Posted on 01/04/2002 3:45:00 AM PST by tberry
Nation: Columbine parents' request for investigation into possible police killing denied
By STEVEN K. PAULSON, Associated Press
LITTLETON, Colo. (January 3, 2002 10:05 p.m. EST) - Federal and county prosecutors on Thursday refused to convene a grand jury to investigate allegations that a police officer accidentally killed a student during the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999.
Within hours, Gov. Bill Owens urged prosecutors to reconsider.
"A grand jury investigation may be helpful in resolving the continuing controversies surrounding Columbine," he said in a statement.
U.S. Attorney John Suthers said no one had formally requested a federal investigation and no federal crimes have been alleged.
"You have to believe there was criminal conduct to convene a grand jury. We have no reason to believe there was anything criminal that took place during the investigation," said Pam Russell, spokeswoman for Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas.
The parents of some of the slain Columbine students have said they have proof that an officer accidentally shot student Daniel Rohrbough and that authorities tried to conceal it.
During a news conference Wednesday, the student's father, Brian Rohrbough, played a tape recording of a voice he identified as Arapahoe County sheriff's Deputy Jim Taylor describing his son's shooting. The man on the tape says he was dispatched to Columbine when gunfire broke out.
"I'm right there and I see this through my window ... You could hear glass breaking, you could see kids running everywhere, and that's when I see the boy coming down the sidewalk, you know, and I see him just fall down," the man says. The man says he recognized the boy as Rohrbough's son through a photo in a newspaper the next day.
The recording was made without Taylor's knowledge 11 months after the shootings during dinner with Daniel Rohrbough's mother, Sue Petrone, and her husband, a longtime friend of Taylor's, Brian Rohrbough said.
In a statement taken by the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office on Monday, Taylor said the only thing he told the Petrones was what he had seen on television and read in newspapers. Taylor did not return calls left with the sheriff's office seeking comment.
Arapahoe County Sheriff Pat Sullivan said he was disturbed by the apparent contradictions and had asked to meet with Rohrbough.
According to authorities, Columbine students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher during the April 20, 1999, attack before committing suicide.
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