with witnesses at risk, murder suspects go free
From the article -
Quote:
Dozens of New Jersey murder cases have been undone over the past five years after witnesses were killed, disappeared before trial or changed their stories.
In 2004, the Newark police determined that four people found dead in a vacant lot had been killed to silence a witness to a murder; a witness to that quadruple homicide was later shot to death as well.
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With the 'stop snitching' campaign that's become a mainstay of the street gangs and rap artists, would YOU publicly testify as a witness to a murder trial in New Jersey? knowing that witnesses are frequently murdered to prevent their testimony?
Quote:
In both Baltimore and Boston, where “stop snitching” campaigns by rap artists and gang leaders have urged city residents not to cooperate with the authorities, prosecutors estimate that witnesses face some sort of intimidation in 80 percent of all homicide cases.
In Essex County, prosecutors report that witnesses in two-thirds of their homicides receive overt threats not to testify, with defendants and their supporters sometimes canvassing witnesses’ neighborhoods wearing T-shirts printed with the witnesses’ photographs or distributing copies of their statements to the police.
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Now would you?
Quote:
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“No one wants to solve these cases and lock up the killers in these cases more than we do,” the county prosecutor, Paula T. Dow, said in a recent interview. “But we have to weigh the evidence and move forward only if we believe that the witnesses are credible and that they’ll be there to testify at trial.”
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no witness protection program here, just a concern that you'll show up to testify....thank you New Jersey.
Quote:
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Gregory DeMattia, chief of the Essex County prosecutor’s homicide division, said his investigators saw fallout from witness intimidation every day. When they arrive at a crime scene, he said, bystanders scatter so neighbors will not think they are cooperating with the police.
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Read the whole article and still ask yourself if you would testify. Now, what is the one thing that New Jersey could do to help this situation, yet refuse to do? Acknowledge the right to bear arms so people can protect themselves.
The Second Amendment is about the individual right, not a BS states militia crap.