REGARDING TULIA, AMARILLOANS NEED ANSWERS

Through all the painful details of Amarillo paying $5 million to settle a
lawsuit over the Tulia drug sting of 1999, one vital point appears to have
eluded many city officials.

Somebody has to be responsible.

This cannot be swept under the nearest rug, simply by writing a $5 million
check and hearing attorney Jeff Blackburn say how admirable Amarillo's
actions were.

It's not just a bad dream that will go away, simply because Amarillo agreed
to effectively shut down the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task
Force.

Somebody has to be responsible.

We're going to continue saying that, in part because so many Amarillo
residents feel the same way.

We're not satisfied, being told how much worse this outcome could have
been. We're not relieved that our city government has to shell out $5
million of our money instead of $53 million, $200 million or whatever.

We're not content with the explanations so far, especially the one
insisting Amarillo's responsibility and legal exposure were mainly the
result of being the task force's lead agency.

That's not good enough.

Somebody has to be responsible.

This is not to suggest corruption is running rampant in Amarillo city
government. It's not. In fact, after the settlement went public, the
prevailing mood inside City Hall was gloomy, somber, even depressed and
embarrassed, starting with City Manager John Ward.

Still, it's amazing that not one elected city official attended the news
conference Thursday announcing the settlement. Just lawyers.

It's amazing that nobody involved, either in city government or with any
aspect of the task force, has openly acknowledged the threat of a public
revolt here. Nobody seems to realize that people will blame somebody - and
if they don't get answers, they'll want scapegoats.

It's even more amazing that no elected official has called for a full,
complete accounting of what went wrong inside the task force, since the
operation was being run by two Amarillo Police Department officers. We're
not talking about just an internal investigation, because that already has
been done, but the sincere promise of a speedy, thorough, unbiased public
report to the people of Amarillo.

It's mind-boggling that nobody has demanded anything like that.

Somebody has to be responsible.

And every Amarilloan deserves to know the details.

We know the task force has had many positives, many successes. But we also
know it had little if any outside supervision. We know that Lt. Mike Amos,
head of the task force, could have prevented the hiring of agent Tom
Coleman. We know that Sgt. Jerry Massengill was supervising Coleman and the
discredited Tulia investigation.

Yet, we hear Amos and Massengill are retiring "voluntarily," and nobody is
holding them publicly accountable in any way.

Why not? And if not them, then who?

Somebody has to be responsible.

Somebody has to explain why nobody was watching the task force more
closely. Somebody has to explain why, if Coleman and the Tulia
investigation weren't up to Amarillo and APD standards, nobody raised a red
flag and nothing was done - long ago.

Somebody has to explain why, after Coleman himself was charged with a
felony in 1998, early in his Tulia investigation, nobody saw the prospect
of a damaging credibility problem for Coleman. And nobody made any effort
then to remove him from the task force.

Somebody has to explain why, even after Coleman's cases began falling apart
at least two years ago (surely, the task force and APD knew before that),
nobody viewed it as a shortcoming of task force leadership.

Somebody has to explain why nobody considered doing anything about the task
force - or Amarillo's participation in it - until now. Also, please tell us
how nobody saw or feared the possibility of the city being legally culpable
for the task force's actions.

Somebody has to explain what has been or will be done to make sure nothing
resembling this happens again - ever.

Somebody has to investigate the situation and make sure this Tulia debacle
is the task force's only legal albatross. Somebody has to find out for sure
whether any other potential lawsuits might be lurking out there.

If anyone in Amarillo city government honestly thinks the worst is over,
and that the best strategy is to use the $5 million settlement and
abandoning the task force as cover to ride out the storm, that's a serious
mistake.

Somebody has to be responsible.

People won't forget this one. And neither will we.