Serial S03 - Ep. 4: A Bird in Jail Is Worth Two on the Street
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on cereal people.

Completely first, they light on, off, under, off.

Oh my god, I know this testimony was that he added the outside of the pocket first, that he did a pair down. He felt to bulge. He reached into the object.

Tell you how we fix that.

We don't go here. He's this walking perpetuation of don't trust the police. From this american life and W B E Y, chicago is cereal one course told week by week. I'm sarc.

Before we get started, I want to give you a warning. I know a lot of the material in this series is hard to hear and hard to think about in this story. IT may be especially so in part because IT involves children.

Rana grey is a police officer in cleavage. SHE started as A E M, T. In the eighties, then enjoying the police force first as a control officer, worked a way up to detective, then homicide detective. She's experienced as what i'm saying. She's seen a lot.

In early october of twenty fifteen, he spoke to a reporter from cleveland that com yesterday I said at rainbow baby and children hospital with mother of a five month ampt um SHE was too destroyed for me to interview her so instead I found myself confident her I am. I listened to her screams as I went through the E. R.

The five month old infant was named avia wake field. She'd been riding in a car with her family tucked into a car seat. When someone started shooting from the street, ivo was killed, shot through a chest, and I watched ed, the mother, the grandmother, washed blood of her as SHE tried the safe town.

And I just want to say to the citizens of cleveland to speak up. Its time to speak up. There are people who know what happened.

There are people who saw what happened. They are people who hurt what happened, and it's time for them to speak up. Ov s shooting came at the end of a hideous month for cleveland.

Four children were shot, not teenagers, little, little kids. Three of them died. They weren't targeted.

These are mistakes. Collateral damage from street violence. The whole city was buried.

Public officials, people who deal with tragedy for a living, were unraveled by what was going on in the days after abbie's death. Cops, the mayor, the counting prosecutor, begged the public to speak up. Help us, talk to us.

Speak up, speak up, speak up. They employed. They also chased zed. The police chief, calvin Williams, was plainly aggravated.

All you people who complain about violence in the police, where are you going to stop yammering and do something and take quite like that? But almost, we need people out there in the community that are concerned with black lives, with Brown lives, with White lives, with purple lives, to step out and do something and not just have chance and slogans and martis. We'd march enough.

We need people to do some help us, which really means trust us. About two months after this press conference, the city held another press conference. This time they were grateful people had spoken up. Now they had someone in custody. This past friday, the van holmes was in died on thirteen felling counts for the um homicide of a vio wake fill, a Young guy named dave on homes he just turned one thousand.

The indictment against him was robust two counts of aggravated murder plus one regular murder that was for the baby three more attempted murders and three more full eny assaults for the other passengers in the car that day, whom irritable ously were unhurt. In another attempted murder influences, assault for a bystander was as if one big law enforcement fist were pounding on the public podium. This should not be happening in our city, and we ve got to do something about IT a David's first court appearance.

The prosecutor noted that, quote, mister holmes has a history of violence. As a juvenile, he asked for a million dollar bond. The judge set IT at one point five million.

Couple days later, another judge would raise IT to two million. A year. After that second press conference, almost of the day, I haven't to be at a holiday party at a restaurant downtown.

The local defense bar was throwing up. I was tagging along with an attorney he'd been interviewing, and he saw a friend, and he said, hey, he's IT going. And the friend, also a defensive tourney, was beaming ing.

He said, great, we just got my guy out. Oh, really, what's a case? A murder case, baby.

We were taken a back. Wait, what he quickly said, it's a horrible case, but my guy didn't do IT. They've got the wrong guy. Davon homes have been quietly released from the cahoga I jail, the charges against him dismissed without prejudice, which means the county could try to read dim in future. But for now he was free avia s death, her unassumed innocence.

