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twitterSilence a frustrating enemy of justice
Witnesses of gang-related violence reluctant to speak
Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2009 | 2 a.m.
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Teenagers poured off the bus that afternoon. Afterward, from their hospital beds, shooting victims estimated 50 people were standing at the school bus stop when someone shouted “gun!”
Six people were hit. Four were high school students. None died.
Metro Police descended on the scene, a bus stop at Alexander and Walnut roads in December 2007, while national news outlets sprinted with the story: Las Vegas school bus shooting! Gunmen fire into crowd of kids!
“It was a big deal. It was on the news, on CNN. The world knew,” Detective Andre Carter said.
The world knew, but none of the witnesses wanted to talk.
Two teens later convicted of the shooting, gang members, were so certain of this silence, Carter said, they hung around in a nearby apartment after the incident, talking to police, changing clothes, washing their hands with bleach.
“It was as though they had no worries about getting arrested, as though nobody’s going to tell,” Carter said. “It didn’t work out that way.”
Solving a gang-related shooting often involves a little bit of forensic science and a lot of leaning on witnesses, trying to get someone to come forward. Witnesses fear retribution if they speak or are even suspected of speaking with police. This is complicated by the fact that most gang shootings happen in neighborhoods where police aren’t popular.
The bus stop shooting was over almost nothing. The incidents leading up to it began Dec. 10, when David Macias, then a ninth grader, got off his school bus and bumped into Nicco Tatum, 18.
Macias apologized: “My bad.”
Tatum beat him up.
Macias went home and called an uncle and a cousin. The next day they were waiting for Macias when he got off the bus.
Tatum was there too, standing with some friends. Kids from another bus that just let off were also standing around.
Tatum approached to fight. Macias took off his shirt, ready to box. Shots rang.
Macias got hit in the calf. But like all but one of the six victims, he couldn’t identify a shooter.
The guy who did identify a triggerman said he was only 75 percent certain.
This was Carter’s second school bus shooting. The first was in 2006 and involved different gangs, but similar circumstances: Lots of witnesses, none talking. Carter squeezed 36 interviews out of that investigation.
When it came to the Walnut and Alexander shooting, Carter started with the mother of a witness who didn’t want to come forward. He went to her house every day, several hours a day, for at least four days. The mother wouldn’t budge.
Her daughter was at the bus stop. She saw the whole thing. She saw Tatum’s friends, Dresden Williams and Franklin Jackson, teenagers themselves, fire into the air and then into the crowd. The mother wrote this all up in a note and slipped it to an apartment manager, who passed it on to police.
She figured police would send a message back through the same covert medium.
A few hours later detectives were knocking on her door. The mother flipped out. She had guests over, people who didn’t need to know she was helping the police. She kicked the cops out, furious.
Carter came by a few days later, coaxing. He spent hours at the apartment. When he wasn’t at the apartment, he was calling.
“(Detectives) are used to stuff like this — trying to tear down barriers that have been built. We get around it by not acting like cops,” he said. “I just talked to her about whatever, just to build confidence and get a rapport.”
The mother started slipping Carter information: She had heard where the shooters were hiding. Search warrants were served and police found Williams, Jackson and a gun used at the shooting. Tatum, who bought a bus ticket to Chicago after the shooting, was intercepted in Colorado and brought back to Vegas.
Eight days after the shooting, just after midnight on a Wednesday, the mother gave in. She brought her daughter to the kitchen table to look at a photo lineup. The girl, 14 at the time, quickly picked out Williams and Jackson. By that time, Tatum had told police the same thing: Those two did it.
Tatum pleaded guilty to attempted murder in July — he knew his friends had guns when he invited them to the bus stop, Carter said.
After hearing the testimony of the mother and daughter at trial, a jury convicted Jackson and Williams of conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder in July. They were sentenced Tuesday to spend at least the next decade behind bars.
Carter is now working other gang cases. There’s always another gang case, he says, another witness to woo.
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” he said. “It doesn’t take much for people to kill people anymore. Nowadays it doesn’t take much.”
Discussion: 26 comments so far…
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HOW TO PREVENT BAD GANGS ----
Gang problems will continue until our method of dealing with them is altered. ----
There are few Hannibal Lecters out there, but,
if you provide the individuals in question with; ----
a. Safe place to stay, a simple room will do. ----
b. Basic nutritional requirements. ----
c. Basic health care. ----
d. Instruction in subjects the individuals have interests in at a; ----
1. Time best suited to the individuals learning capabilities. ----
2. Location best suited to the individuals circumstances. ----
3. Rate best suited to the individuals learning capabilities. ----
These steps should eliminate BAD gangs, and would be much
cheaper then the cops, lawyers, judicial personnel, jails, and crimes
committed which they may be involved in. ----
Thank you, ----
Robert Evan Howard ----
aclepd.com ----
aclepd@aclepd.com
You Snitch, You Dead!
how to prevent bad gangs,
your ideas sound like what a parent is for.
