I Just Want to Testify

Much ado has been made about the “stop snitching” Zeitgeist that seems to be infecting minority communities of late. Rappers are issuing warnings against testifying in their lyrics, and some are even doing interviews where they virtually encourage violence against those who cooperate with police.

However, as I stated in an earlier column the issues of cooperating with police and taking the witness stand are much more complex than they seem at first blush. Rather than the stark black or white of “either you’re a good citizen who helps the police and prosecutors, or a bad citizen who doesn’t,” in reality it’s much more variegated. But there can, perhaps, be answers to the problem — keep reading.

Let it be said from the outset that if we morph into a community where we stand mutely by and allow violence to be perpetrated on fellow citizens, then we have indeed devolved as a society — there can be no question about that, period. Some would make the argument that we have already turned into that sort of society. But the stop snitching movement — if “movement” is the right word — was originally intended to target the paid, professional snitches who lie on people with impunity, and send innocent people to the joint just so they can continue to roam the streets selling drugs and committing other crimes ... all with a shield of police immunity and protection.

That’s who Eric “Big Willie” Wilson was, and so too Jerrell Bray, who now charges that he and DEA agent Lee Lucas knowingly conspired to put innocent people in prison. Many wrong doors of innocent people have been kicked in by police because of misinformation given to them by snitches — informants the police knew (or should have known) were natural born liars.

There is a great suspicion that all too often police act on bad snitch information — without some sort of independent verification — in hopes of beefing up their arrest stats. Truth be known, most cops can’t find their own asses with both hands absent someone telling them where it is, and therefore have to depend on snitches — no matter how honest or dishonest the snitch happen to be. But if we are interested in a fair discussion on the implications of snitching, than we simply have to differentiate between snitch behaviors.

Recently there was a tidbit in a local weekly newsmagazine in regards to a low-level Mafioso who was relocated to Cleveland as part of the federal Witness Protection Program. It seems the dude was rolling over on some crime family members in New York City and needed a safe place to lay his head ... if he wanted to keep it firmly attached to his shoulders. The program has been around for years, simply because it works so well.

But contrast that with police, prosecutors and even judges who ask — actually demand — that inner-city residents cooperate (and sometimes publicly get on the stand a testify against hardened gangbangers) but with absolutely no guarantee of their own safety or that of family members. It’s one thing for columnists to sanctimoniously call for others to do their civic duty from the safety of a newsroom protected by armed guards (or from some safe, cozy suburban enclave), but quite another to put your life on the line by getting on the witness stand while still living in a neighborhood where flying bullets are a common occurrence. Dude, was that a backfire I just heard?

Ghetto logic (and survival instincts) strongly suggests ... “Hey, one person is already dead, should I open my mouth and make it an exacta?” Be honest now, what would you gentle readers do in a similar circumstance — with your life potentially on the line? A number of Cleveland’s 100-plus homicides this year were in retaliation against someone for testifying.

However, as I stated earlier, there is a potential solution: The Northern Ohio Violent Crime Consortium, a recently formed federally-funded program designed to combat gun violence, was just awarded a $5.8 million grant for the cities of Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and Toledo. Why not use those funds to protect the lives of potential witnesses in gun violence cases? Why not start a local Witness Protection Program? If more funds are needed they certainly are available ... just call it ghetto-homeland security and watch the money flow in.

But trust this: People in Ivory Towers overlooking crooked rivers, safely insulated from the hubbub of everyday life in the ‘hood, will quickly come up with all sorts of reasons why these funds cannot be used to protect witnesses. After all, the money was intended for the purchase of more high-end cop toys, bringing on more well-connected staffers and better-paid consultants, and for putting up additional meaningless billboards — billboards owned by companies that were huge contributors to Republican coffers. And we are left to scratch our collective head and wonder why we can’t solve the problem.

Allow me literary license to construct a scenario: The daughter of a high-ranking Washington official is visiting friends in Cleveland and they go out for a night on the town. Gunshots are fired at a Warehouse District club and the young woman is killed by a stray bullet. There is only one witness to the shooting, and he wants to be protected against retaliation in return for his testimony against the shooter. Would he get it? We’ll, we all know the answer to that one. Remember, they even find a way to protect Mafioso ... but not the lives of inner-city residents that they demand put their safety in jeopardy in the name of “civic duty.” What we are actually saying here by our inaction is that the lives of neither the victims of violence, nor the lives of the potential witnesses to it, are worth very much.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com
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