In Philly "Stop Snitching" Witness Intimidation Moves Into The Digital Age With Facebook

Phila., state, and federal leaders are working to overcome "stop snitching" threats. The District Attorney's Office has issued directives for police.

While the modern day "witness intimidators" make use of the technology of Facebook and voice mail to render their threats as a means of suppressing justice they still can't seem to do anything that can make their actions equal to the injustice that was executed upon Black people by our long time adversaries in the Civil Rights Movement.

I am happy to see that today we have Black judges and a Black District Attorney in Philadelphia who are standing up to this injustice.   In the past there were co-conspirators within these seats of power.  As they saw Black people being intimidated as such they often sat silently.   It took the civil right organizations to apply external pressure to these entities, often using the higher levels of government to put them in check. 

Whereas in the past these organizations demanded that those who are the agents of injustice be locked up - today they need to be understood.  For so long they have been marginalized by the greater society.  The greater society owes them equal resources that will bring them into the civic order - or so we are told.







Philly.com article

By Craig R. McCoy and Nancy Phillips

Inquirer Staff Writers

Less than two hours after the first witness testified at a homicide trial in Philadelphia in the spring, an ominous message appeared on Facebook.

The posting named the witness, called him a "rat," and said people like him should be murdered.

"Philadelphia we must get it together and kill" witnesses, the message urged.

At first, this digital twist on Philadelphia's entrenched problem of witness intimidation had the desired effect:

The next day, another witness in the case called the homicide prosecutor and left pleading messages on her voice mail. The tape captured the sound of fear.

"For the sake of my kids, please don't make me come to court," the woman said. "I'm petrified. I'm scared."

But police, prosecutors, and an upset judge fought back hard against the intimidator - a sign that officials are no longer willing to allow the problem to fester.

Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Bretschneider persuaded the frightened witness to testify. To highlight the witness' fear, she played the voice-mail messages in court.

"It's all over the neighborhood. It's on Facebook," the jury heard the woman beg, her voice quavering. "From the bottom of my heart, please, if there's any other way, please don't make me take the stand."

The jury convicted the defendant, Darrell Johnson, 20, of West Philadelphia, of shooting a man to death in a dispute over the whereabouts of a $60 handgun. He is serving a life sentence.

Before the trial was over, detectives arrested one of Johnson's friends, Dajuan Fuller, 25, as the alleged Facebook intimidator. In March, Fuller was charged with witness intimidation, harassment, retaliation, and obstructing justice.

He is awaiting trial - held behind bars on $1 million bail imposed at the urging of the trial judge in the homicide case, Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes.

"To think that he had the audacity to come into my courtroom and think he was going to do that and nobody was going to do anything about it? Uh-uh. No," the judge said in an interview. "I will not have it."

In a series published in December, The Inquirer reported that Philadelphia had one of the nation's lowest felony conviction rates, and that a key reason was that witnesses were often terrified.

But as evidenced by the harsh treatment of Fuller, a counterattack has begun to take shape:

District Attorney Seth Williams, working with top police commanders, has revamped investigative procedures and launched a crackdown on perpetrators.

Hughes, with the backing of state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, is leading a campaign to help judges stamp out witness intimidation in their courtrooms.

Lawmakers in Congress, the statehouse, and City Council are crafting legislative fixes, introducing proposals to provide more money for relocating witnesses and to make witness intimidation in state court cases a federal crime.

Williams, who took office in January, acknowledged in an interview that no one step would end all threats. He and other experts see witness intimidation as just the most menacing part of a pervasive "stop snitching" street culture that labels witnesses, not criminals, as villains.

But Williams said he believed the overall climate could change quickly if police and prosecutors did a more effective job.