March 10, 2004

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has enjoyed a charmed life as a public official since his election last year, with virtually everyone still singing his praises. But now the Hallelujah Chorus is about to end. Hickenlooper must decide whether the city should discipline officer James Turney for the shooting death of Paul Childs, and he's going to disappoint and anger some constituents no matter what he does.

Officially, of course, Hickenlooper won't make the call on whether to discipline Turney. Manager of Public Safety Al LaCabe issues the ruling, after receiving a recommendation from police Chief Gerry Whitman. But the mayor's involvement is inevitable given the controversy over the Childs shooting and the fact that community leaders and the Childs' family attorney, Johnnie Cochran, are demanding Turney be fired. Those demands have intensified with reports that a panel of four officers and two civilians recommended to Whitman that Turney receive a written reprimand but be allowed to remain on the force.

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Can Turney realistically be permitted to return to patrol duty after shooting and killing two black teenagers with disabilities in 18 months? Perhaps not, particularly if many community leaders are dead set against it. The police force does not operate in a vacuum and must be accepted by the neighborhoods it serves. But there is more than one way to keep an officer off the streets, and firing Turney could raise problems of its own that shouldn't be brushed aside.

First of all, there is the potential risk that if Turney demanded a Civil Service hearing to appeal his firing, he might succeed in overturning it. On what basis? That many officers - and probably a substantial majority - would have behaved the same had they been in his shoes.

We've read the official findings of the district attorney in both of Turney's shootings. While it's clear to us he could have made a different decision in each of them - and in full hindsight should have, particularly in the Childs case - it's not obvious he was obliged to react differently at the time given the logic of unfolding events. Shouldn't firing be reserved for officers who have committed over-the-top, unambiguous breaches of police rules and standards and thus put lives at risk?

For example, officer Joseph Bini should have been fired three years ago for signing an affidavit that provided false information to a judge who then issued a no-knock warrant whose use resulted in the death of an innocent man. Although we argued for Bini's firing, he was suspended for a mere three months.

It's still possible, of course, that Hickenlooper and LaCabe will conclude that the Childs shooting was so obviously wrong even given only the facts known at the time that Turney deserves to be fired. But if that is their decision, it's imperative they explain in detail how it relates to the training Turney received in the use of force.

It is also possible there are other issues relevant to Turney's fate that could tip the scales against him - performance problems unknown to the public or the credibility of the threat his former mother-in-law says he made against her not long before the Childs shooting. If so, those reasons too must be explained.

Too often in the past, Denver officials have meted out discipline to a cop and then refused to provide city residents with its full rationale. Given the way the Childs shooting has divided the city, that's simply not an option in the Turney case.

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