As one of the none one one Operators said that day, a baby baby killed in her car, see IT was a kind of incident that makes a city stop arguing for a bit over what the criminal justice system is doing right and what is doing wrong, so that everyone seemed to line up, fired up, to find justice for R B. L. That's why i'd looked into this case into all these awful shootings from the fall of twenty fifteen, because I figured if any homicides we're onna get the full menu of police and prosecution resources, IT would be these. Everyone wants to solve the case of the five month old baby.

So what happened after all that effort, wrong guy, what happened? What did the police think IT was dave on in the first place? And what happened over the course of that year to make the state let him go?

I heard, I heard about all the time. All the key is being killed. One to tell IT was a big issue. IT was all over the nose.

This is dave on homes. Did you know that there was gossip that you had done?

IT that would freak to me out. I didn't never thought my name was in a situation when I .

knocked on his door. He'd only been out of jail for a couple of months. He was living at home with his mother.

I had a speech in my head about why he should talk to me, but there is no need. He agreed right away, as if you have been waiting for someone to come along and ask, what the heck happened? I was not able to ask the police.

With the heck happened, the detectives weren't allowed to talk to me. In fact, no cleveland officials, no police officials, no one from the mayors office would agree to an on the record interview for the series of, Frankly, never encountered a city government with a jl locked up tiger than cleveland. They wanted nothing to do with us, which is too bad, because clippin has some interesting leaders with ideas and lots to say about their city, just not to me.

So well, I didn't meet the homicide detectives in charge of avia weight fields case. I could not ask them, how much did you know about dave on homes before you arrested them? Instead, I went to dave on. He started at the beginning, right after thanksgiving twenty fifteen.

I was in my mom house going to make me a play from left over days. Given I was making a play in, my mom said, what the police don't hear like that so maybe, mia, just, look, I be scared of eye. I did not wrong, so I come in the dinner I comer, so I will go there. Dates, arrest me straight up, me up. I say, what am I being arrested for?

They don't talk.

You didn't talk to me, they say, I say, what might be an arrest for, he said, we would tell you when you get downtown IT wasn't .

just a couple of cops at the door and was the U. S. Marshals, northern ohio violent fugitive task force in full battle rattle. There was a warn out for devon's arrest, but he didn't know that they take him downtown to the justice center, to an interview room.

The detective, you a baby killed you. You killed the baby under you. Did everybody saying you did IT we know you did IT me.

I don't know what you talking about. I wasn't there. I heard about the child that I feel bad, but i'm not what I did. You got to go, you you a baby killer.

You day while you stop free to use baby killer.

Call me a baby killer. Got me your type of baby killers and covers just be little only all around board IT IT was to the point that I just can take you anywhere. I was couped. I know what was going to know. I think that was china scared .

me to like.

tell him myself.

But I can first.

I take a first to somebody in.

do people .

do IT all the time, you know? But I was really interested. So I said, okay, i'm ready to go home. So the lady detect you said, no, you going to get for rest your life.

The lady detective was around degray, the same one who listened to avil wake fields mother screaming down the halls of the E. R. davon. Understood the pressure, political and personnel to solve crimes like these over weeks than months. That was scared. The doll knowledge that he didn't kill avil wake field, and he could well be convicted for killing avil wake field because they know two.

three years. They know probable treatment. This is the rest of my life, the death family. This is a child 伪造 型。 So I know what to do.

Don had been locked up before, but the circumstances this time made everything more foul. The creeping mold, the roaches having a washes closed and sheet in the sink or more off in the toilet, the relentless baloney sandwich es nothing healthy .

to eat from commerce. No, no, no, no, no. For no. As I got to know.

dave on I D here and do this when I think sticks in his mind, repeat IT in batches as if he's skipping a mental stone. For instance, one of his appointed .

to turney, Michael SONY, on 还有 这 道。

这个 道。

还有 这。 Davon.

said sean. He believed him that he didn't commit this crime. What do they say you? What do they say the state out against you?

Somebody saying they save me running with a girl in my hair. Somebody say they can add for me. No finger, please.

No, no gir. No list test. No, not all this work. It's all .

ahead. See, in another appointed internet, the one I met at the party would visit day on periodically, tell them they were working on IT. The evidence was then keep your head up.

