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(Salt Lake City-AP) -- The Salt Lake City Council has declined to help Mayor Rocky Anderson launch an investigation of police handling of a series of murder cases in the 1980s.
The mayor has been among critics of the police for their investigation into last June's kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. He write the police chief in February that more effort should be made toward finding Brian David Mitchell, who, along with his wife, are now charged with aggraved kidnapping.
Anderson announced this week that an independent panel would investigate the police handling of the Smart case.
He did not want the panel to start that investigation until the criminal proceedings are completed, but, in the meantime, he wanted the panel to investigate police handling of a series of murders in 1980s. Anderson, as a private attorney representing victims' relatives, clashed with police in the early 1990s.
The City Council last night rejected Anderson's request for 40 thousand dollars to hire a private investigator to help the panel investigate the 1980s murders.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
