ason Smith was losing it. I [screwed] up; I think I killed this woman, the Atlanta narcotics cop told partner Arthur Tesler in the yard behind a small brick bungalow on Neal Street. You guys got to help me.

Inside, a 92-year-old woman lay dead, killed by a fusillade of police bullets. Officer Gregg Junnier, his face grazed by a bullet and bleeding, stalked through the home looking for suspects and contraband.

But there were no dealers, no kilo of cocaine. The tip that brought police to 933 Neal St. was as bogus as the story they used to sell a judge on the raid.

Desperation and self-preservation kicked in. Smith remembered the marijuana seized earlier that day. Better make it look like a drug house, he reckoned. He pulled baggies of pot from his sleeve, nodded to Tesler, and planted them in the basement.

The Nov. 21, 2006, killing of Kathryn Johnston, two days before Thanksgiving, outraged residents of the northwest neighborhood, shocked the nation and rocked Atlantas police force. It laid bare the corruption of an out-of-control narcotics squad that lied to get search warrants and planted drugs on suspects.

This time, Smith had authored the trumped-up affidavit. For all three, it was business as usual.

On Monday, the three former officers will be together again in federal court to be sentenced for conspiring to violate Johnstons civil rights. A sentencing memo from prosecutors to the judge, along with prior testimony and other court records, reveals how the officers concocted a sophisticated cover-up that fell apart when Junnier, the squad veteran and the son of a cop, turned on his colleagues. He crossed the blue line.

Getting the story straight

Two hours after the shootout, Junnier lay in a hospital bed with flesh wounds to his cheek and thigh. Smith and Tesler sidled up to him, waiting for his room at Grady Memorial Hospital to clear.

Junnier was irritated; Smith seemed more concerned about getting their story straight than how he was doing. Smith was mad because Junnier hadnt answered his cellphone at the hospital.

The three officers were members of a squad with free rein to operate in a netherworld of drugs, criminals and danger. The rules and truth were measured on a sliding, situational scale. They had to depend on each other. But they werent friends. And now trust was in short supply.

But they were in this together. They began to construct what federal prosecutors would call a diligent and devious effort to deflect their complicity.

Their sergeant and lieutenant had already questioned Smith and Tesler. Now the two told Junnier the story they were going with: that they got the warrant for the raid after Alex White, a reliable snitch they often used, purchased crack cocaine at the Neal Street home. Theyd told their superiors they drove White to the house in a patrol car.

Junnier was incredulous.

Take an informant to make a buy in a patrol car? he asked. Youre going to have to come up with something better than that.

At 40, Junnier had 18 years on the force, eight in narcotics. Hed followed his father into the brotherhood of blue. His wife was a nurse, and Junnier worked second jobs to send her to school. He skipped lunch with his partners so he could clock out quickly and go home to their son and daughter.

But part of his side income came from security jobs prosecutors say he ran while on duty, jobs in which the cops, for weekly cash payments, provided extra surveillance for businesses in high-crime areas. Authorities suggest Junnier and others cut corners not only to more easily catch criminals but to save time to work their crooked jobs.

Now the job was to get White, the informant, on board with their story. Later that night, Smith called Junnier to say things were set with White.

Hes cool with everything, he told his anxious colleague.