Pubdate: Wed, 10 Apr 2002
Source: Mobile Register (AL)
Copyright: 2002 Mobile Register.
Contact:  http://www.al.com/mobileregister/today/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/269

PRICHARD OFFICIALS MUST EXPLAIN POLICE SHOOTING

PRICHARD CITY officials are doing the credibility of the Police Department 
no good by continuing to be less than forthcoming about a controversial 
police shooting.

On Dec. 11, two Prichard narcotics officers shot into a car in Alabama 
Village, wounding three men, one critically. The following day, 6-year-old 
Kearis Bonham was killed by stray gunfire from a shootout in the nearby 
Queens Court apartment complex, where Prichard police officers were 
ambushed in what officials say was retaliation for the Alabama Village 
shooting.

The tragic death of a little boy who was caught in the crossfire made it 
all the more imperative that Prichard police explain to the public what 
happened in the Alabama Village shooting. Four months later, much remains 
unexplained.

It was not until the end of March that Prichard Police Chief Sammie Brown 
identified the two narcotics officers involved. He said they had followed 
proper procedure in the shooting -- that the two officers had begun firing 
when a car they had pulled over began backing up into their car.

However, Chief Brown was unclear about many of the details, telling a 
Register reporter that he did not have the case file in front of him. The 
following week, Chief Brown said he could not comment further on the advice 
of Prichard City Attorney Arthur Madden, nor would he release the 
guidelines he said the police officers followed when they discharged their 
weapons.

The guidelines themselves are clearly public records under Alabama's open 
records act, and Prichard authorities are obligated to make those 
guidelines public. The Register has now filed a formal request for the 
release of those guidelines.

Prichard citizens deserve to know what policies govern the use of deadly 
force by the members of their Police Department. Only then can they judge 
for themselves whether the two officers acted properly.

Prichard citizens also have yet to learn why the two officers pulled the 
car over -- a key piece of information in reviewing their conduct. None of 
the four men who were in the car has been charged with doing anything wrong.

In contrast, Mobile police were much more open about a similarly 
controversial event last year in which a police officer was severely 
injured and a drug suspect killed in a shootout at the Roger Williams 
public housing community.

The shooting touched off a disturbance at Roger Williams that night. Two 
weeks later, Mobile Police Chief Sam Cochran released the results of the 
department's internal investigation -- which conluded that the shooting was 
justified. Chief Cochran illustrated what happened with a map and explained 
the sequence of events in detail.

The handling of the Roger Williams case proves that authorities can, within 
a reasonable time frame, account to the public for the actions of police 
without jeopardizing a continuing investigation. Although the Alabama 
Village case has been turned over to the Mobile County District Attorney's 
office for further investigation and a grand jury review, there is no 
reason that Chief Brown cannot provide as much detail as Chief Cochran did.

The Prichard vice unit, of which the two officers involved in the Alabama 
Village shooting were a part, has already seen six former officers 
convicted in connection with a racketeering investigation. For Prichard 
city officials not to fully disclose what happened in the Alabama Village 
shooting is unfair both to the citizens of Prichard and to the narcotics 
officers themselves.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens