January 21, 2005

It was late in the evening, and we were in the bowling alley, well, bowling. I asked him what he did for a living.

"Denver sheriff's deputy," he said. I told him what I do.

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The name James Turney, of course, came up. He put a very bad word in front of the man's name. You cannot talk to a cop in this town without James Turney coming up.

"The PD gets away with everything," he lamented. "Nothing for killing that kid and five days for menacing this mother-in-law? A complete skate.

"Meanwhile, our guy rushes into a burning house to rescue a kid, and they won't give him a thousand bucks of workers comp. (Bad word) is really (two bad words), man."

Yeah, really messed up.

The stories of Deputy George Gatchis and Officer James Turney are clear evidence of a system that seemingly is out of control by being so completely illogical. Worse, even, is the message both send to the other men and women charged with protecting the public.

On one hand, we have a good, my-personal-safety-be-damned hero, who tries to save a baby trapped in a burning house. His attempt is unsuccessful. The 3-year-old dies, and the officer suffers physical and emotional injuries in the ordeal.

The city, though, has denied George Gatchis' workers compensation claim to pay the cost of his transport by ambulance to the hospital for smoke inhalation and other injuries, saying although he was in uniform, he was off duty.

Nor will it fully pay for the psychological counseling that has been recommended for Gatchis to deal with the child's death.

On the other, we have a bad, trigger-happy, I'll-kill-you-witch mother-in-law threatener, who kills two handicapped teenage boys in front of their mothers less than two years apart.

Denver Manager of Safety Al LaCabe suspended James Turney for 10 months without pay for his recklessness in the July 5, 2003, killing of Paul Childs, the most severe penalty in a decade leveled against a Denver officer involved in a shooting.

A hearing officer who heard Turney's appeal, though, threw out the discipline last week, saying it was not merited. Instead, hearing officer John Criswell ordered Turney suspended for only five days and fined only one day's pay - no, not for the shooting, but because he had threatened his mother-in-law the day before.

Hello?

What we have here is the world turned right on its ear.

The sadness is that a lot of other people, including relatives of the dead boy, ever believed Al LaCabe's punishment would be fully upheld.

"They'll let him off somehow," I remember someone saying. I didn't argue. I have seen this way too many times.

In Inglewood, Calif., this week, an officer caught on videotape beating the living stuffing out of a teenage boy at a gasoline station was awarded $1.6 million from the police department, which he had sued for discrimination after he was fired.

The question, and the real danger, is what James Turney's and George Gatchis' fellow officers will take from the two episodes.

What is the likelihood now that George Gatchis or any other off-duty officer who happens upon a crisis situation on their way home will answer a call for help?

Will that officer now weigh a risk-reward calculation before stepping in?

"They tell us from the day we leave the academy that we are on the job 24 hours a day, seven days a week," my bowling partner is saying. "Going by what happened to George, clearly we are not."

We have been over use-of-force issues many times in this space. The cops and I will never agree on the issue. They and their wives all say I haven't a clue what it is like making such tough decisions in such small amounts of time. I do not disagree.

Neither did John Criswell, the hearing officer. Backing away from Paul Childs and allowing the situation to defuse itself might have been the ideal, he said. Yet he is convinced, he said, "no reasonable Denver police officer with officer Turney's training and background would have thought of this tactic."

It is the most troubling line in his entire report, mostly because it is nonsense.

He clearly did not speak with a single one of Turney's contemporaries, as I have. The last thing they ever want to do, given their training, is to shoot anyone, much less a kid, all said. Turney has killed two.

The best thing the city of Denver can hope for is that the city attorney is successful in the appeal of Criswell's decision.

What is the message to other cops and to Denver residents if it is allowed to stand?

Go ahead and shoot; nothing will happen?

Guard your kids from the trigger-happy cops?

Sanity simply has to return. Killing kids has to count for something in this world. If nothing else the penalty ought to at least be equal to threatening your mother-in-law.

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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