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Tue. Nov 28, 2006

Let's Play 'Who's The Liar?'

For five days, the Atlanta Police Department told us repeatedly that an undercover cop had made a purchase of narcotics from some man named “Sam” within the home of 88 year old Kathryn Johnston, who was later killed in a raid. But Monday morning they told us it was actually a “confidential informant” who made that purchase.

For five days, the search warrant that is normally considered a matter of public record was withheld from the press (and you and me), due to “office policy.” Apparently office policy can trump state law. But Monday afternoon that warrant was released to the public. We’d already been told the cops found a “small amount of marijuana” in the home. The warrant was based on an alleged $50 purchase of crack cocaine.

For five days, we’ve been assured that officers had ample cause to seek a no knock warrant, and had served it by the book. Today, the confidential informant came forward and said [1] he’d never been at that house, [2] he did not buy crack from a man named Sam, and [3] the cops contacted him after the raid asking him to lie and “cover our ass.”

For five days, we’ve been lied to.

The question is, just who has been lying, and how many of them are there? From the publicly available facts, that’s not yet clear. The answer could range from one “confidential informant,” to dozens of cops of varying ranks.

But when he returned from his Thanksgiving vacation, here’s where the Chief of the Atlanta PD started: “Chief Richard Pennington wrapped up a surprise press conference around 5:20 p.m. Monday telling us his entire narcotics unit is on administrative leave — that means seven officers and one sergeant are on leave after the police shootout that left Kathryn Johnston dead.”

I also can’t help but hopefully note that once Pennington was back on the job, the warrant got released, new details came out, and finally, there was a press conference filled with revelations:

The confidential informant on whose word Atlanta police raided the house of an 88-year-old woman is now saying he never purchased drugs from her house and was told by police to lie and say he did.

Chief Richard Pennington, in a press conference Monday evening, said his department learned two days ago that the informant — who has been used reliably in the past by the narcotics unit — denied providing information to officers about a drug deal at 933 Neal Street in northwest Atlanta.

“The informant said he had no knowledge of going into that house and purchasing drugs,” Pennington said. “We don’t know if he’s telling the truth.”

The search warrant used by Atlanta police to raid the house says that a confidential informant had bought crack cocaine at the residence, using $50 in city funds, several hours before the raid.

In the document, officers said that the informant told them the house had surveillance cameras that the suspected drug dealer, called “Sam,” monitored.

AJC: Drug raid informant says he was asked to lie

So much is within those few paragraphs. But I have to start with “We don’t know if he’s telling the truth.” When/if it was a matter of deciding whether or not to make a violent entry into a local home, the informant’s word was plenty good. But when the charge is that police officers are trying to cover up their deadly mistakes, well, “we don’t know if he’s telling the truth.”

It would seem the word of one man can inspire a presumption of guilt for a citizen, yet a presumption of innocence for the cops.

Yet it would also seem the options here are fairly narrow. So let’s play “Who’s Lying?” I count four options.

Liar One: The Confidential Informant. This would be a nice tidy option. The CI did buy crack from “Sam,” but now that it’s become a huge story, maybe he got scared of testifying, or wanted to see his pixelated face on TV, or got his butt in some other jam and is using this as leverage. All sources (he’s apparently been an informer for other agencies) say he’s been reliable for years, but I suppose it’s possible the reliability ran out. Or that he had some other perverse reason for making himself a far bigger target than if he’d simply kept quiet. Maybe he’s always wanted to be in federal protective custody, as he is now.

The rest of the “liar options” assume that the CI did not lie.

Liar Two: Three Narcotics Cops. I think this is the minimum number of cops who could be lying. Initial reports were pretty consistent that three undercover officers executed the raid. APD policy on getting warrants based on CI drug purchases requires a cop to search the CI, observe him enter the home to make a purchase, and then come out with the drugs. This purchase is then used to get a warrant. And we now have the warrant (PDF) with the specific allegations and names:

In a court affidavit released Monday, Jason R. Smith, an Atlanta narcotics officer, said that the informant had used $50 of city money to buy crack cocaine from Sam at the house at 933 Neal Street. Smith, who could not be reached for comment Monday night, described the informant as a reliable source of information who has helped police make drug arrests in the past.

In the affidavit, Smith said Sam greeted the informant at the front door and spoke briefly to him on the porch. Sam disappeared into the house and reappeared with two bags of crack cocaine, which the informant later turned over to the officers, according to the affidavit. Smith’s statement also said that the informant had alleged that Sam had installed surveillance cameras at the house and monitored them constantly.

