Pubdate: Fri, 21 Jul 2000
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2000 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260
Fax: (713) 220-3575
Website: http://www.chron.com/
Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html
Author: S.K. Bardwell

DYING MAN KILLED BY UNDERCOVER POLICE DIDN'T GET WISH

Lanny Blaine Robinson was dying. AIDS was destroying his body. Bipolar 
disorder, chronic alcoholism and drug use were destroying his mind. Even 
his vision, limited since an accident had cost him one eye, was failing.

But the 49-year-old had his friends and his good days. He still had dreams 
and plans.

"He had decided to move to the beach," said his mother, Colleen Mahan. "The 
ocean soothed him, and he thought he could die there in peace."

Mahan had accepted that her son was going to die, but now is angered that 
his death two months ago would come at the hands of undercover narcotics 
officers who had asked Robinson where they could buy drugs. Police have 
said Robinson -- who had been drinking heavily that day -- threatened the 
men with a knife while they were on their way to a potential drug sale. 
Police shot him 10 times.

His mother thinks they should have known more about her son's mental 
capacities, including how he might respond to certain situations, before 
they decided to solicit his help. Better yet, she says, they should have 
left him alone.

"He was minding his own business, and they came to him and put him in a 
situation that maybe he couldn't cope with and then killed him because of 
how he reacted," Mahan said.

As police continue their investigation of the April 19 incident, Mahan 
questions how undercover narcotics officers select and treat the hundreds 
of people such as Robinson they use to make the drug buys and arrests.

"Maybe it isn't a good idea to let them just pick up anyone like that, 
without knowing anything about them," she said. "If someone has a lot of 
problems, how do they know what might happen?"

Robinson lived in a mobile home behind a rental house Mahan owns, along 
with several other properties, in the 8100 block of Howard. There, in the 
back yard on any given day, Robinson and Dawn Hernandez, who lives in the 
house, would be joined by a half-dozen or so kindred souls, to wile away 
the hours drinking around a picnic table.

On April 19, Hernandez and Robinson started on a half-gallon of vodka about 
10 a.m., and drank steadily all day, interrupted only by sporadic trips to 
a little store nearby for mixers. On one of those trips Robinson evidently 
met Mark R. Prendergast and Jimmy D. Cargill, two undercover narcotics 
officers posing as drug users. Hernandez speculated that they asked 
Robinson if he knew where they could buy drugs.

About an inch of vodka was left in the half-gallon bottle when Prendergast 
and Cargill showed up at the house at 6 p.m., Hernandez said. Robinson had 
gone into his trailer to pass out. Other residents recognized the two men 
as officers, saying that two months earlier they had arrested Robinson's 
sister and two others after they convinced her to get some crack cocaine 
from a nearby dealer.

Hernandez was in the back yard when the officers arrived that April day, 
then shouted to Robinson.

"I stood up and yelled real loud, so everyone could hear me, `Blaine! HPD!' 
" she said. In her mind, Robinson seemed aware that he was dealing with 
police. "When they left, he said, `I'm going with these cops, watch my 
trailer,' and I went into the house," Hernandez said.

Some of Robinson's friends think he may have thought the officers were 
responding to repeated calls he had made since a near-fatal slashing at his 
trailer days earlier. Whatever Robinson thought about Prendergast and 
Cargill that evening, those at the house agree that he seemed aware they 
were police officers.

Tony Salazar said that as the two officers helped Robinson to their car, he 
caught Robinson's eye, and shook his head vigorously. "I told him, `Don't 
get in,' because I remembered when they busted his sister," Salazar said.

Robinson made one of the men get in the back seat and close the door, then 
get out -- to make sure the doors were not like those in marked police 
cars, which do not open from the inside. With vodka bottle and soda in 
hand, Robinson entered the back seat with Cargill driving and Prendergast 
in the front passenger seat.

As Robinson left, friend Corinna Robbins said, he told his friends, "If 
anything happens to me, give everything to my mom and my sister."

A half-hour later, Robinson was shot to death in the back seat of the car.

Prendergast and Cargill told homicide investigators as they drove down the 
Gulf Freeway, Robinson suddenly produced a knife, and held it to the back 
of Cargill's head. Robinson said the two men looked like cops, and said he 
would show them what he did to people who looked like cops, said homicide 
Sgt. Jim Ramsey.

Prendergast shot Robinson 10 times. Four bullets hit his head; two went 
into his chest; four more tore through his right arm. No knife was 
recovered from the car. After an intensive search, a serrated steak knife 
was recovered on the side of the freeway some distance from the car. Police 
believe it is the knife Robinson used.

Hernandez questions the police account, especially the part about Robinson 
having a knife. "I just don't see how he could have had a knife," she said. 
"He was so skinny, his shorts were falling off him when he left."

That the officers knew Robinson was intoxicated is almost as sure: Those at 
the house said he was unable to walk unaided, and was helped to the car by 
the officers. His autopsy showed his blood alcohol level at .25, and that 
he had cocaine and marijuana in his system when he died.

HPD spokesman Robert Hurst said Prendergast and Cargill did not violate 
department policy by soliciting a man they knew or could have guessed was 
highly intoxicated.

"It's at the officers' discretion," Hurst said of such undercover transactions.

Undercover officers posing as drug users frequent places used by other drug 
users, and often approach people like Robinson and ask to buy drugs, or to 
be shown where to buy drugs, without knowing anything about the person they 
have approached. When and if a purchase is made, the person who directed 
the officers to the deal is likely to be arrested along with the sellers.

Robinson's mother and friends said that despite his mental state, they had 
never seen him become violent. And to them, what prompted the behavior 
Prendergast and Cargill described will remain a mystery.

Mahan just wishes his death would have been more peaceful.

"I wish they had left him alone, and let him die his way," Mahan said. "He 
deserved better than this."
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