Police (BPD) Chief of Police Ross Thompson told the Police and Fire Committee of the Blytheville City Council on Nov. 9 that thus far all eight 2015 homicides have ended in arrests. During the same time period (January 1-November 9) last year, the city had only two homicides.
"Eight homicides have occurred in 2015. All are closed by arrest, including suspects that fled to Jefferson City, Mo, Oklahoma City, Okla. And Detroit, Mich.," Thompson's report to the committee said.
"We actually worked 10 death investigations and eight of them were considered homicides. One of the death investigations was a house fire that took the life of a Linda White and the other was what determined to be self-inflicted injuries consistent with a suicide that happened down at Mark's Exxon. But of the eight homicides, all have been closed by arrests," CID Captain Scott Adams said. "We did pretty good this year on homicides. Not that we want to have any homicides. Wish we didn't have to work any of them, but we did have the eight this year. Which is up from last year. We worked just two homicides last year."
Adams pointed out that regarding the two from last year, BPD arrested Ron Redmon in connection with the Justin Harrison homicide (which was nolle prossed) and that they have a person of interest in the Ronnie Greene murder.
Thompson said that he is proud of his officers, but that there is still more to do.
"You never know when that violence is going to break out...any number of homicides it's a tragedy, so even though you do close the cases by an arrest, and that is good, I want to try to get around to more preventative...I think this is an example where these people have fled this jurisdiction, fled the state and we still got them and we're still going to bring them back and we're going to do our very best to bring justice in the cases," Thompson said. "Now we don't have as many officers as we used to have, and they work tirelessly on these cases. I wish we could close them all, but I would just venture to guess that our closure rate on homicides is probably higher than the national average. Probably much higher."
Thompson added that his department has repetitively proven that they can make arrests, even in complex, sophisticated cases, and that they can apprehend suspects even when they have fled several states away, yet that doesn't always prove a deterrence.
"That would send a message folks, you're not going to get by with it...if anything, if one person that has ill intent on their mind, if they think about this. Yeah, run where you want to, go where you want to, but we're going to get you. We're going to find you," Chief Ross Thompson promises.
Adams also points to the successful extradition results of 2015.
"Not just from the homicides, but we also had a shooting and an identity fraud where we've actually had to go pick people up. We got one in Detroit in Anfernee Wells, we got Mario Bell in Atlanta...we got Danny Johnson in Jefferson City, Missouri and Bill Dee Williams, which is not back yet was in Oklahoma City. Pretty good distances at this point, we've always tried to go get them ourselves, but with the shortages in manpower we're just not equipped," Adams explained.
"We've done a very good job on limited resources. In closing them, I want to make the leap forward and preventing them, that is where we need to be," Thompson added.
"I'm extremely proud of my guys. With three detectives to work eight homicides, I think they have done an exceptional job this year. On top of the all the robberies and burglaries, not that every crime isn't important, but we tend to focus on the more violent crimes being the robberies, the home invasions, the homicides, the shootings. We do know that there are a lot of things that we don't get to work, not that we don't keep them on our desks and try to get to them, but we try to prioritize our actual cases. Each year, and it's probably higher this year, I haven't gone back and looked, but each one of my detectives have worked over 300 cases and we work strictly felonies. But these guys are good. They put in a lot of hard work and a lot of time...time away from their families or away from their kids' ballgames or this and that. Hey; they work hard," Adams said.
Thompson and Adams both say, however, that while they are proud of the department's achievements, they are not content; there is more work to be done.
"Somehow we have to break that cycle of anger that would lead to somehow picking up that gun and thinking that it's going to get resolved that way," Thompson said. "And I think that if you look at a cross section of our homicides this year, don't sit there and try to say that all this is drug dealing thugs or try to paint this picture that the police needs to get our here and catch all these guys running the streets. Some of these guys were running the streets."
Thompson also said that violent crimes are "100 percent preventable within themselves," but that for those that don't self-prevent, BPD and partner agencies are working together to put a stop to them.
"I'm very proud of the officers and for the time that they put in... from the first officer that arrives on the scene to the officer that makes the apprehension, and the help that we get. We've partnered with the federal agencies very well. I think if you have learned anything from 2015, we have partnered very well and we are trying to keep those ties strong to help the quality of life in this community," Thompson said.
While Thompson applauds the results of operations such as Blynd Justice, he insists that families and neighbors are often the ones that are most pivotal in stopping most crimes.
"Some of the drugs and gangs stuff. Can we intervene more on that? Well most of that is based upon intelligence and how much intelligence we can get on that and the things is, the persons that are effected most by the injuries and the death, usually already know and are one phone call from picking it up and say, hey Chief, this is what is going on and I'm afraid that my son is going to die and here is all the information that you're going to need. But a lot of times, that doesn't' happen until after the tragedy and it comes out that everybody knew and nobody said anything," Thompson said
Thompson also admitted that Blytheville has "what you would consider some large city crimes here. We address large city crime, we confront it" but adds that resources are limited.
In addition to limited resources, Thompson explains how "crawdaddying" witnesses hinder their success.
"We'll identify witnesses and we'll go out and talk to people and they'll tell us, we write it down, put it on tape or whatever, but when it comes time they crawdad on us. Crawdads swim backwards, and that is exactly what we call it. They start backing up and changing things and it hurts our case.... we used to go down to some of these clubs where there were shots fired and there would be a hundred people or so and we'd ask if anybody had seen anything and ...everybody was in the bathroom and we'd say, you know that's only a two seater in there...and I've talked to fifty people and they were all in the bathroom, that didn't happen. We used to joke about that...they must have a big bathroom," Thompson said.
BPD, while proud of their accomplishments, say they are determined to not forget about those that are yet to be closed in arrests.
"I see victims of families that we haven't been able to bring closure to their case...we still remember them and just because we were talking about the ones that we closed, we still work hard on the ones that aren't closed. I know there is still a lot that they want from us and we still work on those...while we have achievement, we still have work to do," Thompson admits
Here are a list of the murders and arrests in 2015:
-- Charles Campbell, 52, was arrested and charged in connection with the murder of Rodney Lutes, 54, on February 28.
-- Micah K. Hamon, 17, was arrested and charged in connection with the murder of Lawless Kennedy, 49, on April 2.
-- Treyon Peel, 20, was arrested and charged in connection with the murder of Raymond Smith, 21, on
-- Javander Williams, 18, of Blytheville was arrested and charged with 1st degree murder in the death of 17-year old Dewaun Miller. The shooting occurred in the 1000 block of Clark Street on May 18.
-- Randen Caruthers, 18, and was arrested and charged in connection with the murder of Kennon Daniels, 20, on June 22.
-- Desmond Patton, 17, was arrested and charged in connection with the murder of Kennon Daniels, 20, on June 22.
-- Anfernee Xavier Wells, 25, was extradited to Mississippi County and charged with first degree murder in the June 22 death of 23-year-old Vincent Stone, who was shot following a basketball game at Williams Park.
-- Daniel "DyNasty" Johnson, 24, was also arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the June 22 death of 23-year-old Vincent Stone.
-- Martavius Rayford was arrested and charged in the murder of Joseph Anderson, Jr. on August 5.
-- Billy Dee Williams was arrested in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on Friday, November 6, in connection with the murder of 20-year old Adline King. King was shot on Anderson Street on August 8. A total of 13 persons were shot that night on Anderson Street.
thenry@blythevillecourier.com