DON'T MAKE A FEDERAL CASE OUT OF IT

If you impersonated a Wilmington police officer, you'd be committing a
crime. But apparently it was no big deal when Wilmington police officers
impersonated agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration last fall.

The officers wore DEA caps and pretended to be federal officers when they
helped Pender County Sheriff's deputies make a drug arrest.

When the chief of the U.S. attorney's criminal division found out about it,
he called then-Interim Chief Tandy Carter and followed up with a letter. It
said such misrepresentation "may have serious implications for the
admission of evidence and the legality of any statement which might be
taken from a target" and that the involved law-enforcement agencies were
"taking steps to address it appropriately."

Whatever those steps were in Wilmington, they were not serious enough to
make it to the officers' records, according to the city's personnel
director. He says he never heard of the incident. Bruce Hickman, who
replaced Mr. Carter as interim chief, says he never heard of it either.

Mr. Carter apparently wanted as few as possible to hear about it. According
to Raeford Brown of WECT-TV, Mr. Carter called the station's general
manager to say a pending story about the DEA caps would interfere with a
drug investigation, and the station killed it.

However, Mr. Carter did tell his boss, City Manager Sterling Cheatham.
According to Mr. Cheatham, no more than three officers were involved. He
said he left it to Mr. Carter to take appropriate action, but couldn't
recall what it was.

Not much, evidently.

To be fair, Mr. Carter and Mr. Cheatham probably figured there was no point
in trying to discipline officers whose misrepresentation could foul up a
drug case. They probably would have appealed to the Civil Service
Commission - and been forgiven.