FOR THE RECORD

The response to Det. Ivan Davison's off-duty shooting of an armed n July 13, only to subsequently fail an NYPD-ordered Breathalyzer test, featured a dramatic shift in tone not only by the NYPD but by the city's two tabloids as the week went on.

What was particularly interesting about the evolving positions of both the department and the tabs was that it didn't appear that the facts of the incident had changed significantly from the time that Detective Davison was being derided as "drunk" to the point where he was being lauded as a hero who deserved a medal.

The shooting took place early last Sunday morning on a street in St. Albans, Queens, where Mr. Davison came upon a group of men brutally assaulting another man. When he tried to intervene and identified himself as a police officer, one of the assailants, Stephen Allston, allegedly took out an automatic weapon and fired three shots at him, missing each time. Detective Davison returned fire with his off-duty gun, striking Mr. Allston twice.

NYPD Chief of Internal Affairs Charles Campisi ordered the Detective to take a Breathalyzer test, and when it came up slightly over the level that triggers a finding of legally drunk, ordered him suspended without pay. Later that day, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly lifted the suspension and placed Detective Davison on modified duty.

Two days later, after the Breathalyzer result became known to the media, the Post ran a front-page headline screaming, "Trigger Cop Was 'Loaded.''' The story under the headline said that veteran cops believed it was unlikely Mr. Davison would lose his job given that he had intervened to stop an assault and used his gun only after being fired upon, but the paper also quoted a "senior police official" who cautioned, "The jury is still out on this."

Mayor Bloomberg, however, later that day praised the Detective's action, expressing a sentiment shared by probably the great bulk of the city's population.

The following day, a Daily News editorial lauded the Detective's action while lamenting the fact that he had too much to drink, and suggested that the appropriate penalty would be to deny him the NYPD medal he otherwise would have deserved. The Post, however, with breath-taking speed had done a 180 on its "Loaded Cop" stance of the day before, running a front-page headline that proclaimed, "Pin a Medal on Him."

The paper subsequently took credit for Mr. Kelly's decision later that day to restore Detective Davison to full duty. (And for all we know, the Post had raised its estimate of the Detective so high that it would have called for him to get Mr. Kelly's job if the Police Commissioner hadn't come around.) The Commissioner remarked, "At grave personal risk, Detective Davison took appropriate and courageous police action to end an imminent threat of death or serious injury to himself and others." He also remarked that as "the facts became known, it became apparent that the shooting was within department guidelines."

It appeared, however, that the facts were no different than those that provided the basis for the Post story a day earlier when that senior police officer was reserving judgment on Mr. Davison's job security. (One particularly curious exception on that front was that by this time there had been a reduction in the blood-alcohol level for the Detective as reported by the NYPD; it initially claimed he had registered at 0.10, but now placed it at 0.09, still a fraction above the legal limit for being considered intoxicated.)

We'd have to guess that the shift of the matter into the court of public opinion was what influenced the speedy acquittal. The next day's edition of the News praised Mr. Kelly's use of discretion "in deciding that the proper penalty here is a pat on the back."

The restoration of Detective Davison's good name wasn't quite soon enough for the Post, however. Thursday's editorial demanded, "Now, where's his medal?" And Andrea Peyser, the Madame Defarge of tabloid columnists, quoted an unidentified Sergeant saying that the brief jackpot in which the Detective had found himself would discourage other cops who might have had a drink or two from taking action in similar circumstances unless the lives of their family members were at stake.

There's nothing like a little perspective.

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This newspaper's editor, Richard Steier, and Village Voice senior writer Wayne Barrett discuss the impact of longtime State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's departure on Albany on the July 23 broadcast of "The Communiqué," the radio show hosted by Bill Henning of Communications Workers of America Local 1180. The show will air at 1 p.m. on WNYE-FM, 91.5 on the dial.