Editorial: Reconsider, Mayor Madden

THE ISSUE:

Troy's mayor dismisses a state report that raises questions about the police killing of a civilian.

THE STAKES:

He should be seeking the truth, not circling the wagons.

Whether Troy Police Sgt. Randall French needed to shoot and kill Edson Thevenin, we may never know. An investigation that seems to have been botched in every possible way made sure of that.

While we may not know if Mr. Thevenin's death was justified, there are clear injustices here. For starters, it is injustice when the quest for truth is subverted by the very system that is supposed to find it.

And it is injustice when Troy officials willfully brush aside the lessons that could be learned from what we do know of Mr. Thevenin's death.

As a report by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office concludes, Sgt. French can't be prosecuted for his April 2016 shooting of Mr. Thevenin. That's because Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel Abelove secretly granted him immunity from prosecution when the officer testified before a grand jury. So it doesn't matter that the state investigation found contradictions between Sgt. French's version and the evidence, including eyewitness accounts.

What's known is that Sgt. French stopped Mr. Thevenin's Honda Civic on April 16, 2016, on suspicion that he was driving drunk. Mr. Thevenin, whose blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit, fled and crashed into a concrete barrier. Two patrol cars boxed in the Civic, but Mr. Thevenin tried to get away. Sgt. French says he shot when Mr. Thevenin drove into him and pinned his leg.

The state report, however, points to eyewitnesses who say the officer was not pinned when he started shooting; it notes that the officer's eight shots were fired from multiple angles.

Police ignored those accounts, and Mr. Abelove rushed the case to a grand jury that found no criminal wrongdoing by the officer. Mr. Abelove handled the case despite an executive order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo allowing the attorney general to investigate police killings of unarmed civilians.

The county's chief prosecutor stands charged with perjury and official misconduct in connection with the case. He has pleaded not guilty.

Now the best Mr. Thevenin's family can hope for rests in a federal civil case.

But Troy citizens can hope for more.

Mr. Thevenin's death might yet mean something if Troy police and civilian leaders took the report's findings and looked at ways to improve the handling of incidents in which police use deadly force. Mayor Patrick Madden's first impulse, unfortunately, was to dismiss the report as flawed, and express confidence that Troy police follow "best practices." This report shows they clearly did not in this case.

Some in the community are calling for a civilian review board, a suggestion the mayor and city council should consider. Albany has had one for years. It's far from a perfect solution, but it at least offers another level of review. Done right, it could be an independent, credible forum.

But that idea can't begin to be discussed until every city official, starting with the mayor, appreciates that their jobs are not to serve and protect the police department, but to ensure that it serves and protects the public, and is held accountable when it doesn't.