Press Releases and Newsletters
Police fight culture of ‘no snitching’ (News & Observer)
Police fight culture of ‘no snitching’
DURHAM Someone knows who fired more than 30 bullets into a Shannon Road apartment in Durham in July, while three adults and a 4-year-old girl slept inside.
Someone also has information about who shot and killed Thomas McLean Spruill at a Durham townhouse complex in June.
But in both cases, those who know aren’t talking to police, and Durham’s police chief blames that on a culture against “snitching.”
In many urban areas, providing information to police is a violation of street ethics punished by anything from intimidation to death.
The phenomenon made national news in 2004 when a Baltimore DVD about snitching that included a cameo by NBA star Carmello Anthony was released. T-shirts with “No Snitching,” “Snitches Get Stitches” and similar slogans followed. As early as 1999, when rap music popularized the “No Snitching” slogan, local prosecutors began noticing less cooperation from co-defendants.
The anti-snitching code has decreased respect for the criminal justice system and made at least one Raleigh murder trial difficult to prosecute, said Wake County Chief Assistant District Attorney Howard Cummings. “And that lack of respect and other gang affiliation is what fuels the fear of coming forward,” he said.
Those who know who shot at the Shannon Road apartment but remain silent are as guilty as the shooter, Durham Police Chief Jose L. Lopez Sr. said.
“In essence, they’ve agreed to wait until the police finally capture the individual
The anti-snitching code is perpetuated at home and where children spend most of their day, some say.
“We’ve enabled a culture in schools where in many ways children who are bullied or victimized are in a helpless situation,” said Steven Asher, a Duke University professor who studies friendships, peer relations and social skills among youth. “Part of this happens because in America we put a huge emphasis on self-reliance. We really feel people should take care of themselves.”
At school, telling on someone can result in physical violence or social rejection.
“If you tell and others find out, you’ll see a resistance in people talking to you and hanging out with you,” said Trevon Spence, 17, a senior at Durham’s Jordan High School. “You start to lose your friends …. Sometimes losing them is worse than getting jumped.”
Middle school students have been suspended for not telling on their classmates, said Bill Thomas, director of the Boys & Girls Club Teen Center near WakeMed in Raleigh.
Who’s a snitch
The anti-snitching culture comes from rules meant for those in the street life, Thomas said.
“The cultures have crossed, and that is a problem,” he said. “You have gang members aligned with your average Joes. You have two worlds that are now becoming one.”
And even if a teenager tells someone, there’s a chance it may not be an adult.
“A parent can blow it out of proportion and say you can’t hang out with that person,” said Garcia Langley, 17, who also attends Jordan High. “And then they’re worrying about who you hang out with. With a friend, you talk about it and the conversation is over. With a parent, it keeps going.”
Police departments across the nation have fought the anti-snitching code with CrimeStoppers programs, where people can anonymously trade crime tips for cash. Boston was the first city to enable residents to text anonymous crime tips to police. Louisville, Ky., Kansas City, Mo., San Diego and others have picked up on it. Durham and other places are considering it.
Lopez said he thinks of snitching in its purest sense — when someone tells on co-conspirators. Residents contacting police about illegal activity in their neighborhoods are not snitches, Lopez said.
Such people are doing their civic duty, Durham County Assistant District Attorney Stormy Ellis said.
“Crime needs to be dealt with, but it takes personal responsibility to bring people to justice,” said Ellis, who handles gang cases. “We can’t prosecute cases without witnesses being present. So if people want to take back their neighborhoods, I don’t call it snitching. Speak out, speak up, and speak often.”
Sometimes, though, speaking up — or the perception of doing so — can be costly.
Ryan Alexander Barnes, 20, is currently serving seven to 10 years in state prison for shooting a fellow gang member several times in the stomach and torso in Raleigh in July 2008. Barnes received an order from a jailed gang leader to kill someone he thought was going to testify against him.
Evasive at trial
Prosecutors in Wake had difficulty getting witnesses to testify in the murder trial of Latrell “Murder” Latham, who was accused of killing a 74-year-old church deacon. Some witnesses were held in jail to ensure that they would appear in court.
During the trial, those witnesses weren’t as forthcoming as when they had previously talked to investigators. They were evasive on the stand and said they didn’t believe what Latham told them.
Cummings, a Wake prosecutor, said it was all “very frustrating.” Latham, 17 at the time, was acquitted in February because of the lack of evidence. “[The jury doesn’t] want to send someone to prison based on testimony where the person didn’t sit up straight or wasn’t forthcoming,” he said.
Lopez still thinks an arrest will be made in the Shannon Road incident.
“I think that someone, if they don’t come forward out of a sense of righteousness, they’ll come forward out of a sense of self-preservation,” he said. “They’ll be arrested, and they’ll give information to better their situation in the legal system.”
