SHOOTINGS RARELY SOLVED, PUNISHED

Bribed or Intimidated, Victims Often Won't Help

OVER-THE-RHINE - In Cincinnati's most violent neighborhoods, 94 people
were shot and wounded last year in robberies, drug deals and street
disputes.

That's one gunshot victim every four days in District 1, a region of
less than five square miles near the city's urban core.

But here's the startling number: Only two of the gunmen ever went to
jail.

While police confiscate increasing numbers of illegal guns, shootings
continue and shooters slip away. On the city's most dangerous streets,
people who shoot others are rarely caught, prosecuted or sent to jail,
an Enquirer analysis of police and court records shows.

Players often retaliate among themselves rather than cooperate with
police. Law officers say suspects use money and drugs to bribe
witnesses and even victims to forget everything they know. In some
cases, today's suspects become tomorrow's victims - and the cycle
starts over again.

Cops end up playing the same game day after day, starting new cases
they know will probably never end in an arrest.

The payback is so rare that police admit they spend very little time
on some cases before closing them out as unsolvable and moving on to
the next.

Even aggressive pursuit of cases yields too little too often, they
say.

"You feel like you're shoveling against the tide," says Capt. James
Whalen, who runs District 1. "It's a horrible commentary on the world
that we live in."

Taxpayers end up paying hundreds of thousands in hospital bills for
victims. Residents see the violence ruining their already struggling
neighborhoods. Some want to know why police and prosecutors aren't
doing more.

Shirley Colbert, a long-time resident of the West End, says police
have cracked down on parts of her neighborhood. But she still hears
gunfire - a lot.

"Now you've got the robbery boys robbing the dope boys," she says.
"It's crazy. It's off the hook."

'Your Neighborhood Next'

Police are still tallying last year's numbers, but they expect
nonfatal shootings citywide to be down slightly from the 397 in 2003.
That would follow a similar drop in homicides - 66 last year compared
with 75 in 2003. Prosecutions are more frequent and successful in
killings. Detectives made arrests in 32 of those cases; most are in
various stages of legal action.

Still, no one should be satisfied, City Councilwoman Laketa Cole says.
She wants police to develop a plan to curb gun violence by at least 20
percent in the neighborhoods where most killings occur, including
Over-the-Rhine and the West End.

"Just because it's not in your neighborhood today doesn't mean it's
not going to be in your neighborhood next," Cole says.

The Enquirer analyzed data from District 1 because detectives there
keep a database of gunshot victims who survived. Records detail dates
and times of shootings, as well as suspects and whether the victim
cooperated. Under many victims' pictures, detectives wrote: "Victim
uncooperative," "victim did not attend court," or "victim no show."

Police Chief Tom Streicher says the same thing happens all over the
city. In a Mount Auburn shooting on New Year's night, police say the
victim they were trying to help jumped out of the back of the
ambulance and fled.

"We get constant demands for more aggressive policing," he says. "But
we need more people to take a stand and help us."

In District 1, about three-quarters of last year's shooting victims
were black males. Most victims were in their 20s and 30s, although
their ages ranged from 8 to 54. At least three were suspected shooters
in other incidents.

All but three of the District 1 shootings occurred in Over-the-Rhine
and the West End.

Police arrested 12 suspects in the 94 shootings. But nine cases were
dropped for lack of sufficient evidence or cooperation, and only three
suspects were charged, indicted and prosecuted through the system.

Two of them went to prison.

Courtney Smith is appealing his 37-year sentence for shooting Walter
Reed in January. He was convicted of aggravated robbery and felonious
assault, for entering Reed's car, hitting him over the head with a
gun, stealing $300, then shooting him in the leg.

Donald Stevenson was firing at somebody else when he hit 8-year-old
Eninjah Mincy, who was riding her bike along McMicken Avenue in March.
He was sentenced to three years.

In the third case, Damien Pryor got three years' probation, but only
on a charge of illegally having a gun. The shooting charge was
dropped. He was ordered to keep a job and do 400 hours community service.

Running the Streets

The cycle of violence involves people like Jason McClure.

Three times last year, the 24-year-old Over-the-Rhine man was charged
with shooting people. But none of the victims or witnesses ever showed
up for court. So each time, McClure went free.

