of the
shooting. And nothing seems to have changed. It appears the victim is being
blamed.

Tuesday, a grand jury returned "no bills" against David Glisson, the former
sheriff's department veteran who shot Walker twice in the head during a
stop that was part of a drug investigation, the Ledger-Enquirer reported.

Law enforcement officers were acting on an informant's tip: The GMC Yukon
was supposedly carrying armed men from Miami. At the end of the night,
Walker was dead, but no drugs or weapons were found in the SUV.

If, indeed, we are dealing with the whole truth and nothing but... then why
does the videotape continue to be treated as classified information? All
this time, we have not been able to see the video. Why? And why do we
continue to feel that something is just not right?

Special prosecutor Kenneth Hodges of Albany, Ga., said members of the
public "haven't seen what we've seen."

It's not because we haven't wanted to.

Right now, people are wondering what members of the grand jury really
thought and saw. What were they told? It is probably unfair to judge them
based on television footage -- but so much about Walker's death seems
unfair. When I saw the grand jurors shielding their faces and trying to
morph into anonymity, more questions were created than answered. They
appeared to be hiding from the justice they had supposedly just been a part of.

It reminded me of the situations during which my grandmother talked about
"throwing a rock and hiding one's hand."

That's exactly what this feels like right now.

Initially, we were told that this would be a difficult case to investigate
because there were more than 20 witnesses. Yet, it took only a little more
than two hours to present the evidence, and only 41 minutes for the jurors
to make a decision.

We waited almost a year for this?

Seven witnesses were called -- five law enforcement officers who were on
the scene the night Walker was killed, one Georgia Bureau of Investigation
agent and a Police Academy weapons expert. Not a civilian in sight.

We've looked at enough documentaries and read enough books to know that the
whole truth can get lost in this kind of process.

Where were Warren Beaulah, Daryl Ransom and Anthony Smith -- the other
occupants of the Yukon? In the interest of justice, isn't what they have to
say of equal value to what law enforcement said?

At least the grand jury should have been allowed to hear the other side of
the story. Or would that have taken up too much time?