But Cynthia Bridges, whose home was shot at and whose son is charged with shooting a police officer who responded to the incident, isn’t as hopeful.
“I’m quite sure someone knows. I’m sure it wasn’t one man’s job,” she said. “Nobody would come into a complex and do that by themselves. But they’re afraid. Who’s going to protect them when they tell?”
[email protected] or 919-932-2025
Greensboro to welcome new manager (News & Record)
Greensboro to welcome new manager
Monday, October 12, 2009
By Amanda Lehmert
Staff Writer
If you hear a giant sigh of relief emanating from the Melvin Municipal Office Building this week, it’s probably be coming from Bob Morgan’s office.
He’s been filling in as city manager since March. On Friday, Morgan will hand control of the local government to new City Manager Rashad Young.
Young left his post as city manager in his native Dayton, Ohio, last week. He’ll attend his first Greensboro City Council meeting just a few days after moving to the city, on Oct. 20.
And soon, he could be coming to a council district near you. City Council members have been planning two welcome receptions at which residents and business leaders can meet Young.
Young also suggested meetings in each of the council districts would be a good way “to gain insight into the community and hear what is important to Greensboro residents,” he wrote in an e-mail to council members.
Stay tuned for times and places of those events.
Florida Express Lanes Project Showing Huge Improvement in Average Speeds (AASHTO Journal)
Florida Express Lanes Project Showing Huge Improvement in Average Speeds (AASHTO Journal)
“The program has dramatically improved the overall operational performance of I-95,” the report concludes.
Tolls vary depending on congestion levels. The more traffic, the higher the toll. An average weekday toll is 90 cents with a peak-period toll of $1.85 and an off-peak average of 47 cents.
The 95 Express Miami Project is a national finalist this year in the America’s Transportation Award competition sponsored by AASHTO, AAA, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
LaHood Cites “Tremendous Need for Infrastructure Support” (AASHTO Journal)
LaHood Cites “Tremendous Need for Infrastructure Support” (AASHTO Journal)
Noting that a $1.5 billion discretionary grant program created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act drew 1,380 applications totaling nearly $57 billion in requests, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testified Thursday that the response demonstrates “a tremendous need” for infrastructure investment.LaHood appeared at an oversight hearing held by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee marking the 225th day of the recovery act, which provided $48 billion for transportation projects over two years.
A major portion of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s recovery funding has been obligated for some 8,000 highway and bridge projects, LaHood told the committee. Of the $27.1 billion provided to the Federal Highway Administration, $19.4 billion, or about 72 percent, has been obligated, he said. He also noted that projects have ranged in size from road resurfacing to a $128 million Interstate 215 widening in San Bernardino, CA, that will provide major benefits to airport access and port traffic.
The secretary cited I-215 as one of the nearly 7,000 projects located in economically distressed areas, which were identified as a priority in the recovery act. LaHood provided a state-by-state table showing that 59 percent of the highway recovery dollars obligated by Aug. 31 were in economically distressed areas.
During LaHood’s testimony, T&I Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-MN, asked the secretary to direct FHWA to survey the states on the portfolio of the projects that are needed to upgrade highways to a state of good repair. He said that information would be valuable to the authorization legislation being drafted, which will address preservation. Oberstar said he wants to know how much of the preservation needs have been reduced by use of the recovery act’s funds, and to require each state to lay out a six-year investment plan with annual benchmarks for reporting.
LaHood also reported that 90 percent of the transit recovery grants have been awarded, amounting to 683 grants totaling $7.4 billion. The grants have enabled the purchase of 9,933 transit vehicles, with some 83 percent used to retire aging equipment. He added that states have chosen to “flex” over a quarter of a billion dollars from highway resources to fund transit projects.
Testifying on behalf of Wyoming, Department of Transportation Director John Cox explained how his state achieved top billing on Oberstar’s ranking of states’ recovery spending. Cox said 100 percent of the state’s recovery funding has been obligated and 99 percent of projects are under contract, creating some 1,739 jobs. He said the department “planned early and pushed hard” using the state’s regularly planned program to identify projects and worked closely with FHWA and contractors to get recovery projects rapidly underway.
Cox went on to stress the importance of rural transportation as part of the national program. He pointed out that states such as his “are a bridge” for freight traffic, and provide access for tourism. He also cited the importance of transporting crops and forest products, and the increasing growth of the energy industry in rural areas.
Chairman Praises Top States, Chides Those Who Have Not Spent Quickly Enough
Oberstar once again used the occasion of his oversight hearing to send letters to governors of the top five and bottom five states on his committee’s list of recovery spending progress. The committee identified Wyoming, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma as the top five states for putting to work highway recovery dollars.
