After teen shooting, Boston police plead: 'Have courage' to speak out
Following the murder of a teenager in front of a Boston high school Wednesday afternoon, Boston police exhorted community members to help them solve the crime by offering information.
An investigator checks under a car at the scene of a multiple shooting outside the Jeremiah E. Burke High School, in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, Wednesday, June 8, 2016.
Angela Rowlings/Boston Herald/AP
The broad-daylight shooting of four people in front of a Boston high school on Wednesday put to the test the bonds Boston police have been striving to develop with community members. What they are hoping for: people willing to come forward as witnesses.
鈥淭here are plenty of people who know what happened yesterday,鈥� Boston Police Chief Evans said. 鈥淓nough with the 鈥榮top snitching鈥� stuff. We鈥檝e got a mother who lost her 17-year-old child. Step forward, have some courage and solve this one.鈥�
A high school junior was killed, and two other students and a 67-year-old woman were injured in in Dorchester, a neighborhood in Boston, reported The Boston Globe. Students said in what Chief Evans said was not a drive-by shooting, but likely the result of a dispute that started at the school, according to CBS Boston.
Public officials stressed that the whole community had to take responsibility for seeking justice in this case 鈥� first and foremost by in order to move the investigation forward.
鈥業t鈥檚 amazing how much the investigators rely on information coming from the community,鈥� David Carter, professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University tells 海角大神 in a phone interview.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 get that sense from watching television shows about forensics and investigative diligence. In reality, it鈥檚 what you get from the community that matters, so there鈥檚 got to be trust there to do a homicide investigation,鈥� says Professor Carter, who led a Department of Justice research project into police departments that were most successful in resolving homicide investigations. Nationally, only about .
鈥淚f people trust the police, they鈥檒l volunteer information without even being asked. We have the research to prove it,鈥� Carter says.
鈥淚t is important, yet it is not enough to ask the community to come forward with leads,鈥� Chaplain Clementina M. Chery, president and chief executive officer of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute tells 海角大神 in an email. 鈥淲e also need a shared understanding of what we do as a city and how we take care of all impacted families when a homicide happens.鈥� The Peace Institute provides emotional and practical support to Massachusetts families that have lost loved ones to homicide.
So far in 2016, the Boston Police Department has , and police are still asking for community members to submit tips on the .
The Boston Police Department has spoken out about the importance of聽. In November, the department to promote a community approach to solving homicides. Each month, the police department releases a video of family members of homicide victims whose murders have never been solved asking their neighbors with information to come forward.
For Ms. Chery, the key to preventing future violence is "a city-wide聽homicide response protocol that is coordinated, consistent, and compassionate."
"Homicides cause physical, emotional, and聽financial stress that can have a destabilizing effect on entire communities. Effective and equitable homicide聽response is an essential component of violence prevention," Chery tells the Monitor in an email. "We are here and ready to work聽toward this shared goal with all of our partners."