The street code of silence that has protected ruthless killers for years continues to frustrate Boston homicide cops, says the Boston Herald. Now a chorus of family members, clergy, and police brass is renewing its call for witnesses to come forward and bring justice for the fallen. “It just eats away at us,” said Allen Lee, whose son, Jamie, 29, was gunned down in March. “It was a heavily populated place [ ] there had to be someone who saw something.”
A Herald review of open homicide cases found Boston police have made arrests in just 19 of 53 homicides committed this year, while collaring suspects in 10 older cases. For families of victims in dozens of unsolved slayings, the wait for answers is torturous. “It's just one roadblock after another when they (police) can't get anybody to speak up,” Allen Lee said. Boston police confirm that witnesses in Jamie Lee's killing have failed to cooperate — an all-too familiar wall they often hit when investigating murders, even in high-visibility places. Witness cooperation almost always makes the difference between a cracked case and a cold case, said police commissioner Edward Davis. “We solve crimes because people tell us who did it.”