“Wyoming continues to have the best record among all states,” Oberstar wrote to Gov. Dave Freudenthal. “I expect that your state will continue to keep up the good work and serve as a model for other states around the nation. Thank you for your efforts.”
The committee listed Virginia, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, Delaware, and Nevada as the bottom five jurisdictions for putting to work highway recovery dollars. Oberstar wrote their chief executives to urge faster implementation of recovery projects.
Greenville Crime Summit Highlights Use of High-Tech Tools to Fight Crime
Greenville Crime Summit Highlights Use of High-Tech Tools to Fight Crime
The Greenville City Council used many of the technological tools at its disposal Wednesday evening to present an interactive crime summit to city and county residents.
About 150 people gathered at the council chambers to participate in a lively panel discussion featuring local law enforcement and judicial system leaders and a representative of the faith community.
The summit was televised live on GTV9, the city’s governmental access channel, and interested residents who could not be at the live event were able to send in questions and comments to the event host Virginia Hardy of East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine.
Greenville Police Chief William Anderson said a multi-media event is an excellent approach to public involvement in important community issues like crime.
“I think we have some of the best officers in North Carolina, but we cannot do this without the help and support of the community. Having all these summits and town hall meetings is important for sharing information, and it helps us do our job better,” Anderson said.
Councilwoman Rose Glover said the crime summit was planned in January.
“We’ve had this type of event before, but not on quite as big a scale as this one. We want to get as many people involved as we can,” Glover said.
Pitt County District Attorney Clark Everett, another panelist for the public forum portion of the summit, agreed that public access to government officials for questioning and explaining policies is a good idea.
“Any event that allows the public to be better informed is a good event. Many of the forums that we share ideas at are not as good as this for getting ideas out to the public,” Everett said.
Questions about sentencing guidelines, court processes and some complicated social issues are difficult for the average citizen to reach a public official with, Glover said. But the crime summit’s multi-media approach allowed people to follow the discussion at home and send in questions from their living rooms, she said.
The summit began with Anderson’s presentation of crime trends during the past year, followed by an explanation of some of the many crime prevention programs the city and police department have in place, and some they are planning for the coming year.
Jonathan S. Williams, deputy secretary of the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, gave the keynote address.
Williams’ grandparents and father once lived in a house on Chestnut Street near Paris Avenue, a section described by Anderson as one of the police departments current “hot spots” of crime, he said.
Williams praised the police for their proactive approach to law enforcement and for the many quality programs it offers the community, including Community Watch, Crime Stoppers, the Gang Unit and PAL. He focused attention on the many efforts made to intervene in schools through resource officers and enrichment programs for children.
“Your department has received national accreditation as a law enforcement agency. That’s no small feat and I commend you for that milestone and the many initiatives your department has taken to eliminate crime,” Williams said. “The results look good. While the city is continually growing, there has been only a marginal increase in crimes.”
Anderson’s prediction that the public would appreciate the forum and participate in a civil discourse on crime was on target.
The panel answered questions from Internet participants and members of the audience, and in many instances shared varying perspectives about the same topic or question.
In addition to Anderson and Everett, the panel was filled out by Sheriff Mac Manning, Chief Kim Williams and Claire Bass, both of Probation and Parole, District Court Judge Joseph Blick and Rev. Tyrone Turnage.
By Michael Abramowitz
The Daily Reflector
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Greenville Crime Summit Uses High-Tech Tools
Fill-in Judges to be Paid Again (Winston-Salem Journal)
State reinstates pay for emergency work (Winston-Salem Journal)
Judges who fill in for their colleagues will now be getting paid again for their services.
The director of Administrative Office of the Courts suspended pay for emergency judges in April after the General Assembly cut the department’s budget by 6 percent.
Retired judges had agreed to volunteer after payment for emergency judges was suspended.
Emergency judges are retired or current judges who fill in for their colleagues for any number of reasons, including illness, death in the family or conflict of interest.
They are paid $400 a day for their services, and the Administrative Office of the Courts spends about $1 million a year on emergency judges, who are also reimbursed for travel and meals.
The payments were reinstated briefly in August after Gov. Bev Perdue and state legislators agreed on a budget.
But John W. Smith, the director of Administrative Office of the Courts, stopped the payments when Perdue ordered state agencies to cut their spending by 5 percent.
Sharon Gladwell, a spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the Courts, said yesterday that the department has saved enough money from the cuts to resume paying emergency judges.
But she said that there’s no guarantee that the payments won’t be suspended in the future.
“If we exhaust the funds or are confronted with other cutbacks, we will have to reassess,” she said.
The tight budget also forced court officials to cut spending by leaving vacant positions unfilled.
