It only took 821 days, but the city of Cincinnati finally did the right thing by Roger Owensby.

Owensby was a petty criminal who died in a Roselawn parking lot while one Cincinnati police officer knelt on his back with an arm around his head and neck, and another officer pummeled him. Five other officers failed to get help for the man after he lost consciousness, and a sixth later lied about what he had heard of the incident.

All of that happened on Nov. 7, 2000. On Wednesday, 821 days later, City Manager Valerie Lemmiefired Patrick Caton, the cop who punched Owensby, and Victor Spellen, the one who lied about it. She suspended the five "bystanders."

There's a better-late-than-never quality about these firings and suspensions, but that is little comfort to Owensby's family. Roger Owensby Sr. said the city should have fired these cops immediately. He wanted them to suffer, to fight to get their jobs back "like my son fought for his life."

That's the voice of grief talking. The instant justice Owensby wanted wouldn't have been justice at all. But 821 days isn't justice either, and losing a job is hardly equivalent to losing a life. The city dragged its feet on this case. The county prosecutor shied away from prosecuting this death as vigorously as he could, as vigorously as he might have if, say, a petty criminal had killed a police officer.

It wasn't until Lemmie became city manager last year that any urgency was put into closing out the city's role in this affair. She has acknowledged that more than two years is far too long for something like this to drag on. Justice would have been somewhere between the instant punishment the Owensbys craved and the cold, stale terminations that occurred Wednesday.

Robert "Blaine" Jorg, the cop, who by kneeling on Owensby may have caused the "mechanical asphyxiation" that the coroner said killed him, couldn't be fired. He resigned from the Cincinnati force before city investigators finished questioning him. Jorg's trial for involuntary manslaughter in the death ended in a hung jury. Hamilton Country Prosecutor Mike Allen decided not to try him again, even after it was learned that Spellen had lied during his trial testimony. Spellen testified that Jorg had told him he only held Owensby in a loose head wrap during the incident. But during an interview with internal police investigators, Spellen said Jorg told him he had put Owensby in a choke hold. A funny twist to this case is that investigators and prosecutors thought Caton's actions were actually more reprehensible than Jorg's. The reasoning goes that the asphyxiation was accidental, but punching a helpless man is not. That could certainly explain the lack of enthusiasm for retrying Jorg, as well as the fact that the prosecutor didn't object in December when Jorg successfully petitioned the court to have his arrest record expunged.

Caton admitted hitting Owensby, but claimed it was justified force needed to subdue a fighting prisoner. He was charged with assault for hitting Owensby, but was found not guilty. He has a rocky service record marked by more swagger than self-control. Between 1997 and last April he had more citizen complaints for use of excessive force filed against him than any other cop on the force. He has a habit of using the "N" word when confronting black citizens, a pattern of behavior he continued even after the Owensby incident.

Spellen's lie was an intolerable breach of trust. You can't entrust enforcement of the law to a cop willing to testify to what he knows isn't true.

It seems obvious that these two guys are not the kind of people you want wearing police badges. So obvious that you wonder why it took the city 821 days to reach the same conclusion.

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Contact David Wells at 768-8310; fax: 768-8610; e-mail: dwells@enquirer.com. Cincinnati.Com keyword: Wells.