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correction

An article in the April 19 Metro section misspelled the name of Deborah Buie, one of two lawyers retained by the Prince George's County Police Department to prosecute internal administrative hearings. (Published 4/23/02)

The Prince George's County detective supervising surveillance the night Howard University student Prince C. Jones Jr. was killed should have called off the pursuit when he lost sight of another officer's vehicle and Jones's Jeep, police said this week during an administrative hearing for the detective.

The detective, Sgt. Al Bailey, a 15-year veteran, was cleared yesterday by a three-member trial board of any wrongdoing. The trial board ruled that there was insufficient evidence against Bailey after the officer who shot and killed Jones refused to testify. The department lacks the authority to compel that officer to testify.

Bailey, now a supervisor in the Bureau of Patrol, was chosen to receive one of the department's yearly awards but was then told not to attend last week's ceremony. After the ruling, Bailey said he was the scapegoat in the controversial shooting and that he looked forward to going back to "being a professional police officer. . . . I'm going to go back into the community and protect those who don't have anyone else to protect them."

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Even without the testimony of Cpl. Carlton Jones, who has been on military leave since October, the hearing provided new information about the events that led to the death of Prince Jones (of no relation to the officer) and seemed to signal a renewed aggressiveness by the department in policing its members.

The trial board refused to summarily dismiss the charge against Bailey even though it had been filed past the one-year deadline spelled out in the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights. And police counsel Debra Bowie fought attempts to drop the charges solely because Carlton Jones was not present.

Capt. Andy Ellis, a department spokesman, said that despite Bailey's being cleared of conduct unbecoming of an officer, the county "holds all supervisors responsible not only for themselves, but for their subordinates."

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He said that Bailey remains responsible for how the surveillance on Sept. 1, 2000, unfolded, "where he let it go and at what time he terminated it."

Bailey and Carlton Jones were working undercover in Hyattsville the night Prince Jones was killed, primarily searching for the black Jeep Cherokee that belonged to Darrell L. Gilchrist, a county man wanted in connection with at least two assaults of police officers and the theft of a police gun. He was a noted drug dealer, Bailey's attorney, Steve Sunday, said at the hearing this week, and was considered armed and dangerous.

The two narcotics detectives spotted a very similar Jeep, and despite its Pennsylvania license plates, became convinced that it belonged to Gilchrist, Sunday said, and so the surveillance began.

After several miles of following who they thought was Gilchrist, and after crossing the state line into the District, Bailey lost sight of Carlton Jones's unmarked sport-utility vehicle. According to phone records obtained by the department, the two men talked to each other "a number of times" on their cell phones, said Sgt. Robert Simpson, an internal affairs detective.

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Sunday said that Bailey and Carlton Jones had talked about ending the surveillance but decided not to. Carlton Jones told Bailey, "Wait a minute, and I'll make a U-turn," so he could follow Prince Jones, who had just turned around. "That's the last [Bailey] heard from Carlton," Sunday said.

The next moments are hazy, and police officials have refused to comment or elaborate on that night. After Bailey lost sight of his detective, Carlton Jones continued to follow Prince Jones into Fairfax County, and an otherwise uneventful surveillance culminated in the shooting death of Prince Jones, who was on his way to visit his girlfriend and mother of his 2-year-old daughter.

It is still unknown what led to the confrontation between them, but shortly before 3 a.m., Carlton Jones allegedly boxed in Prince Jones on a stranger's driveway on Beechwood Lane near Seven Corners. Prince Jones then allegedly reversed his Jeep into Carlton's unmarked vehicle, prompting him to fire his service weapon a number of times, killing Prince Jones and leaving him slumped over the wheel of his Jeep.

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Carlton Jones has been cleared of all internal charges and was on full-duty status before leaving for his military base in Aberdeen, Md., Ellis said. Last July, a Justice Department investigation concluded that Jones acted within his police powers when he killed Prince Jones; in October 2000, a Fairfax County grand jury decided not to indict him.

Since July, Ellis said, all narcotic units have been assigned to the narcotics enforcement division of the Bureau of Support Services, and all the narcotics detectives now report to Maj. Clint Lindsey instead of individual district supervisors, providing an "intensified level of supervision."

In the first three months of the change, he said, narcotics officers made 325 drug arrests, served 108 search warrants, confiscated 181 firearms and seized $16 million worth of drugs.

"Are we better today than in 2000 when this occurred?" he said. "Absolutely."

Prince C. Jones Jr. was on his way to see fiancee Candace Jackson and daughter Nina the night he was fatally shot.

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