Superior Court judges were ordered to stay in their home counties to save travel expenses, and mileage reimbursements dropped by half — from 50 cents to 25 cents a mile.
Perdue also asked judges to take a voluntary pay cut of 0.5 percent.
Of the 395 judges statewide, 376 agreed to the cut.
By Michael Hewlett [email protected]
Published: October 2, 2009
Transportation Policies Have Miles to Go and Not Much Time (Washington Post)
Transportation Policies Have Miles to Go and Not Much Time (Washington Post)
October 3, 2009 “Darn — delayed by yet another stimulus-funded road construction project.” This thought, which recurs while I’m driving, provokes another: “Will all these widely dispersed road construction projects add up to something that improves mobility in the decades to come?”
If transportation planning and funding continue as in the past, the answer is: probably not.
A few projects — such as the Intercounty Connector between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Virginia’s Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project — represent new infrastructure investments, planned years ago, that could measurably improve and sustain long-term regional transportation efficiency.
But other projects, such as widening arterial roads, will increase capacity and relieve congestion only in the short term. And many stimulus-funded repaving projects seem to be little more than cosmetic tweaks.
So how timely that the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs hosted a conference last month titled “Beyond Stimulus: Toward a New Transportation Agenda for America.”
Many of the nation’s top transportation experts converged on Charlottesville to wrestle with difficult questions such as: Is there a crisis? What are the most severe transportation problems, and what should be done to solve them? Which solutions are politically and economically feasible? And what should be the role and responsibilities of the federal government concerning transportation policy and projects?
If a crisis exists, and if transportation is so vital to the economy and so strongly affects energy consumption, carbon emissions and climate change, many also asked why transportation is not higher on the nation’s political agenda.
Participants didn’t mince words in citing deficiencies in transportation policy, planning and project development at all levels of government and concerning all modes of transportation.
— There is no national transportation vision analogous to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s historic 1958 interstate highway program. Federal road and rail transportation policy seems fragmented and obsolete.
— Surface transportation planning has not been adequately coordinated with land-use and zoning, housing, environmental, health and other public-sector planning efforts, much of which occurs at state and local levels.
— Improving road, rail and transit safety needs more attention. Reportedly, treatment of injuries from car accidents costs $200 billion annually.
— Intermodality — one travel mode linking conveniently and efficiently to other modes — is below par. Smooth, direct connections among airports, transit systems, road networks, railway terminals and ports is often lacking.
— The gap between funding that’s needed for essential transportation infrastructure and funding that’s available is wide and growing wider. But, too often, taxpayers are unwilling to finance necessary transportation investments.
— Not charging for roadway use — “mispricing” — guarantees traffic congestion. Most Americans feel that “freeways” and public streets are entitlements and oppose paying for the miles they drive. They also are unaware of how much each mile of roadway and driving costs.
Conference participants proposed several strategies.
Most of the nation’s economic activity and population is concentrated in urban regions and will be more so in the future. Therefore, a new transportation agenda must focus on metropolitan, multi-modal initiatives.
Federal, state and local transportation planners must collaborate continually with planners concerned with land use, zoning, housing, health, energy and the environment to achieve smart-growth goals as well as improved mobility.
Vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fees seemed to be the preferred method for providing future transportation funding. The rationale is compelling.
With smaller cars powered by new technologies, gasoline consumption is destined to plummet, as is gasoline tax revenue, a primary funding source for building and maintaining roads.
Meanwhile, transponder technology, akin to E-ZPass, could record and charge for miles driven. Like the Intercounty Connector plan, charges could vary with time of day, vehicle type and location. Such systems are operational in some countries.
Conference participants believe that implementing VMT charges is unavoidable. They spoke about risks — to the U.S. economy, global competitiveness, travel efficacy and safety, the environment and quality of life — if a new, multi-modal transportation agenda, with new approaches to planning and pricing, is not adopted with urgency.
Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect and a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland.
N.C. applies for $5B from feds for high-speed rail (AP)
N.C. applies for $5B from feds for high-speed rail (AP)
North Carolina has applied to the federal government for more than $5 billion to improve rail service between Charlotte and Washington.
Gov. Beverly Perdue announced Friday state officials had applied for the second round of federal stimulus funds for four high-speed rail projects. The recovery law had $8 billion in competitive high-speed rail grants nationwide.
State rail division director Pat Simmons says North Carolina’s application includes a joint plan with Virginia to improve the corridor between Charlotte and Richmond, Va.
Simmon says the application also seeks money to add second tracks between Raleigh and Charlotte to increase rail traffic volume and to provide a more direct northbound route out of Raleigh to Virginia.
“These projects are critical for communities throughout our state,” Perdue said. “North Carolina’s commitment to rail puts us in strong contention for these funds.”
Posted: Oct. 3, 2009
