Pubdate: Fri, 28 Jan 2000
Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News (CO)
Copyright: 2000 Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  400 W. Colfax, Denver, CO 80204
Website: http://www.denver-rmn.com/

Author: Kevin Vaughan

COP'S ALLEGATIONS INVESTIGATED

Officer said she felt pressured to falsify documents in shooting after 
'no-knock' raid

A special prosecutor is looking into allegations by a well-respected Denver 
cop that her superiors pressured her to falsify documents in a 
controversial police shooting.

The charges by the 20-year veteran came to light this week and were passed 
on to Dave Thomas, the district attorney for Jefferson County who is 
looking into the Sept. 29 shooting of Ismael Mena during a "no-knock" drug 
raid that may have been carried out on the wrong house.

Pam Russell, a spokeswoman in Thomas' office, would not discuss details of 
the officer's allegations but confirmed Thursday that they were being 
investigated. "We don't know what impact they'll have on the case," she said.

Specifically, the Denver Rocky Mountain News has learned from police 
sources, the officer felt pressure to make it appear as though there had 
been earlier reports of trouble at Mena's home when there had not.

The officer filed a complaint against superiors with the department's 
Internal Affairs Bureau, the sources said. Then, on Tuesday, she was 
transferred from her post in District 2 to a position in the office of 
Division Chief Gerry Whitman, who oversees the department's patrol 
officers, the sources said.

"This is a person -- I would never question her ethics," one source said.

The officer could not be reached for comment.

Lt. Frank Conner, a department spokesman, said Police Chief Tom Sanchez 
would not comment on the situation.

"I can tell you right now the response will be no comment," Conner said.

At the center of a controversy over Mena's shooting is an affidavit used to 
obtain a "no-knock" drug warrant on his home. A special prosecutor is 
trying to determine whether that warrant was proper, or whether the officer 
who wrote the affidavit mistook Mena's home for another one on the same 
block that neighbors said is well known as a crack house.

No drugs were found in Mena's house, police have acknowledged.

According to police sources, the officer felt pressure from superior 
officers to make it appear that the department had received phone calls 
from neighbors complaining about Mena's home in the weeks and months before 
the shooting. She also was encouraged to make it appear as though the 
department were preparing to do a "PSP" on the home -- police lingo for the 
process officers go through when they have numerous complaints about a 
particular address, the sources said.

The letters stand for Problem Solving Policing, and the department operates 
a computer program that helps officers keep track of complaints.

The officer, distressed about the situation, confided in a colleague, who 
encouraged her to report it to Internal Affairs, the sources said.

She filed the complaint, and then she was transferred Tuesday to Whitman's 
office at police headquarters in downtown Denver. She'd been a community 
resource officer for a decade in District 2, located in northeast Denver.

Thomas was named a special prosecutor after it was disclosed that an 
investigator in the Denver district attorney's office was related to a SWAT 
officer involved in the shooting. Among the questions he's asking: Was the 
warrant written for the proper home?

When officers raided the home where Mena was living at 3738 High St., 
officials said, he confronted them with a gun.

Both he and officers fired, and he was killed.

However, it wasn't until late November, after neighbors questioned the 
validity of the warrant, that Denver police officials publicly acknowledged 
they may have hit the wrong house. According to those neighbors, Mena's 
home was near a reputed crack house.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart