WILMINGTON - The public is not likely anytime soon to learn the official account of how or why a New Hanover County sheriff's deputy killed an unarmed college student two weeks ago.

And if fired deputy Christopher Long doesn't go on trial for Peyton Strickland's killing in a botched police raid at his home, the public probably won't ever know exactly what happened.

That's because, under state law, official investigations into police shootings are shielded from public view unless they become part of a criminal trial or a civil lawsuit.

Law-enforcement officers in North Carolina have shot people to death at least 44 times in the past three years, according to the State Bureau of Investigation. The agency also investigated 71 nonfatal police shootings during the period.

In each case, the investigators' findings were confidential. In most, the officer was cleared.

No comment

None of the elected officials who know what happened in Long's case will disclose details, saying secrecy at this stage is not only the law, it's necessary. Divulging details now, officials say, might inflame public opinion against the former lawman, deny him a fair trial, or discourage witnesses, including police, from telling investigators the truth in future cases.

New Hanover District Attorney Ben David, the SBI and Attorney General Roy Cooper have declined to release the SBI's report on Long's shooting of Strickland.

"Cases must be tried in court and not in the media," David said during a news conference last week.

Chief David Donaldson of the UNC-Wilmington police, who had six officers at the scene, won't say what they did. The campus police were there to arrest Strickland on robbery and assault charges in the violent theft of two Sony PlayStation 3 video game sets Nov. 17.

Likewise, Sheriff Sid Causey refuses to say what his internal investigation into the incident showed; it led him to fire Long on Dec. 8. The deputy was part of the sheriff's heavily-armed Emergency Response Team, which stormed Strickland's rented home. Two other deputies also fired their guns but didn't shoot Strickland.

"That's an internal matter and therefore is not a public record," Causey said in an interview.

Some citizens say that ignores a key issue: the public accountability of government officials who might not be inclined to reveal damning or embarrassing truths.

"If Sheriff Causey can't uphold the duties of the political part of that office, then he should resign," Wilmington resident Victor Dale Mackey wrote last week to the Star-News, a daily Wilmington newspaper. "Those duties include being accountable to the public -- the citizens of this county who put him where he is."

The Star-News' editorialists also called for more openness.

"When official secrecy prevails, public suspicion grows -- as it should," an editorial said. "Officials who have nothing to hide shouldn't hide it."

It's an old debate, one that law enforcers keep winning.

Disclosure's effect

John Watters, the SBI's legal counsel, said criminal investigation reports must remain confidential in part because some crimes take years to solve. And even cases that seem over never really are, he said, because new revelations can come to light.

"When the intimate details of an investigation become public knowledge, you lose a very important law-enforcement tool," he said.

There's a natural public hunger for information in high-profile cases, especially those involving police or public officials, said Garry Frank, president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys. He has prosecuted police officers and corrupt public officials.

Balancing that, Frank said, is a district attorney's professional obligation not to trash the potential criminal defendant outside court, and the public's interest in promoting thorough investigations.

"I'm a public official. It would make me feel good for the public to know all the reasons for the decisions I made," Frank said. "But I don't think that overrides the interest of the public in having criminal investigations not be public record. It's supposed to be an exercise in getting the truth."

But citizens in a democracy have a duty to evaluate the performance of their elected officials, and that's hard to do without access to the facts, said Asheville lawyer Gary Rowe.

"Under the guise of 'investigation,' you can pretty much close those documents forever," said Rowe, who represented Asheville's daily newspaper and a television station in a failed effort to get an SBI report on a fatal jail fire that resulted in no criminal charges.

"When you have an ongoing investigation, clearly certain aspects need to be kept secret," Rowe said. "Once the investigation is closed, though, there's no real reason for the public to be denied access to the records. Protecting the public good also means disclosing, at the appropriate time, what the investigation showed."

Leaders of North Carolina's General Assembly seem unlikely to change the law to require greater openness in police shootings or public corruption cases. Senate leader Marc Basnight said this week that he thinks it's appropriate for the facts to come out later at trial -- assuming there is one.

And Attorney General Cooper, who championed public records as a state lawmaker, would not discuss whether the law should require public disclosure of the basic facts in police shootings.

"That's not something we really can get into right now," said his spokeswoman, Noelle Talley.

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