But David said he was struggling. He was painted up in every way a person can be, he said. He was almost a relief when he got to a fight with some guy, got sent to the hall.

About five months in a date was set for day month's trial, june twenty seventh, june twenty seventh came and went, they said. Another trial date for late october, a week before that trial date, IT, too, was cancelled. A month after that, devon's lawyers came to see him in jail. They said, congratulations, you're going home. It'd been a year since he was arrested, devan said.

Don't play with me like that home. 这 是一个 I I don't call my mom and tell him I can give me because I just didn't believe him。 I said in all my mom and tell him, come give me. He called at a .

can do number .

crack IT was just like all my warrant was relief, but is still hurt in me. Cars I just did a year wasted a year of my life for telling these people the same thing I did not do.

Devon's not, man, that the cops brought him in for evil wake fields death. He feels like they had information. They acted on that information fair enough, but what came after post arrest .

that he's mad about investigation because clearly ly, they don't adverse cote. They good when they come and give somebody, but then they good cups force investigations.

When I ask Steve on why they finally let him go, he said death .

because the family, the family said they know I had to do IT wait.

Which family? The child family.

wait. That's what your lawyers .

told you that the child's family said you don't know anything to do.

yeah. They said they came in court and said they heard I had to do with IT.

How would the family now .

that's well understand.

But at the same time, i'm happy that they realize and see that I really can do IT.

I don't think that's what happened.

My you tell me he .

said that's what you're getting out.

Yeah he said we had a court in a family came and says, you have haven't gonna do with IT and judge dismiss the case right there.

That's crazy. If they had thought, why weren't .

you there mess? What I understand.

this story made no sense to me, but once I thought about IT, IT made sense. Weight would make no sense. Many of the defendants I talked to in cleveland, especially the ones who are waiting in jail, I often knew more about what was going on with their cases in the needed, just from taking a quick look at the public records, because they are contact with the outside world, with the workings of the court estimated by multiple layers of interference, like a frustrating game of telephone. Maybe you are signed attorneys briefly, but that's about IT.

So there you are, in the county jail, only an elevator right away from the court room and the prosecutors office. But all you have is a cloudy pink hole to help you decipher what's going on upstairs. I don't know what evidence Steve on attorneys did or didn't show him.

I don't know what they told dive on about why he was being released. Devon's atterley would not talk to me for the story. I think they said no out of concern for divine. The case of avia wake field is still open.

From the list of evidence the state handed over to the defense, I can roughly piece together the swashes of information that LED to devon's arrest. In the days right after the shooting, anonymous tips began to come in. Certain names began to percuss ate and repeat.

Devon's name appears four days after the shooting. Crime stoppers tip read davon homes, another one the next day. Couple days after that, T, C, telephone call from anonymous mal retinal take his day.

Bon spin as ickle me forever. Other names were still coming into then on october tenth, a little more than a week after the shooting, police show a photo line up to an eyewitness. I'm going to call this eyewitness the landscaper because he worked as a landscaper.

The landscape was there when the shooting happened on east one hundred and forty fifth street of kinsman road, right middle of the fourth police district, the busiest one in the city, possibly in the entire state, ohio. The landscape had made working in a house across the street for some months. I only know the specifics because David's lawyers failed emotion to suppress the evidence the landscape gave police in their motion.

They say that at first the landscape er had told police he hadn't seen the shooter, but that a little more than a week later he came forward to say that in fact he had the police shown some photo are raised, he doesn't positively identify anyone but he says two people look sort of like the shooter neither of whom was dave on the offence, says dave. On's photo was in that initial array. The state says IT wasn't in any case, about five weeks later, the cops show the landscape another photo lineup.

