WHY DIDN'T POLICE SEE LINK BETWEEN MURDER VICTIMS SOONER?

We are deeply concerned about the revelations of a possible serial killer
at large in Peoria. Although we are troubled that this criminal may live
within our community, we are particularly alarmed that so many women were
murdered before local authorities recognized a link.

Is it possible that the background of the female victims - their race,
class and association with prostitution and drugs - made them invisible to
us? If the victims had been white, middle-class college students, is it
more likely that their absence would have been noticed and authorities
alerted? Would we have printed recent high school graduation pictures on
the newspaper's front page instead of mug shots buried in the local
section? Would we have been discussing the possibility of a serial killer
after the second victim, not the fifth or sixth?

All of us must assume responsibility as a community for the failure to make
a connection between the killings of each of these women. We have allowed
many groups within our population - racial and ethnic minorities, the poor,
the disabled - to become invisible, perhaps because they make us
uncomfortable. They remind us that equal opportunity does not apply to
everyone. Many people do not have access to educational development, jobs
that pay a living wage, affordable health care and housing, and the right
to live life free from the threat or reality of violence.

Stacey Robertson and Marjorie Getz

Plus six other signatures

Peoria