"What happens is when he shoots people and nobody shows up for court,
he's going to keep shooting people," Officer Sean Woods says. "It lets
him run the streets. We have to just keep picking him up."

In the latest case, McClure was accused in August of shooting two men.
The charges were dismissed because neither victim would cooperate with
detectives, police say. Then, three weeks later, one of the victims
was suspected of shooting McClure. McClure wouldn't testify, either,
even though he'd been shot five times.

He could not be found for comment.

If officers didn't think of it as a game, Officer Matt Hamer says,
"we'd probably just cry and go home."

Now, McClure is wanted again. This time he is accused of sticking a
black-and-silver handgun in the face of an Over-the-Rhine corner store
clerk in December. Police say McClure threatened the clerk not to
testify before a grand jury looking into a case in which McClure is
accused of robbing the same store. McClure casually grabbed a few
Black & Mild cigarettes on his way out, says Woods, who filed the
latest charges.

"The last time I saw him, he said, 'I'm straightening out,' " the
officer says. "They all say that."

Officer Lisa Dotson, the District 1 investigator who keeps the
database of shooting victims and scenarios to watch for patterns, put
McClure's face on the new anti-crime Web site www.CitizenObserver.com
last month. She hopes someone sees his picture and calls police, so
the man officers say is a neighborhood menace can be arrested and his
piece of the gun crime stopped.

"Although I don't know what good it'll do if we can't get anybody to
testify," she says.

Police offer a maximum $1,000 reward through Crime Stoppers for tips
leading to an arrest. But that amount doesn't touch what a successful
drug dealer can pay to shut somebody up.

Court proceedings last summer revealed that a dealer in Cincinnati
could take in $25,000 a day cooking up a quarter kilogram of crack
cocaine.

"A couple thousand's a lot of money down here," says Sgt. Bill Halusek
of the Violent Crime Squad. Officers can't usually prove someone has
been paid off to keep quiet because the person could be prosecuted if
he admitted taking a bribe.

Police say chances are minuscule that somebody might see McClure's
picture, do the right thing and call. Still, they can hope.

McClure stays on another list, too.

"Every cop has a list in his head of five or six guys we think would
shoot us in the back," Woods says. "He's on my list."

Illegal Sales

Cincinnati police confiscated more than 1,200 guns citywide last year,
the first time in five years that the number declined from the
previous year. Still, the total is a 64 percent jump since 1999.

Common perception is that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms can trace any gun. But that's only true to an extent - the
agency can only trace a weapon's legitimate sales.

Most of the guns taken off Cincinnati streets aren't bought legally.
They're bought for as little as $5, traded for crack, found in alleys
and doorways.

While almost nobody's going to state prison for shootings, Cincinnati
officers do have another option - federal court, through a U.S.
Department of Justice program called Project Disarm. It's designed to
send the most serious gun and drug offenders to federal prisons, where
sentences are longer.

But only a few cases make it there, and none of the 94 shootings in
District 1 was referred. Project Disarm defendants usually have to be
repeat gun offenders caught with large quantities of drugs.

Federal prosecutors took 40 new cases in Cincinnati last year, down
from 44 in 2003, when sentences averaged almost nine years.

Prosecutor vows action New Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters says
his office will get more involved in trying to help curb gun violence,
which he calls an epidemic, "a total reluctance to cooperate with law
enforcement."

"You can personally serve witnesses, you can have them arrested," he
says. "There are a lot of things that can be, that aren't being done
now."

Deters says he's not critical of anyone, but says his office will make
a fresh start - especially on the 6 percent of criminals who commit 70
percent of violent crime.

"Once they come to court there are no plea bargains, you incarcerate
them for as long as possible. It's hard to commit a crime in
Over-the-Rhine if you are sitting in Lucasville. That's how the crime
rate drops," Deters says.

Repeat pattern Still, the cycle continues.

When mechanic Jessie Archuleta was shot last month at his shop in
Avondale, police thought they might get some cooperation because he'd
been badly hurt - shot in the face.

But when Detective Kim Moreno took a photo lineup of possible suspects
to Archuleta's room at University Hospital, the victim remembered
nothing. He turned his head away from the pictures.

"He wouldn't even look at it," Sgt. Scott Albert says. "That's just
how it is.

"You sort of think, 'If they don't care, why should we?'"

Archuleta couldn't be found for comment.