Gergory Freeman: Crime Witnesses Carry Big Burden. P-D 2/4/1994

Headline: CRIME WITNESSES CARRY BIG BURDEN
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Fri., Feb. 4, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 5B, Edition: FIVE STAR

DEE JOYCE-HAYES is frustrated.
The St. Louis circuit attorney and her staff have been searching high and low for witnesses in the senseless death of Linda Matlock. To date, they've come up empty-handed. Matlock, 39, was killed when someone fired a shot through her kitchen window a week and a half ago as she was helping her daughters with their homework.

A week ago, Joyce-Hayes and the St. Louis Police Department announced they had a suspect in custody. Their investigation indicated that several people had witnessed the suspect fire a weapon indiscriminately. To charge that suspect, however, some of the witnesses would have to step forward. Joyce-Hayes made an impassioned plea for help from anyone who had seen anything.
   "This case illustrates two appalling things: The senseless, random, stupid violence that is going on in this city and killing innocent people, " Joyce-Hayes said at last week's press conference, "and the problem with people who will not come forward when they have information that could lead to a conviction."
   One week later, no one has beaten a path to her door.
   Police believe they have the gun used to kill Matlock. They believe they have enough evidence to get an indictment against the suspect. They believe that is what the grand jury will do when it hears the evidence on Feb. 15.
   But without witnesses, Joyce-Hayes said Thursday, it will be difficult to get a conviction.

In that sense, she says, this case is not so unusual.
"Getting witnesses to come forward is a significant problem that we face, " she says. "It's analogous to the story about someone who was shot in a crowded poolroom, but everyone was in the restroom and didn't see anything."
The circuit attorney's office is unable to prosecute about a third of the cases it sees because witnesses will not speak up, she said.

Why won't people come forward?
   Fear, she says, is the chief reason.
   "There's a limit on what we can do to protect them. We can pay to move someone to a different part of the city or to a different city. But we don't have the money to do witness protection or to provide people with 24-hour armed guards."
   Joyce-Hayes recognizes the fear. "Certainly, there is some legitimate basis to people being fearful, although in most cases no witnesses are ever harmed, " she said. "But I could show statistic after statistic on the safety of witnesses and most people would make their decision on an emotional basis rather than a rational one."
   She also recognizes that in most homicides, the cases are not stranger against stranger. "If you know the suspect and come forward as a witness, even if a person is locked up he has relatives or friends or even gangs that are still out on the street, so that's a potential problem."
   She cited the general sense of mistrust of police, prosecutors and judges by many African-Americans as one of the problems in getting witnesses to come forward. "Unfortunately, there's been a historic hostility there, and that's part of the problem, " she said.

One problem with some potential witnesses is that they didn't see everything or didn't hear anything, Joyce-Hayes said.
"But most homicide cases are like a puzzle. If we can get enough of the small pieces, we can build a picture, " she said. "Very rarely does a case hinge on one witness alone."
While some will sometimes come forward to give police some information, many of those same people are often unwilling to go the next step and testify. "If they're not willing to do that, it usually isn't very helpful."

Thugs and murderers are running loose in some of our neighborhoods because the good people who live in those neighborhoods haven't summoned their collective courage to fight back.
   Until people are willing to come forward and finger those individuals who are literally getting away with murder, those murderers will be free to do it again and again.
   Who will be the next victim? Your neighbor? Your mother? You?
   As long as people are content to sit back and watch their neighborhoods being taken over by gun-toting thugs, the problem will worsen.
   Says Joyce-Hayes: "Good people have to be willing to take a stand against perpetrators of homicides, to draw a line and say `Enough.' People must be willing to take a risk.
   By not coming forward, they're taking a risk anyway - a risk that they won't be next."

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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