Pubdate: Wed, 02 Mar 2005
Source: Kentucky Post (KY)
Copyright: 2005 Kentucky Post
Contact:  http://www.kypost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/661

STOP THE KILLINGS

Last week on these pages we published a thoughtful guest column by
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker, who expressed
concern over the intimidation of witnesses in criminal trials and
praised the bravery of those who had testified in recent cases.

Guess what happened Monday night?

A man who had testified earlier that day in the murder trial of an
alleged drug dealer was shot in the head. He died Tuesday,
Cincinnati's 14th homicide victim of the year.

Police cautioned that it would be a mistake to automatically assume
that Jose Vazquez's testimony and his shooting several hours later in
Walnut Hills were linked. And it bears noting that the man he
testified against, Jonathan White, was in custody at the Hamilton
County Justice Center when Vazquez was shot.

Still, the shooting and the murder trial illustrate -- as if any
further illustration were needed -- the brutality that plays out daily
on far too many of Greater Cincinnati's streets.

White -- who in 2002 and again in 2003 won dismissal of felonious
assault charges stemming from shooting incidents -- is on trial for
the 2003 murder of Michelle Weis in Pleasant Ridge. Prosecutors assert
that White believed Weis had stolen drugs from him. In open court
Monday, Vazquez testified that Weis was his girlfriend. He also
testified that White told him, "I got your girl, and you're next.''

Vazquez's shooting was just one of several that rocked the city in
recent days. Two teenagers, ages 15 and 18, were shot in
Over-the-Rhine Tuesday morning. Hours earlier a man was shot in the
face not far away in the same neighborhood.

Sunday evening a South Fairmount man was struck by a car and killed
after he reportedly tried to break up a fight that had broken out near
his home.

One other of the recent spate of killings bears mention here. Last
Friday morning gunshots tore through the front door of an apartment on
East McMicken Avenue in Over-the-Rhine, killing Terrence Carlisle
almost instantly. An advocate who works with the mentally ill said
Carlisle was a "nice little guy who would go off his meds once in a
while.'' But the last week of his life was hell, the advocate said,
because Carlisle was terrified of the drug dealers who had taken to
sleeping in his apartment and using it as a distribution point. Police
came to the apartment, the advocate said, but couldn't do anything
because they were told the visitors had permission to be there.

Was Carlisle's death retaliation because police had been called? We
may never know, just as we may never know whether Vazquez' shooting
was in retaliation for his testimony.

If there were easy answers, none of this would be happening.

Frustrated police and prosecutors have set up a witness protection
program, and they and most of the county's judges are trying
aggressively to protect those who are willing to testify against the
bad guys.

The one thing that can't happen is for the police or the decent people
in Cincinnati's crime-ridden neighborhoods to give up. The only
long-term answer is relentless prosecution of criminals. For that to
be successful, police must be aggressive. They must also get -- and
deserve -- the public's cooperation. 
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