July 8, 2003

The fatal shooting of 15-year- old Paul Childs by Denver police on Saturday has upset some in the community who think it could have been avoided if police had used a stun gun instead. There were two Tasers at the scene, police say, and yet Officer James Turney felt constrained to fire real bullets.

This amounts to an easy armchair conclusion given what we now know about the victim, who was developmentally disabled. Yet it is not necessarily fair to the officers who had to make a split-second decision.

When officers arrive at a scene it's not easy to tell the extent of the threat. In this case, police say, the dispatch radio had told police that Childs was trying to stab his mother. Suppose it turns out that when police confronted Childs he moved toward them with his knife, would not stop despite being warned and was within a few feet of the nearest officer. Would it really be outrageous for that officer to fire his gun?

We don't think so -although we emphasize that not all the facts have yet been analyzed.

It's a very sad situation made all the sadder because some of the officers in the neighborhood knew the boy, and sometimes drove him home when he wandered too far. Obviously no one wants to shoot a young man in his condition.

It's not as if Denver police are reluctant to use non-lethal weapons, either. According to Chief Gerry Whitman, police have discharged Tasers 93 times just in the three months from March 24 to June 29, including at seven people who were wielding knives. But not every officer has a Taser, and no officer is required to use non-lethal force when confronted with a lethal weapon. The officer makes a case-by-case decision, often with very little time for reflection.

In this case, ironically, not only were two Tasers available but a crisis-intervention officer was also on hand, ready to deploy the power of persuasion if given a chance. But there simply may not have been time.

Police cannot of course be faulted for shooting to kill once a decision is made. They do not, movie-style, try to shoot a knife or a gun out of someone's hand or aim for the legs. That's too dangerous.

Some neighbors are calling for an outside investigation of the shooting and perhaps a special prosecutor. Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter doesn't think this is a good idea in part because an outsider isn't accountable to Denver voters.

We agree. Six years ago a commission headed by former Colorado Chief Justice William Erickson concluded there are "no fundamental flaws" in the procedures used to investigate police shootings in Denver. And while it's true that Ritter hasn't moved to prosecute any Denver officers in fatal shootings in recent years, he has charged a number of them with excessive force and other crimes.

We'll say this for Ritter, too: He makes available to the public and the press all of his files on police shootings, and says he knows of no other jurisdiction in the nation where this is done. That's about as transparent as an investigatory process is likely to get. Which is yet another reason to leave the probe in Denver.

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