The case of the three Atlanta cops who shot and killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in a botched 2006 drug bust is close to an end after the three cops got federal prison sentences of five, six, and ten years.

Details of the shooting have been fleshed out even in the last month. It looks like this is what happened:

The three cops, who we’ll call Tesler, Smith, and Junnier, since those were their names, worked for the Atlanta police department. One day, Officer Tesler caught a small-time drug dealer. Officer Tesler wanted to catch bigger drug dealers.

“Gee, Mr. Dealer, I’d certainly appreciate it if you’d find me a bigger dealer, lest I otherwise be forced to arrest you and place you in jail,” Tesler didn’t say, but that’s the point he got across.

“Let me say, as plausibly as I can, that there’s – how big did you want? – like a kilo of cocaine in that house with the drug dealer named, um, Sam,” the drug dealer didn’t say, but, again, we reach the general point.

Now, typically drug dealers lack trustworthiness, so you get a controlled buy – you get an informant to go buy drugs. Then you get a warrant. Alas, the informant was busy (possibly renovating a school for handicapped children, though that’s not the way to bet.) This was regrettable, since there was no way to get a warrant without some more reliable information.

Smith had a solution: If all you need is a controlled buy, write about the controlled buy in a fictitious manner. Like Bochco before him, he wrote about the buy as if it happened. With a kilo and a badass dealer, they got a no-knock warrant.
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No presser for the PM:

Officials denied the Prime Minister was being snubbed after it emerged that the new president would not make himself available for the traditional joint appearance before the White House media.

This is no snub. Obama must not have any questions that might make him look bad. But this is also no special treatment.

The relationship certainly is special – for the UK.