First he rules out davon, then changes his mind, then said, someone else, this photo looks like the shooter. Finally, a week after that, so fifty seven days after the shooting, they show the landscape that same photo array. And he says he's gonna with his gut and that he's ninety percent. Is this guy right here day on homes .

in their suppression motion.

divonne lawyers reference studies about how memory is malual and subject to contamination, but especially in times of high stress, we miss details. They argue that davon doesn't really match the landscape's initial description of the shooter, dave, on his Younger, shorter, significantly heavy by showing the landscape of his photo in these lineups. Maybe the police were, in fact, creating a memory.

Maybe the landscape was recognizing dave on because i've seen him before in these very photo or raise. They don't mention the studies. I start looking into this to talk about how when eyewitnesses pick out someone is the perpetrator in a police line up, they identify innocent people more than thirty percent of the time, thirty percent, or the ones that say you're never supposed to show an, I witness the same photo more than once.

So yeah, nearly two months after the fact, the landscape is suddenly ninety percentage of his I D. Gave on, was aware of the landscape statement, but he was more focused on and troubled by another ID witness. The state had a guy i'm gonna call, john davon said.

John claimed to have seen davon after the shooting running with a gun in his hand. John had given this evidence when himself was locked up in facing serious charges, aggravated robbery phone's assault knapping don thinks it's a john statement that got him arrested on paper. IT does look as if the case clicked into place as soon as john talked.

Court records show that detectives talk to john on november eighteen th, and that same day they showed the landscape or another photo line up with demons picture in IT nine days later is when the violent future of task force bangs on devon's door interrupt as thanksgiving leftovers. But the disturbing part for davon is that he knows john well. Why did he .

idea for IT?

IT was something .

happy with my brother a long time ago.

I'm an invite you on a little tangent now, just because when I first heard what happened, I couldn't quite believe IT john's older brother and devon's older brother were best friends. One day in two thousand seven, when devon's brother was sixteen, Jones brother was fifteen. They tried to rob a guy coming back from the corner store where he just bought new port cigarets in a bag of popcorn.

The teenagers had a gun, but the guy also had a gun, and he shot and killed john's brother, the fifteen year old, because they were together. And we're trying to commit a crime. And this is the part that blew my mind until I looked up the definition of felony murder.

But dave one's brother was charged with the murder of his best friend. Even though he didn't fire the weapon, David's sixteen year old brother was bound over to the justice center, meaning he was transferred from juvenile court for the maximum sentenced he could get was around five years and prosecuted as an adult. He was sentenced to eighteen years to life.

He can try for parole in march of twenty twenty five. He is unlikely to get IT in the aftermath of all this, davon said. His family and john's family were fine, no animosity. In fact, his uncle is with johns mom. He thought of john as a brother, but the way john's statement was worded, davon es interpretation, was that john wanted to hurt davon es family that maybe he blamed gave on's brother for his own brother's death in one of revenge.

I like dave von, but I want to make clear that this isn't one of those cases where the honour student gets profiled by the cops because he was wearing a hoody and lives near kinsman, devon, was treated like the usual suspect. Because he is the usual suspect, he was part of the largest, most troublesome ganging cleveland, the heartless baLance. Imagine the cops in clellan's fourth district were familiar with the burley kid called tank long before a via wake field was killed when his brother was locked up for his best friend's death.

Devon was ten years old. Davon told me he him self was first locked up when he was ten years old for strong army robbery. Much as I am tempted to connect, these two events done isn't.

I was angry about a year I lost my big brother, but that were in the reason I was in the streets, because I was in the streets when he was home. My brother used to make me go home like, get up, go home and have to fake like, act like I was going home. But I just go down in the street.

What will you do?

IT just been in a neighboring d don't rox a car Better?

And we're you just skipping school all the time where you'd .

going to school? Nice to go to school, run a house fight, still. Taters break in a cars.

This wasn't what I meant by going to school anyway.

door ruts just still a fool at the cafeteria in school. Run around security test for me. They called among mama. Mama chased me to the school.

This is the school right across the street from davanzati. It's close, now boarded up. Davon has a biding respect for his mother. He loves them.

