Silence a frustrating enemy of justice

By Abigail Goldman

Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2009 | 2 a.m.

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.”