A question of credibility

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

The coroner’s inquest last week into the fatal police shooting of ice cream truck driver Deshira Selimaj will do little to quell the considerable controversy over the case.

The jury on Friday found 23-year-old Officer Luke Morrison justified in shooting Selimaj, but that had been a foregone conclusion. The system is tilted toward finding police justified. It is not good at bringing truth to light.

In February, Selimaj’s husband, Zyber, was pulled over twice in his ice cream truck. The second time he was despondent and an officer called for backup, assuming him to be suicidal. In addition to more police, Deshira Selimaj arrived in her ice cream truck with her two small children, and what started as a routine traffic stop turned into chaos.

Several police arrived, responding to a rare “officer needs help” call. And with guns drawn, they confronted Selimaj, who was described as being out of control and not obeying police commands.

Police say Morrison shot her after she lunged at them with a knife. Many witnesses say she had been sitting just before being shot and was complaining about being tired. They say she was getting to her feet after being hit with one probe of a Taser. Evidence shows the bullet that hit her was on a downward trajectory.

Prosecutors argued that this tragic outcome would not have happened if Selimaj had just obeyed officers. That is true. Her actions did lead to the conflict, but did she have to be shot? Could or should police have responded in a different way to prevent the escalation of the situation?

Those questions were not satisfactorily answered in the coroner’s inquest, but that is not a surprise. The inquest rules favor the police, and prosecutors present a case, without opposition, that is sympathetic to police. One witness was even asked whether her opinion would change if her son were a police officer and he was at the scene confronted with a knife.

The public by and large supports police officers, who have an incredibly difficult and demanding job. Unfortunately, the one-sided coroner’s inquests, which are supposed to determine whether shootings are justified, end up hurting police credibility and erode the public’s trust. A balanced, impartial coroner’s inquest is what the public and the police deserve