There’s an article in today’s paper about Police Chief Settingsgaard’s press conference yesterday regarding unsolved murders. I’d like to comment on two pieces of info that seem a bit contradictory to me (emphases mine):
Despite new technologies that help collect evidence, officers still often rely more on witnesses to solve cases. Settingsgaard said fear and apathy may be to blame for the lack of information coming from the public….
And while police have made arrests in some cases, those people are not always prosecuted by the State’s Attorney’s Office. “Their burden of proof goes beyond what we need to make an arrest,” Settingsgaard said. Those that do come forward as witnesses, “their character may make them unbelievable (in court),” he said.
So, if I read this right, the police need witnesses, and in several cases the police have witnesses, but the states attorney says the character of the witnesses “make them unbelievable” in court, so they don’t prosecute. And then everyone’s surprised by the apathy of other potential witnesses.
Evidently the states attorney is looking for fine, upstanding citizens — maybe a banker or a Cat exec, you know, someone with a lot of integrity — who just happens to have been on the south side in the middle of a drug deal and has witnessed a murder.
Call me cynical, but I don’t foresee any big breakthroughs on the unsolved murders.
I entirely sympathize with the problem of crappy witnesses, but Peoria’s State’s Attorney office seems to dismiss a ridiculous number of cases for being either “too hard” (murders with crack-smoking witnesses) or “too trivial” (jaywalkers).
I wasn’t under the impression we elected our State’s Attorney to only prosecute the slam dunks.
My brother’s an ASA in Cook County — I’m going to ask him what their criteria are for dumping a case and if crack whores make legitimate witnesses in Chicago. Because it’s my impression he prosecutes a lot of these crappy cases with rotten witnesses, but maybe I have a sample bias because he complains about those more often.
What about Brian Alexander, the East Bluff resident who was shot and murdered outside him home on Dec. 19, 2004? A poor investagation and has not gone anywhere. Police had screwed it up from day 1 (12/19/04) Not drug related, gang related just what? A person in the wrong place , in the backyard of his home.
Would be a good “cold case ” show. just ask the police about Brian’s case then ask the states Attorny. It will open your eyes as how screwed up things can and have become. Kevin Lyons spoke to the Neighborhood Allince and went into great detail about this case. I think the police and others want that case forgotten, and just move on. Sad Sad Sad.
Heck, Soon it will be a new year and the stats will start over at 0.
Catch and release Kevin. I could care less about the prosecutors win v loss record. A good record tells me that they do not even attempt to try all but the slam dunk cases, lazy bastards, we pay you to work. Fire this asshat at the next election, he has got to be the biggest threat to safety in the entire city. Kevin, people die because you won’t try. Out you filthy animal and don’t let the door hit you in the ass.