Sting of silence hurts

Originally Published June 25, 2007
By LEO STRUPCZEWSKI
Courier-Post Staff

Investigators pushed mugshots across the desk and Fred Morton shook his head.

"Don't know 'em," he said.

"You sure?" his father, Robert, asked, sitting next to him at the Camden Police Department.

"You sure you don't know him?"

Another head shake.

"Don't know 'em."

By all accounts, Fred Morton, 17, was deep in the game. He began selling drugs in Lindenwold at 14, his father said. He inherited a Camden drug set at 15 when his sister's boyfriend spent nearly a year in county jail. Two years later, he was working with a "stick-up crew," robbing drug dealers and store owners.

Now, on a Saturday afternoon in November, Fred Morton was sitting with police, but not because he had been arrested. He had witnessed a homicide.


His sister's boyfriend, Lavar Dunlap, was dead. Shot in the back of the head while sitting in the passenger seat of a green Pontiac Grand Am. Fred Morton was the driver.
City police have long battled the code of the street, where fear of retaliation or distrust of police often prevent residents from cooperating in criminal investigations. Law enforcement often uses financial rewards to coax witnesses to come forward with information, typically in high-profile cases.

Camden police are taking a new approach to an old idea. Last month, the city's shooting response team began offering $250 rewards for information leading to arrests and convictions. Police hope the approach will slow shootings they say are often connected to or lead to other crimes. In the meantime, Camden Police Executive Arturo Venegas and Acting Camden County Prosecutor Joshua Ottenberg are trying to win over more residents with increased community outreach.

It won't be easy, they say.

For Robert Morton and his daughter Doris, the sting of silence is all too real.

Twelve days after Dunlap, Doris' boyfriend, was killed, city park workers found Fred Morton's body out in the open at Van Hook Park. His throat had been slit.

Members of the Camden Police Department said Morton was killed because people thought he was talking to investigators. On Nov. 20, officials arrested Rodney Jamal "Petey" Daniels, 20, of Camden, in connection with Dunlap's slaying.

It was an abrupt end to a life relatives say was troubled, but also promising.

At 14, Fred Morton asked for his share of the monthly Supplemental Security Income check that provided extra money for his ADHD. He used it to buy his first package of drugs, his father said, and kept that part of his life from his sister, who helped raise him.

"We always argued about it," Doris Morton said. "He would promise me, "You know, I'm not out there. I'm going to do better now. I'm just out there chilling.' "

But the streets were always too much of a lure, his father said.

"The fast money," Robert Morton said. "Cash."

The teenager, described as small for his age, felt further empowered with a gun in his hands. Robert Morton said his son often brought broken guns to him, asking him to help fix them. He didn't.

"He brought in a .22 Smith & Wesson long barrel. It's a nice-looking gun. It's clean," Robert Morton said. "He liked that gun like it was a girlfriend or something. I could see this in his eyes, when he talked to me, when he held it."

At times, it seemed like Fred would fulfill his promise to his sister. He worked at a local store stocking shelves and taking inventory. He trained to become a lifeguard. He committed himself to school. He found the basketball court again instead of the corner. He spent time with his nephew, now 3.

But he left the job after fighting with a co-worker and school sputtered, leaving Fred right where he left off.

On that Saturday in November, Fred sat stone-faced as his father worked with investigators to get him to cooperate. The father said he recognized some of the mugshots being pushed in front of his son and knew he recognized them. Still, his son would never talk to police. He promised as much before.

It was a stubbornness that infuriated his father and left his sister wishing her brother handled things differently.

"If you knew who did it, let (police) take care of it," Doris Morton said. "I don't need to lose two people."

Despite the fact Fred never cooperated, police Capt. Joseph Richardson said people thought he had. His death, which remains unsolved, was meant to intimidate others from talking with police, Richardson said.

"I don't know who they thought he was talking to," he said. "But he wasn't talking to us."

Why someone was killed -- along with the rumors that accompany it -- carries a lot of weight on the street, Richardson he said.

To combat the problem, the city's shooting response team, made up of members of the police department, prosecutor's office and state police, are now offering the $250 reward to encourage people to cooperate.

The shooting response team was founded nearly three years ago when the department was plagued by a clearance rate on shootings that hovered around 10 percent, said Lt. Orlando Cuevas. It's now around 40 percent, well above the national average of 28 percent.
Six to eight detectives are on call 24/7 to respond to reports of shots fired. They flood the area, Cuevas said, canvassing for information and witnesses. Cuevas said those who see shootings are more willing to talk immediately after an incident. Having extra detectives allows the team to capitalize on that, he said. Before the response team, only one detective responded to shootings.

"It's such a serious crime and so many other things are linked to it," Cuevas said. "The timing was right to do something."

The $250 rewards come from state police funds. A figure on how many rewards have been given out was not available.

Officials said money has proved in the past to be a motivator, but the mother of one of the city's recent homicides isn't so sure.

Rosalynn Glasco's son, Salahuddin Igwe, was gunned down in the city's Whitman Park section June 17. Igwe, 16, was standing on a corner in the 1200 block of Thurman Street. No one has been arrested in connection with the killing.

Glasco, who now lives in Lindenwold, said she grew up in Camden and knew about the problems on Thurman Street before her son was killed.

"Some of those people that live on those streets . . . (are) scared," she said. "Every time they turn around, there's a killing."

Glasco said the promise of money isn't enough to turn those residents -- or herself -- into a cooperating witness for investigators.

What's needed, she said, is the ability to shield people from the retaliation most expect for cooperating with police.

Glasco said she hopes someone will come forward in her son's case, because she wants closure. But it's not something she would do.

"Snitching or telling on people, I don't involve myself with stuff like that," she said. "Where is $250 going to get you? It's not going to take you far. That ain't enough to take your or your family out of the city."

Ottenberg said officials recognize the problem and are exploring ways to combat it. A grant application is awaiting approval to provide witness protection at the most local of levels.

The grant, part of the Attorney General's Project Safe Neighborhoods program, would allow law enforcement to change people's cell phone numbers, the locks on their doors and their work schedules. In some cases, witnesses will be moved on a whim.

Ottenberg said there are elaborate systems to protect witnesses at both the federal and state levels, but nothing has been done at the local level.

"We will have something that we can use at our fingertips," Ottenberg said. "We really don't have the facilities to do this quickly and easily at this point."

In the meantime, a new program sponsored by the state's Attorney General, Operation Ceasefire, trains residents on ways to take more active roles in their communities while countering the day-to-day fear in which they live.

Ottenberg's office has also created monthly meetings between police and residents in the city's four districts. The meetings provide a confidential setting for residents to voice concerns and police to build intelligence.

"We're trying to unlock the pandora's box of political power in the neighborhood," Ottenberg said. "It's slow in this city."

Reach Leo Strupczewski at (856) 317-7828 or lstrupczewski@courierpostonline.com