Grief Galvanizes Mothers to Seek Crime Witness Aid

The mothers who meet in South-Central Los Angeles have three things in common: Their sons have been murdered. The murders remain unsolved. And they remain unsolved for the same reason.

No witnesses will come forward.

Their organization is called Justice for Murdered Children, and the mothers gather to devise ways to convince reluctant witnesses to testify.

They pursue rewards. They meet with homicide detectives, politicians and city officials. They discuss their plight on a weekly cable television show.

And sometimes they simply find comfort in sharing their frustrations with other mothers who have suffered the same two terrible blows of losing a son and then never seeing justice done.

“I met so many parents in the community who were saying the same thing: ‘My son was murdered and no one will come forward,’ � said group founder LaWanda Hawkins, who is wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with her son’s picture above the words: “Loving You Always. RIP.� Hawkins’ 19-year-old son, Reginald Reese, was shot to death about two years ago in San Pedro.

“The No. 1 reason that murders aren’t solved in the ‘hood is witnesses are afraid to come forward,� Hawkins said. “I wanted to do something about that.�

She said the 35 mothers in her group, who are from South-Central, Compton, Inglewood and other minority communities, now have some hope because of a bill the state Legislature passed and Gov. Pete Wilson signed last month. The legislation established a $3-million program to provide extensive protection for witnesses, including relocation and new identities. If it had been in place years ago, Hawkins said, her son’s case and those of many others in the group might have been solved by now.

“This will have an immediate impact on murder cases in Los Angeles,� said Michael Genelin, who heads the hard core gang division of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. “This allows us to protect witnesses in a substantial way and make real progress on some of these cases that, in the past, probably wouldn’t have been solved.�

When Sergio Robleto, former head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau homicide division, spoke last year at a Justice for Murdered Children meeting, it was the final fillip for him, the latest in a long series of frustrations over witness intimidation during his 26-year LAPD career.

“It was so chilling at that meeting,� said Robleto, who retired in 1995. “All of them had children who were murdered, knew who the murder suspects were and knew who the witnesses were. But all the witnesses were afraid to come forward.�

Robleto had been trying to generate interest in a witness protection bill and had just joined forces with Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), who agreed to sponsor the measure. Meeting the mothers only reinforced Robleto’s commitment to the issue.

“These mothers are the real reason for this legislation. They’re the ones who have suffered the loss,� said Robleto, who helped draft the bill. “To have their backing was very helpful. They were ready to go to Sacramento and do whatever it took to get this bill passed. No politician wanted to go against them.�

It is “scandalous,� Robleto said, that politicians and police officials are crowing about falling homicide rates. There are still almost 20,000 slayings every year in the country--and about 1,400 in Los Angeles County--so boasting about the slightly lower rate, he said, shows the level to which violence has permeated our society.

Robleto’s obsession with witness protection began in 1977, when he was a young homicide detective in the Rampart Division. He was investigating the case of two young men who were slain in front of a hamburger stand in the Pico-Union district. Robleto interviewed a key witness to the killing, gave him his business card and planned to re-interview him the next day.

That night, a coroner’s investigator called Robleto at home shortly before midnight. A man had been found shot to death in the Los Angeles River. Robleto’s card was in his pocket.

“I immediately knew who it was,� the former policeman recalled. “It made me sick. It was one of the most traumatic things I’d ever gone through.�

Nearly 20 years later, the stress and guilt and anger Robleto felt after seeing witnesses killed in the South Bureau’s jurisdiction led to his retirement. The year before, the LAPD purchased a moving van and Robleto’s detectives relocated 39 homicide witnesses and their families from South-Central. But simply offering to move them, Robleto said, was a woefully inadequate response to a ubiquitous danger. Although there are no available statistics on the subject citywide, in South-Central, a dozen witnesses to homicides were killed during 15 months in 1993 and 1994, Robleto said.

“The death of these witnesses was tearing me up,� he said. They were “true heroes. We were asking them to place themselves in danger in order to do the right thing. But I couldn’t really protect them the way they needed to be protected. To really protect them meant changing the system.�

Robleto eventually decided that to do that he had to leave the LAPD, and that was one of the reasons he retired. He took an executive job with a national private investigation firm and founded, along with Los Angeles attorney Brian Andelin, the Witness Protection Foundation. The foundation is now lobbying other states to pass witness protection legislation.

