Don't feed us a line, show us the pictures

Omaha's police chief says nuh uhhhh, one of his officers did too shoot a teen-age suspect in the front of the leg, not the back, because the kid did too aim his gun at the pursuing policeman.

Marcel Davis Jr.'s lawyer, Bill Gallup, had alleged the Omaha cop gunned his client down from behind, saying the teen reported having thrown the gun away before he got shot. Here's the latest report from the Omaha World-Herald:

Photos from a medical examination of the gunshot wound sustained by a 14-year-old boy showed the bullet entered the front of the boy's leg, not the back, Police Chief Thomas Warren said today.

Warren offered the information in light of a statement made Thursday by J. William Gallup, the attorney for Marcel Davis Jr. Davis was in court after he was accused of pointing a gun at a police officer as he was being chased from a car that police had stopped near 48th and Boyd Streets.

The police officer, Nicholas Andrews, fired at Davis, hitting him once in the leg. A loaded 9 mm pistol was found at the scene. The gun was reported stolen June 2.

Davis was charged Thursday with attempted first-degree assault on an officer, use of a firearm to commit a felony and possession of a stolen firearm. Douglas County Judge Stephen Swartz set bail at $100,000. Davis would have to post 10 percent, or $10,000, to be released.

Gallup, after Thursday's court hearing for Davis, said his client told him that the bullet pierced his right calf. "He was shot in the back of the leg, not front," Gallup said.

Warren said today that's not what crime lab photographs from the medical exam show.

According to the photos, Warren said, "the entry was to the front of the leg, to the shin area, approximately 4 inches below the kneecap . . . There was no entry sustained to the rear or the calf area.

"There is no injury to the rear of his leg."

Gallup, when contacted today, said he isn't disputing the medical report. "My client said he got hit in the rear area of the leg," he said. "His position is that he was running away. He did not point a gun at the policeman."

Gallup said that Davis told him he threw the gun in some bushes as he got out of the car because he didn't want to get caught with a gun. Gallup said witnesses would confirm that account.

Officer Bill Dropinski, a police spokesman, said today that the gun was found near Davis when he was apprehended, "not back by the car."

Gallup said police are taught to shoot assailants in the chest because that's the biggest target. Andrews, he said, shot Davis in the leg "either because he's a poor shot or he was simply trying to stop a guy he was chasing . . . He did not perceive the kid to be a threat, he was just hitting him in the leg to halt his flight."

I LOVE THE SMELL of a good pissing match in the afternoon. Then again, no, I guess I don't . . . ewww. Whom do you believe?

In one corner, we have one of the best criminal-defense attorneys in the Midwest, working like hell on behalf of a client who screwed up but good. You pretty much know the kid is guilty of something.

A good defense attorney usually doesn't go off half-cocked when it matters. Or if he does, it's usually calculatingly half-cocked. And he says he has witnesses, who at the time also complained to local TV reporters that the officer had no reason to shoot the kid.

In the opposite corner, you have Tom Warren, chief of the troubled Omaha Police Department. Bill Gallup is a better lawyer than Tom Warren is a police chief.

Warren presides over a department that's had a problem with rogue cops and a culture of intimidating minorities and, sometimes, brutality. More than one -- more than two . . . more than three -- African-Americans in Omaha have been shot and killed by police under questionable circumstances over the past 35 years or so.

And recently, one Omaha cop was convicted of sexual assault on a local prostitute.

Despite all this, Warren and the mayor's office are quick to completely exonerate police whenever anyone complains about their actions and completely demonize the complainer. All before anyone -- even OPD internal-affairs officers -- has had a chance to thoroughly investigate anything.

THE OMAHA COP SHOP has problems. The teen-aged knucklehead has problems -- big ones -- not counting the two he's had since conception. Whom do you believe?

Is "None of the above" an option?

Here's the bottom line: If Tom Warren wants us to believe his version of the truth, he needs to pony up the medical report and the accompanying pictures. He also needs a third-party investigation to vouch for his officer's actions.

Because while a little hoodlum who got on the wrong end of some hot lead from an Omaha cop may have little to no credibility, what emanates from Omaha police headquarters nowadays scarcely has more.