Last week, the St. Louis Police Department was up in arms because someone had the audacity and poor taste to leak a photograph of one bullet-riddled Carlos Boles, the drug felon who, during a March 8 sting, operation gunned down one of our own U.S. marshals (and injured two others) before being killed by opposing fire.
The police didn't know it at the time, but the distasteful photograph was taken by a St. Louis cop. In an e-mail to the media late yesterday afternoon, a police spokesman acknowledged the source of the leaked photo. Our bad!
When the photo first emerged last week, the police responded by saying that "actions like this threaten the professionalism and integrity of ALL law enforcement" and that an internal affairs investigation had been launched.
In yesterday's statement, they acknowledged that a SWAT officer with access to the scene the morning of the firefight has since come forward as the culprit. He's been removed from the SWAT team. The Internal Affairs division is now investigating how far the photo traveled across the Internet and whether any other cops should face discipline.