California’s new program, which the state attorney general’s office will administer, is much more comprehensive than what detectives could offer witnesses. In the past, the state’s paltry program offered little more than first and last month’s rent on an apartment. Now the identity of witnesses can be changed, they can be moved to other cities, and law enforcement officers can offer them protection during trials.

While $3 million is a start, Robleto says, his organization plans to lobby for more funding next year. Also, other elements of the original bill were cut as it wended its way through the legislative process, primarily to keep the cost down in the program’s inaugural year. But Robleto hopes to get some of these elements--such as psychological counseling for witnesses--restored next year.

Still, detectives and prosecutors say the law will address a critical problem in Los Angeles County, where only one in three killings results in a conviction for murder or manslaughter. Many of these unsolved slayings are gang-related, and witnesses in these cases, afraid of retaliation, often are unwilling to cooperate. Because Los Angeles has many more gang killings than any other region in California, the impact of the bill will be greatest here, law enforcement officials say.

“We spend so much manpower and money trying to arrest and prosecute murderers,� Assemblyman Hertzberg said. “But if we can’t get witnesses, all this is for nothing. This bill, which should be a model for the country, finally does something for the critical element of a homicide case--the witness.�

Robleto and a number of mothers from Justice for Murdered Children joined forces last month to picket Nissan dealerships, protesting one of the car company’s commercials. The TV ad lampoons a hapless man who enters a fictional witness protection program but continues to draw attention because of his car.

To LaWanda Hawkins, the Nissan spot is “insulting and dangerous.�

“I lost a child and I need witnesses, so I find no humor in this commercial,� she said. “Plus, this commercial sends the wrong message to the community. We’re trying to build faith in the system. This just tears it down.�

Nissan spokeswoman Debra Sanchez-Fair said the spot “was never meant to trivialize� the importance of witness protection. She added that the commercial’s nationwide run ended Sept. 30--as scheduled--and that there is no plan to bring it back.

Justice for Murdered Children, which was founded last year, has devoted a segment of its public access cable television show to the dispute. The program, called “Crimes in the ‘Hood,� is shown by Media One Cable throughout southern Los Angeles County on Tuesdays at 6 p.m.

The existence of such a show highlights how pervasive witness intimidation is in homicide cases, how many parents whose children have been slain are still waiting for justice.

“Crimes in the ‘Hood� is taped on a spare stage, with only a small white folding table in the center, ringed by metal and plastic chairs. Five mothers were featured on a recent show that opened with photographs of their sons, the dates they were born and died, and the phone number of the detectives working the cases.

Hawkins talked about how she persuaded the Los Angeles City Council to offer a $25,000 reward in her son’s case. The other mothers discussed how frustrated they are that no rewards have been posted in their sons’ slayings and how infuriated they were in April when a council committee recommended offering a $5,000 reward for information on the killing of a pug dog in Encino.

“I’m totally pissed off and offended,� Hawkins said. “It’s outrageous that the city was talking about reward money for a dog when we can’t get enough reward money for our kids.�

Rita Norwood complained that when Ennis Cosby was slain in January, the police and the media devoted much attention to the case, and such a large reward was offered that a suspect was arrested. Her 18-year-old son was killed during a Compton carjacking eight years ago, and his slaying remains unsolved.

“I grieved with the Cosbys after that murder,� Norwood said. “But my child was just as good as Ennis. I feel I should have got the justice he did.�

Vicky Lindsay, whose 19-year-old son was gunned down after he attended a high school football game in Compton, said that “as much money as Bill Cosby has, he hurts the same as me. He lost a son, just like I lost a son. He can’t grieve any more than me.�

Hawkins added that Justice for Murdered Children was formed so everyone--not just the rich and famous--has an opportunity to be heard.

“I went to a group in Hollywood that fights for justice for families of homicide victims,� she said. “But they weren’t interested in coming down here.

“I wanted a group right here--in the ‘hood. And we’re going to keep fighting until every mother in our group sees her child’s killer brought to justice.