SHE tried to guide him, never gave up on him, but when he was at that age, he says he listened to no one, not his mother, definitely not as teachers. He doesn't actually know how far he got in school, maybe seventh grade, maybe nth. Don said he loved being in the streets.

Infatuated was a word he used. He loved all of IT, the fast money and the cars. And the girls are mostly the rush, the journal of running away from people of being chased.

He hated school, but this came easily to him. He said he was a leader among his friends and organizer. As he got older, he sold drugs, thought a gun with the money, got caught for stuff, sent residential programs, group poems.

He escape. When David was fourteen, he got seriously hurt, shot in the elbow. It's got a vicious scar from IT. He was sent to a juvenile prison for the first time. That same year, by that time gave on was already a hartless felon.

Again, members prefer to college family that was born about fifteen years ago inside ohio s juvenile prisons and then spread to the world. Outside devon's loyalty, his willingness to engage in combat earned him a pretty high rank in prison. He got into fights with guards, which brought new assault charges, which in turn brought more prison time.

His original six months sentence stretched to three years. Finally, when he was almost eighteen, he came home when he got picked up for the murder of abbia wake field. He was just starting to tire of the streets, he said, starting to slow down. At a hard time comprehending devon's resume, specifically, dave, on the early years when he was a little boy, nine, ten years old, where you scared though doing, and by yours, I don't understand, like how a little kid can be like, I know, what do I go attack the person to take their money. But when you terrified, why not?

That just wasn't. No.

did you know what? Did you feel like I was wrong? Did you feel like it's wrong now?

为什么 这 一步？ I ll have removed for .

not an idea .

because .

I did IT.

I can be sorry for somebody there, laconic, only change from IT. But I will be side for what I regret that are. The like that even if I see somebody today that at home that deal some years ago, I am a be when songs are some onesta, when songs are same. I'm a get into, i'm a get defense more you get IT. Oh no, i'm pretty wear to you.

He is weird to me. We talked a lot about remorse, which he doesn't feel, and regret, which he also says he doesn't feel, but which I think he does in responsibility, which he feels keenly. He told me he's not gonna deny he did something.

If he did IT, he says he didn't shoot that baby. He says he doesn't know who did, but even if he did know, he wouldn't tell her sitting right here on this cow, he said, and he sees out the window, someone shoot someone else. He's either gonna leave before the cops show up, or if he does get questioned, he's gna help the cops as unhelpfully as he can.

I didn't, I don't know what happened. I didn't see IT.

But what if you did see IT?

I don't know who did. Did you see? Okay, did you see? yes.

IT, what happened? He got kill. Hw, he got shout, who did IT, I don't know.

Did you say, yeah, what he look like? I don't know which way he go. He is rare. I'm helping, but i'm not going say he on the black coat, he went down the way he got a net core. I'm not doing .

because why this is what i'm trying to .

understand.

Why not I want raise like that. I don't care. You is my worst enemy. I'm not telling on you. I don't care what you did, you know, no matter if he was, I don't I matter, he was the old as nic's mean is lady.

I am all this nice this mean.

even if you was a lady OK it's because it's your principle.

You're just saying it's not about the consequences for me. It's just a principle.

Guess against my religion, say that guess against my religion to tell on somebody make me i'm not going feel right. I'm feel less of a man.

I was like a relative who was your with the victim of IT, you know, I mean, does does your principle bend at all with the nature of the crime?

Yeah, i'm not tell. If no, no.

We just going .

hard to handle the different way.

Meaning street justice, which davon can get behind. But clever in police justice or justice center or justice. No way.

This is precisely what vex as police investigations in cases like s it's probably is oldest primate itself, certainly old as organized crime. No snitching. It's not just about gangs to coda.

Loyalty, though, over the decades has been helped along by the criminal justice system itself, especially during the war on drugs. You could argue no snitching was a rational response to the widespread uce of low level who would be threat with Mandatory prison sentences if they didn't talk. Problem was, the low of informant sometimes didn't know that much.