Right on, Milfy!
People should educate themselves about gang activity in Las Vegas. Last I heard, gangs numbered in the hundreds in the valley. Many of these bad actors come from Cali. They are all looking for the same thing; Easy Prey.
I would personally not want to raise a family here.
Police should be used to a culture of silence since they practice it daily.
Just wait until Las Vegas gets hooked up to Los Angeles via the high-speed train; you'll really see what gang-banging is all about; ALL ABOARD!
Gangs need something better to do with their time.
Rolling, they can't; their police records are so padded they can NEVER not do crime; that's the system you created! Enjoy the Mayhem!
....This all is no more than a by product of Multi-Culturism during the past century...
The Government analysts, talking heads and social researchers who are associated with this subject should spend more time looking into the "whys and hows" of the community meltdowns of cities like Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Detroit, etc.,etc.,to include some of the gang affiliations with people in the prison system,networking within and across state lines, the drugs and money and prestige involved that some of these people have the opportunity to recieve related to gangs and their "we'll do things our own way" and "O tolerance to snitches" which alot of that originates in the prison system...and then you got the older members(not just teens, try middle age and older adults, women included) using the younger ones for things that they might go to prison for and the youngsters would be more apt to get released to their parents, and on and on and on, in a nutshell it amounts (my opinion) to certain classes of folks taking huge advantage of the system and getting away with it, because they realize that the judicial system (parole officers, judges, cops,etc.) is so buried in litigation and back-log,why would'nt they? its only been successful in some of these neighborhoods for the past 40-50 some odd years....Then, alot of them have the gal to complain when the Commerce and city budgets are spent elsewhere than the hell surroundings that they created for themselves and everyone else that has to deal w/some of issues related....the whole subject is a big joke that seems to be getting more and more outta hand...
Police departments should be intimately familiar with that code of silence mentioned in this article.
Hey, all -- seems no one here is familiar with Miranda, you know, the right to remain silent?
rejco100...little gangbanger wanna bees are nothing but a bunch of pu**ys who can't fight. Can't do anything without your "posse" or a gun. I have spent the better part of my life in the back woods of southeastern kentucky..and I killed to eat. I gutted my victims and hung them from trees. I'm just a peckerwood from the hill with too many guns...but cross me and know this..your gang banging days are over. I'm not hard to find..look for the big red Ford F-150 on Hammer Ln.
hey, cops.
how about for one week...just ONE week you stop handing out "revenue generating" tickets and do a sweep of this town.
we JUST had a guy that was an illegal alien molesting kids at a "church". then a few weeks before that we had someone selling drugs out of a "clinic".
he was an ILLEGAL ALIEN!!! how does an illegal alien get to run a business?
how many people in north las vegas have warrants? huh?
you could set up a "drunk driving checkpoint" at lake mead and pecos and catch at least 20 warrants a night. we all know that's what you do those checkpoints for.
clean up your town and you would have less need to get "help" from the very people you nickle and dime on a daily basis.
Hey,...Killerb...
The ACLU has an open post left by Gary Peck a couple weeks ago, I'm sure they would welcome you and your mindset with open arms....
bullies rule by fear...enough citizens get together and stand up to these punks watch them slink away with their tails between their legs..cowards all of them
...Hey stevem...
I honestly believe that w/the current administration in White House right now, "Profiling" is probably one of the most sensitive subjects in the Justice system right now, who cares what past history and national statistics have to say about anything....
"Police should be used to a culture of silence since they practice it daily."
hahaha.
David1961 -- golly, thanx for the job tip. But I'm not a lawyer and I'm not looking for a job. It's more fun to bother people like you here.
Remaining silent is an individual's right, yet exercising any right which condones neighborhood violence clearly isn't right.
Communities plagued by gang violence must be willing to organize themselves with the support, cooperation and vigilant presents of law enforcement to eradicate the 'violent silence' of their cultured wrongs.
"...exercising any right which condones neighborhood violence clearly isn't right."
Harley -- clearly that part isn't in the Constitution.
And this article only really mentions a single incident nearly two years ago -- that hardly qualifies as "plagued."
The witnesses in this story are not exercising their Fifth Amendment right to "remain silent." The right to remain silent is an application of the right not to incriminate oneself. In this story the witnesses are either scared or indifferent, but they aren't accused of anything. (A witness could also be a suspect, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.)
Auslander -- only your second sentence is correct. No one has to talk to any cop anytime, anywhere. The right against self-incrimination is personal, and it's up to the person to decide whether or not to be silent.
let's give 'em all termaters and see whut happens...
shecky -- what's a "termater"?
too bad the culture of silence doesn't extend to the mega bass gheto raps blasting out of the oldsmobile cutlass supremes, cadillac escalades, and land rovers...