Cops Kept Cool, City Not Inflamed

Discretion is almost a mantra for police officers. It means that in tough situations, officers rely on their knowledge of the law and their own judgment. They also tap into past experiences to help them deal with the present one. Common sense is another way to say it, but that doesn’t get to the complexity of discretion.

A textbook example of discretion happened in the recent DiBartolo case. As almost everyone knows by now, Spokane County Sheriff’s Deputy Tom DiBartolo was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife, Patty.

The whole thing is a tragedy; a wife and mother is dead. Extended family members of both Patty and Tom are devastated. And the couple’s co-workers must face the anger and sadness that comes when trying to puzzle out what happened to two people they thought they knew. Most tragic of all, the DiBartolo’s five children have lost both their parents. Their mother is dead. Their father is in jail.

But the tragedy could have been worse in one way. It could have inflamed our community. It could have set black against white. It could have further fueled perceptions that the police department, and several other Inland Northwest institutions, are racist and uncaring.

This didn’t happen. Because of discretion.

DiBartolo told police that a black man shot his wife. A sketch was drawn. But Police Chief Terry Mangan withheld the sketch and the description of the alleged assailant’s race. Mangan used discretion. He remembered that most victims are murdered by someone they know. Remembered the terrible lessons of Boston. Remembered the terrible lessons of South Carolina.

In Boston in 1989, a man shot and killed his wife and then wounded himself. He wanted her insurance money. So he set it all up and then blamed black men. Police swept the streets looking for these African-American murderers. They didn’t exist, and when this was revealed, the black community responded with understandable outrage.

In South Carolina in 1994, Susan Smith drowned her babies and blamed black men. “It’s always been too easy, too comfortable in our society to blame a black man,” said the Rev. Percy “Happy” Watkins of Spokane. “There’s never an apology, even if they arrest someone else.”

In Spokane now, there won’t be a need for apology. Maybe in future cases like this, in other cities around the country, officers will remember Boston, remember South Carolina and remember Spokane. And then do their police work the best they can. That’s discretion.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rebecca Nappi/For the editorial board