WIRED-AND DANGEROUS

LAW Dallas has been the big loser so far in the ongoing lawsuit over the accidental shooting of Addison officer Ronnie Cox in a botched drug bust on December 12, 1986. In 1988, the court ordered the city to pay Cox’s, beneficiaries more than $3 million in damages and attorneys’ fees. State District Judge JOE BURNETT, angered over the city’s delays in producing documents, instructed the jury to decide damages without hearing about the events that led to the fatal shooting.

So the jury didn’t hear that LADONNA GREENWELL and ED CAMP, two informants instrumental to the raid, had injected a quarter ounce of amphetamines a few hours before the operation in which Cox was mistakenly shot by Dallas officer DARREN COLEMAN. Camp, a drug dealer described in depositions as a “recreational heroin user,” was supposed to keep the door unlocked for police. Nor did the jury learn that Addison police paid for the drugs, gave the informants clean syringes, and told them to “do what you have to do.”

Camp, who was wearing a wire, was to signal so that police could burst through the unlocked door and make arrests. Instead, one officer was spotted outside, causing the suspects to panic. Cox was killed in the ensuing melee.

Criminal attorney KEVIN CLANCY, who represented the owner of the apartment, discovered Camp’s and Greenwell’s altered-state role in the bust and told Dallas city attorneys about the Addison police involvement with the informants. “The city didn’t seem to know what to do with that information,” Clancy says.

Dallas is appealing the damages and fees. However, the state’s Fifth District Court of Appeals let stand Burnett’s order of $1.2 million in legal fees because city attorneys misinterpreted the deadline and filed their appeal eight days late. The city is appealing that decision to the Texas Supreme Court.

Looks bad so far for the home team. But if a new trial is granted, pity the jury that must determine which police department was truly negligent on the day Ronnie Cox was shot to death.