May 26, 2004

It is a lot of money. Well, $1.325 million is to most people, and it certainly is to Helen Childs. If she could talk about it right now, she'd likely say as much.

A lot of people in this town will counter that it is much too much, that it is her fault that her son is dead in the first place. This is as certain as nightfall tonight.

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Helen Childs should listen to none of this prattle. And from the little I know of her, she probably will not.

Oh, she will take the city's money - blood money, in my view - and make herself happy. And she should.

She should, first thing, move out of that Thrill Place home where her son, Paul Childs, fell dead last July with officer James Turney's bullets inside him, and go anywhere she believes happiness might be found.

Yet before she departs, she should turn to those who say she shouldn't have received a penny and ask a simple question:

How much would you accept from the city, once the smoke clears, after one of its trigger- happy agents has come for your child?

No, it will never happen to you and yours, you say? Helen Childs a year ago thought the same thing.

And she had more reason to believe it than you do right now. Police officers from Denver to Boulder knew the developmentally disabled teen. Paul Childs considered them friends.

The irony of this entirely sad, didn't-have- to-happen episode is Paul Childs actually wanted his older sister, Ashley, to call the cops that July day when he acted out, picking up a knife and demanding to be allowed to leave home.

Such a call would summon his friends. But this time, one would kill him.

I don't know if $1.325 million is enough. What I do know is I wouldn't trade a thousand times that amount for one of my children. Not like that.

The City Council, come the 7th of next month, will convene and take up the issue of whether the $1.325 million should be paid to Helen Childs.

It would be very wise not only to simply pay it, but ask itself the true question of whether such a sum should be paid out by the City and County of Denver ever again.

Do our officers have enough training? This is a good starting point.

Maybe the council could call in Cole Finegan, the city attorney, who had to sit through what he called "difficult" negotiations with Helen Childs and her attorneys.

Maybe he could speak to the cost to all of us when an officer uses less than the best judgment to quell a disturbance, how this time around it cost Denver the second-largest civil payout in a police-related death case in its history.

Maybe he would tell them, as he told us Tuesday in a little room at City Hall, how he reviewed every option, every similar case that played out on streets across America, and concluded there was no way the city was going to be able to defend itself for anything less than $1.35 million.

Maybe, too, the City Council can listen to Mayor John Hickenlooper, who, spokeswoman Lindy Eichenbaum Lent said, was "very supportive" of the city attorney's decision, and simply wants the city to heal.

The starting point was last December, Eichenbaum Lent said, when the mayor promised "sweeping" reforms that included expanded police training, increased numbers of Tasers and other less lethal weapons, enhanced legal and mental health training and expanded recruitment efforts to ensure the police department better represents the communities it serves.

The mayor also has mandated, she said, the addition of civilians that review police shootings, and created a task force to change the police policy on use of force, and increase civilian oversight of it.

"Through this settlement," Eichenbaum Lent said, "we simply want to bring closure to the Childs family and the city, and enable all of us to move forward."

By reaching a settlement so quickly, less than a year after Paul Childs died July 5 - which just has to be a speed record - perhaps the city can do just that.

But this will never happen until its agents come to terms with rogues within the ranks. Sometimes a shooting and a man cannot be defended.

The protests by officers will occur. Perhaps they should. Perhaps it will shed more light on those who are charged with policing the rest of us.

It is a lot of money. But Helen Childs, I am certain, would tell you right now, on this day, she wouldn't take a cent if it would bring her boy back.

I'm guessing she'd say, too, not a penny of it is worth it, if nothing ever changes.

Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303 892-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.

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