When Will Feds Recognize Errors?

The U.S. Marshals Service didn’t learn last year from a serious misstep made by FBI Director Louis Freeh.

After disciplining a dozen agents for their roles in the Ruby Ridge fiasco, Freeh ignited protest by promoting siege commander Larry Potts to second in command. Inland Northwesterners, from Randy Weaver sympathizers to congressional representatives, were amazed that Freeh could be so cavalier.

Ruby Ridge has become synonymous for police overkill, blundering, coverup and government-sanctioned murder. The federal government’s culpability has been established in court, internal investigations, Congress and by a $3.1 million settlement with the Weaver family.

Eventually, Freeh realized his error and suspended Potts. The director then issued this apology: “The perception outside the FBI was that it was not a serious censure, because at the same time I was talking about promoting him. I should have been more sensitive to that perception.”

Marshals Service Director Eduardo Gonzalez should have been more sensitive, too.

Incredibly, Gonzalez has presented his service’s highest award for valor to the reconnaissance unit that bungled into a firefight with Kevin Harris and 14-year-old Sammy Weaver on Aug. 21, 1992. It isn’t clear who fired first. But it is clear that you don’t reward experienced lawmen for a preventable gunfight that left a boy, his dog and a U.S. marshal dead.

Idaho Congressman Helen Chenoweth indignantly observed that instead of handing out medals the U.S. Marshals Service should be “analyzing the errors to ensure that future operations are not bungled in the same manner.”

Nothing about Ruby Ridge is heroic.

The misguided surveillance mission that ended in bloodshed was instigated by false information provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The six marshals thought they were shadowing a dangerous white supremacist suspected in bank robberies - not a petty criminal who’d illegally sawed off shotguns.

Without question, the surviving marshals did suffer through a harrowing experience - in losing a comrade-in-arms on a North Idaho mountain, in being pinned down for hours with a dead colleague, in the widespread condemnation that followed.

But their actions launched one of this nation’s worst abuses of law enforcement power. A boy was shot in the back after his dog was killed in front of him. A mother was shot in the head while holding her infant daughter. Medals won’t cover the marshals’ dishonor.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board