EDITORIAL

Much was made a couple of weeks ago about District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' decision to remove from her office's website the letters she sends to police departments detailing her findings on police shootings of citizens. (The reason for her decision was based on the specious logic that the letters contain names of witnesses-which can easily be removed from the letters. We're guessing the decision had more to do with appeasing police union officials, who hate it when the public knows anything about such shootings.)

However, of more immediate concern are the details of the incident that sparked the mild brouhaha over her decision. It involved the fatal shooting of 26-year-old Billye Venable, a reputed gang member, in Southeast San Diego.

Venable's family, City Councilmember Charles Lewis and neighborhood activists, unsatisfied with Dumanis' official stance that the shooting was justified, rightly have called for further investigation. They want to know more about what citizen witnesses saw, and, in any case, they wonder why the force used had to be deadly.

According to Dumanis' summary of the incident, on Oct. 11, San Diego police officers Christopher Leahy and Anthony Bueno stopped a car driven by Venable's brother, Dominic, reportedly because its license-plate light was out. Knowing that Billye Venable was wanted on a warrant, the officers called on James Hunter, an officer in the police gang unit, to say whether or not the man in the passenger seat was him-the man had given a different name. Hunter confirmed that it was Billye.

Ordered to step out of the car, Venable took off running and was grabbed by Leahy. When Venable reached for Leahy's gun, Hunter grabbed Venable and the three fell to the sidewalk. The officers say Venable had his hand on the handle of Leahy's gun, which was snapped into its holster, as Leahy had Venable pinned on the ground. Officer Bueno kicked Venable in the back repeatedly in hopes of forcing him to let go. Meanwhile, Hunter held his gun to Venable's head and said he'd shoot him if he didn't relent.

Leahy reported that when he thought he felt the holster unsnap, he yelled, “He's got my gun, he's got my gun.” Eleven seconds later, Hunter pulled the trigger and shot Venable straight through the head. When Leahy got up off the ground and looked at his holster, he found his gun still snapped tight.

True, this incident, like most incidents involving officer shootings, calls on us to understand that cops must make difficult decisions under tense conditions, with little time for careful consideration. But we need to be allowed to scrutinize their actions after the fact so that we might avoid this awful result in the future.

In this case, Dumanis' summary says Hunter shot to kill because “he was afraid for officer Leahy's life and that if Mr. Venable had gotten the gun out, he was afraid Mr. Venable would kill officer Bueno and [Hunter] after killing officer Leahy.”

This is a statement that screams out for scrutiny. We understand how Hunter, who likely couldn't see how close Venable was to getting Leahy's gun out of its holster, would be concerned for Leahy's safety. But Hunter had his gun pressed up against Venable's temple. He would have us believe that Venable could have secured Leahy's gun, shot Leahy, pulled the gun out from under Leahy's body, turned to shoot Bueno and Hunter-all before Hunter could simply pull his trigger and kill Venable with one point-blank shot.

Ultimately, Hunter could have been justified in shooting Venable. After all, Leahy shouted out that Venable had his gun and was going to shoot him. An officer is trained to first protect his fellow officers. A natural response from a citizen's point of view is to ask why Hunter couldn't shoot Venable in a non-deadly manner, but cops aren't trained to shoot to wound.

It would be ideal to have a system where officer shootings are scrutinized in a quasi-judicial way, in full view of the public-not necessarily to prosecute the cop on criminal charges, but rather to flesh out the truth. It's likely that officers' actions more often than not would be justified, and the public would see that.