Little help for police in funeral shooting

Little help for police in funeral shooting
Witnesses may be afraid to come
forward, police say

Michael Friscolanti
National Post
Monday, November 21, 2005
Detectives hunting for a brazen killer who opened fire during
a funeral Mass have received little help from potential
witnesses
-- a frustrating but familiar scenario for police assigned to
investigate the city's soaring number of gangland murders.
More than 300 people were inside the west-end church on
Friday afternoon when 18-year-old Amon Beckles, smoking
a cigarette near the back door, was shot and killed by at
least one unidentified gunman.
Yet despite the large crowd
-- and nationwide outrage over the crime
-- few bystanders have offered to help homicide detectives
crack the case.
"I think a lot of people that have information are fearful to
come forward," Detective-Sergeant Mario DiTommaso,
the lead investigator, said yesterday.
"The police can't solve these crimes on our own.
We need the assistance of the community."
-the police has to realize this is a
two way street and informants
want protection...that they have
failed to provide in the past.
Detectives have seen this before. In Toronto's inner-city
neighbourhoods, where many residents are more fearful
of gangs than police, people would rather keep quiet
than risk retaliation.
"It's very, very frustrating for us, particularly in cases
where we know that there are witnesses,"
said Superintendent Ron Taverner, who runs the police
division in northwest Toronto where the shooting
occurred. "There are multiple witnesses, yet we get
no calls. Very frustrating."
Friday's funeral was in honour of Jamal Hemmings,
a 17-year-old who was murdered in a parking lot
this month. Mr. Beckles, his long-time friend, was with
Jamal the day he was shot, and later told numerous
people that he was also being targeted.
Against the urging of his family, Mr. Beckles attended
his friend's funeral, only to become the city's 69th
homicide victim -- the 47th by a gun.
Det.-Sgt. DiTommaso said police are still searching
for the suspected getaway car, a red four-door with
tinted windows, but have yet to determine a motive.
Exactly why someone wanted the men dead
"is still the subject of intense investigation," he said.
Yesterday, police and religious leaders gathered at
the crime scene, urging witnesses to come forward.
Behind them, bullet holes were visible in the
window of the Toronto West Seventh-Day Adventist
Church. The bloodstains have been cleaned off the
pavement.
"We don't have to live like this," said pastor
Andrew King, who was presiding over the funeral
when the gunshots rang out. "We don't have to
continue like this. Enough is enough. I don't want to
bury any more children. I'm sick and tired of going to
funerals. I'm sick and tired of violence. I'm sick and tired
of the picture that is portrayed of our young black men."
Reverend Allan Bowen, the pastor at the Pentecostal
church where the Beckles family worships, said,
"We've got to realize that our kids will keep dying
until we break the code of silence and start to
speak up."Our kids will keep dying. The guns
are out there. The hatred is out there. But our
kids have taken the wall of silence and they've
turned it into a virtue where it becomes the
roadway to the graveyard," he said.
John Tory, the leader of Ontario's provincial Conservative
opposition, also attended the rally, urging people outside
the black community not to ignore the violence.
Full story link:
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