Smith’s affidavit was sufficient to persuade Fulton County Magistrate Kimberly Warden to sign a warrant allowing the officers to enter the house without knocking on the door. Smith asked for the special “no knock” authorization because of the possibility that officers would be injured or evidence would be destroyed. Warden signed the warrant shortly before 6 p.m., about an hour before the shooting.

However, the informant has since denied to police and a local television station that he purchased the drugs. He also said there was no person named Sam.

The informant, who said he worked with Atlanta police for four years, also told WAGA-TV that he hadn’t been to 933 Neal Street. His identity hidden, he told the TV station that one of the drug officers called him soon after the shooting with instructions.

Quoting the police officers, the informant told Fox 5 News: ”’This is what you need to do. You need to cover our (rear). ... It’s all on you man. ... You need to tell them about this Sam dude.’”

From the beginning, it has been unclear why police targeted the house on Neal Street, and the affidavit and warrant documents shed little light. The documents do not suggest that police had been keeping the house under surveillance and provide no rationale for entering it other than the informant’s alleged buy earlier in the afternoon. The raid did not produce the cocaine, money, computers and other equipment related to the drug business alleged in the affidavit.

AJC: Drug raid informant says he was asked to lie

While it is possible one cop imagined he had some reason to suspect that house and cooked up a totally faux CI buy to get a warrant, I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t have filled in his two partners in the raid. I find it far more likely the three of them were “in the know” about the false basis for the raid. Maybe they’ve been operating that loosely for some time. Maybe this is just the first time someone shot as they broke in the door.

And once they saw what they had done, maybe they quickly planted some drugs. Not even the right kind, just what they had available. And they called their trusty CI to “cover their ass,” as he has claimed. If that was the case, then at a minimum, the three of them had to quickly concoct a story and the evidence to support it. And stick to it.

But there’s always problems with quickly concocted stories. The glaring one here is the fact the warrant mentions Sam has video surveillance cameras. And I’m guessing the 88 year old woman with the rusty revolver did not.

Liar Three: The Entire Narcotics Unit. This option presumes that the three cops who executed the faked-up warrant were doing so because that’s the way their whole unit does it at times. Or at the very least, when it’s done, it’s overlooked. And you’d have to think that when things so very bad happened last Tuesday night around 7pm, by 8pm the leader of that 8 man unit would have been on the scene. And up to his knees in his dawg’s business.

Liar Four: Narcotics Unit and Internal Affairs. The fact the story offered was so very wrong on many points, yet stayed that way for so long might make one wonder if internal affairs was in on the cover up as well. Or at the very least, if that was their strategy until the Chief got back in town, and changed it. But I think it’s more likely they got stonewalled by the narcotics unit, and had maybe even been casting a suspicious eye their way for a while.

Someone I know and love had suggested at one point that the judge might have been in on it as well. But my guess is that the judge took the word of the cop and issued the no knock warrant in a very standard manner. Which is at least half the problem; the fact it is very standard. I would imagine judges are looking at those no knock warrant requests a bit harder now.

At least, you have to hope that, or completely lose trust in the system. The only one we’ve got. Chief Pennington has seemingly made a lot of “right moves” including ordering a complete review of their policies on no knock warrants. As I mentioned, once he got back in town and on the job, what had been shrouded for five days began to become more transparent.

And then he turned the whole thing over to the FBI and an alphabet soup of other agencies, because he said he was concerned about the rumors and suspicions swirling around the idea of the APD investigating itself on this one. At this point, it’s hard to fault Chief Pennington for how he has handled this.

In my opinion, we’re probably talking about a “cell” of cops, three to eight in size, who have, at best, been cutting corners on policy and “expediting” the warrant process in a manner that eventually killed an 88 year old innocent woman. We know nothing about motivation or intent at this point. Or any other ugly threads that may yet unravel from this.

Official lies are like that. One lie is sometimes just the skin that covers a multitude of sins. And in this case, instead of confessing to the friendly and knowing local priest, you get to deal with the Bishops. Chief Pennington has done as much as he can publicly do, having essentially turned the investigation over to the feds, but the face I saw him wearing at today’s press conference said he’s not a man who is done yet within his department.

Mistakes happen. People get overzealous at doing their job. Corners get cut. All of these things, individually, are somewhat understandable. Collectively, they are all the more reason to be extremely judicious in how you apply a harsh policy of forced entry into citizen’s homes. Especially in a country where bearing arms to protect your home is considered a precious right.

Executing a no knock warrant when there’s imminent danger to citizen(s) ... is rational. Executing a no knock warrant that actually introduces imminent danger to both the cops and the homeowner, where there was none … ought to be criminal.