April 14, 2004

The telephone call from the cop's wife still haunts and stings a little now, more than a week after it arrived, filled not so much with what she said but the gurgling and chatter of little children in the background.

She wasn't the first spouse of a police officer to call and, likely, will not be the last. She believes, as do the others, that I hate cops. The truth of this, I've learned, doesn't matter.

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It is only to be expected when you hold up a mirror to those with power over the rest of us, who by virtue of their position can decide whether we should be allowed to continue living.

And in this town, as we have seen much too often, the decision is made with impunity.

If pointing this out each time it happens means I hate cops, handcuff and convict me now.

It is difficult to tell over the phone if the woman is angry or on the verge of tears. She completes few of the sentences she is uttering, saying early on that she could not finish the column before calling me.

James Turney, a Denver police officer who over an 18-month span shot and killed two disabled boys in front of their mothers, who had summoned police, should be fired, I wrote. He clearly is in the wrong line of business.

If 100 people called or wrote to me in the days after that column ran, 90 of them agreed with me. Nine spewed the typical "you-just- hate-cops" nonsense. They are entitled.

The cop's wife was different. She spoke nervously, but with passion. I was being unfair, she said.

And she wanted me to understand what she faces.

She called a day after a 19-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of stabbing and killing a Freedom cabdriver.

"That can show you what a knife can do," she said, referring to the weapon both teenage boys had in their hand when James Turney killed them.

"I'm sorry," she continued, "but if my husband comes in contact with someone - I don't care if he's disabled, I don't care what kind of problem this person has, boy, girl, white, black or Asian - if my husband doesn't defend himself and gets injured or dies, God forbid, I don't want to have to tell my children what a great man their daddy was."

She apologized again, saying she couldn't get her thoughts together. The children squealed some more in the background.

And she has great sympathy for the mothers of the two dead boys, she said over and over. Yet . . .

"I think you need to step into someone else's shoes. I feel like you're only looking through their eyes."

And yes, she knows and is friends with James Turney and his wife, she said.

"I think Jim Turney didn't come to work that morning and think he was going to kill someone," she said. "I'm sure he didn't.

"I just think you need to step in someone else's shoes."

And she hung up.

I get it. This is what I would have told this woman who left neither her name nor telephone number. There, too, are thousands of women like her, I'd have told her, whose husbands leave the house never intending to kill and understand they don't have to.

Particularly, that they needn't kill teen boys who pose no serious threat to them.

Should James Turney's fitness to wear a Denver uniform not be questioned?

We should all take a look at the numbers, the dollar figure Denver has paid out over the past eight years to defend excessive-force cases against police. Yes, more than $6.5 million in legal fees alone, not counting millions more in settlements.

If city and police officials were as quick to scrutinize and scream about the actions of SOME police officers, it clearly would be cheaper for all of us.

There is hope.

A restaurant operator last week told me in a rage how a trio of Denver officers responding to an alarm a deliveryman tripped held him at gunpoint on the second floor of his establishment - nearly two hours after receiving notice of the alarm.

The man, who is black, didn't know if he was more upset by the guns or the officers' asking how long he had been a janitor at the restaurant.

So he complained.

To his surprise, the chief of Denver police called him. And he personally apologized. The janitor thing? The officer told the chief the restaurant operator was holding a broom when it all went down, which he wasn't.

The restaurant man was thoroughly pleased that the chief bothered to call at all. And he should have been.

Still, I have lived here a good while.

In my "cop-hating" moments, I do wonder what the "broom" would have been identified as had shots been fired.

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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