April 20, 2004

They came by the hundreds, marching up the steps of the City and County Building, in front of God and country and, of course, TV cameras.

This was the thick blue line.

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And while this display of strength - they chanted "serve with pride, serve with honor" - said much about anger over James Turney's suspension, it spoke to something else, too: These guys are family. Often, they are literally family. Often, there are sons and uncles and fathers and nephews and - now - wives and daughters, too. Turney's wife is a cop.

Capt. John Costigan, whose son, James, is on the force, was holding his grandson, Caleb.

"A future cop," Grandpa said, smiling.

He explained, then, why they all had to be there.

"There isn't a person standing here today who doesn't regret what happened that day," he says of the Paul Childs shooting. "If we could do it differently again, we would."

He then adds with emphasis: "But you can't second-guess someone in those kinds of situations."

And that, of course, is the bottom line.

Cops will tell you they don't second-guess each other, not when they understand the risks. And, more than that, they don't think the rest of us have the right to second-guess, either.

Not me. Not you.

Certainly not the mayor.

Not even Manager of Safety and ex-cop Al LaCabe.

Actually, one cop in the crowd conceded that he could make a mistake. He was holding a sign saying that his mistake was trusting the mayor.

Still, you can see the flaw in the argument even before the argument really begins - if you can't ever second-guess a cop, how do you hold him accountable?

But this was a different view of accountability. This was about one of their own under attack, meaning all of them were under attack. Even Chief Gerry Whitman, who had recommended a 20-day suspension for Turney, was out there, probably hoping to win back the approval of his force.

Turney gets a 10-month suspension for shooting and killing a mentally disabled teen who was holding a knife. And every cop I talked to insisted Turney did nothing wrong.

And so they took to the steps in solidarity. They had marched from the union office, many with family in tow.

The counter-protest numbered just a few people, with some holding signs about cops who kill and cops who need to be taken off the street.

The cops, who had left the street to confront the mayor, found that John Hickenlooper, who had another appointment, was not there. The union leaders already knew that. But the cops chanted "Chickenlooper."

Notably, nobody seemed to get out of line.

There's a strategy here, which takes on a couple of dimensions.

In the first, the cops are going after the weakness in LaCabe's argument.

This was politics, after all. The mayor and LaCabe decided that Turney deserved significant punishment - for the shooting as well as for using his cell phone on the job to allegedly threaten his ex-mother-in-law. From there, it became a search for the best rationale.

LaCabe ruled Turney made a tactical mistake by forcing a confrontation when Paul Childs was alone in the house. At that point, LaCabe said, Turney could have shut the door and taken the time to evaluate the situation. Instead, Childs walked out the door and Turney shot him four times.

In a letter the Denver Police Protective Association board took to Hickenlooper's office, it said police were confused by the criticism. Somehow, Columbine found its way into the discussion.

"Denver area law enforcement was chastised in the Columbine High School incident for allegedly delaying their entry and not taking charge of the situation," the letter went. "Officer Turney is being punished for NOT leaving the scene and taking the action he was trained to do."

As Cpl. Steven Clayborn put it to me, "Our first issue is now we don't know what to do anymore."

I kept waiting for the wink.

But when one cop filed by, he leaned into my ear and said, referring to a column I wrote last week, "You want to know how many cops would do what Jim Turney did? You're looking at them."

He pointed to his fellow cops.

"All of 'em. That's how many."

Of course, I knew that wasn't true. Ask yourself how many times a Denver cop faces a suspect with a weapon - much less an obviously confused Paul Childs with a knife - and how often no one gets shot.

But it's a story the cops want to take over the media's head and directly to you. That explains the good behavior. There's no blue flu this time, no threat of a slowdown. They want you to take their case seriously and maybe take their side.

Is that a tactic that will work?

Far from me to second-guess.

Mike Littwin's column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Call him at 303- 892-5428 or e-mail him at littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com.

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