So people are getting arrested based on flimsy or even false information. And then, of course, people don't CoOperate because the straight up fear, while supported fear. Until we watched the no snitching principal play out during trials in cleveland, i'd never fully understood how deeply in buddy's cases we watched the capital murder case in which witnesses were visibly scared.

Even some of the jurors were scared, and they weren't paranoid. The defendant was a hartless felon, or one witness had been shot and killed in his driveway just before he was supposed to come to court. We watched another case in which a police enforcement had been murdered.

We saw people scream on the stand, prevaricate. Probably the most torture testimony we saw was from a man who goes by R. J.

He'd been in a gang and he was an important witness during the trial for the murder of one of the other children killed that fall of twenty fifteen, major Howard, who was three years old. He was a drive by when the shooting happened. R.

J. Was there on his front porch. In the first, he became a bit of a media hero because he had tried to help major in a news video.

He's sitting on his porch, shit less being interviewed he looks sad and dazed has got staples epes ARM holding together a won from rist to elbow the result of an unrelated shooting the week before the words never snatch or tattooed ed in fancy script just below his collar bone a trial the prosecutor, ana rita, made IT cleared to the jury that R. J. Had told detectives he'd seen the defendant, donal linsey, known as no shooting from the window of a White car. Now, today, almost a year and half since he made that statement, rj was on the stand saying.

IT wasn't true. Nobody OK .

didn't see the shooter didn't even see the car. Soon as he heard shots, he had ducked down onto his porch floor, he said. So all he saw was his porch ceiling and the little chairs he's got out there didn't see don Ellen si at all the day major Howard was killed. And a ferlie tries to tease out of him why .

the discrepancy between these two statements know what to do.

R. J. Begins to spiral. It's hard to follow, which I have to think was at least partly by design.

He says he's got all this pressure on him and no one can help. He's even as c OS in prison. He's serving time now on a different case.

What should he do? Should he testify? He feels IT was right to help the baby. He says the best thing he ever did. But a lot of people in the street are talking about him threatening.

He's getting in fights in prison now because people hurting a snatch eventually, he says to inferior A I didn't see don Ellen sy myself. I just told detectives what i'd heard from other people because my face had already in the news. And since I was really public, people in neighbor d started coming at me with information, people who are scared themselves to scattered before police arrived that day.

So I was really passing their information to the detectives, not my own information. And that was also a good deed. I could have run like other people did.

I could shut my door. I knew the police were looking for me for another shooting, but I tried to help that baby. I talk to detectives. What else do you want for me?

I went on like .

this for hours. Finally, it's. A movie move states, exhibit three, fifty one is an autopsy photograph of adorable little major Howard's dead body SHE hand.

The photo to R, J, is that you try to help. Is that who you try to help? Is that IT? Yes, turn now you try to help this whole boy.

okay. And don't you think you over to him to tell this jury who shot the little boy and not be afraid any worse, sir? R.

J, slumps, starts to cry. The day major was shot, R. J. Ran to him, took off his own shirt, wrapped IT around him, jumped in a car and held on to major. Or they rushed to the hospital.

Major was still conscious, looking up at him, touching his chest, dying trees. Old R. J. Was still tormented by IT did not shoot this little boy and you see you're shooting from a White car that night at all.

I'm asking you, I hope what other people saying? Step, I heard that. Hope so. I, I hope, made the best way I can, helping age, telling the truth and other people. Ue, but my and .

access to him. Let's get real. You won't deliver IT because you're afraid of retribution, SHE told me game members had come in the court room SAT in the back trying to get into ge's head.

SHE says, R. J, now you're afraid because you broke the code. He says that ship sailed the moment I picked up that little boy, I broke the code by talking to the news reporter who approached me on the street.

I broke the code by speaking to the cops. I am breaking the code right now by sitting in this courtroom. Doesn't even really matter what words I said. Just being here is enough.

Marine is more I can talking you colour broke.

I talked to a few jurors about the case afterwards. Two out of the three said they didn't believe R, J, saw no in the car, but there was other evidence. Aside from R, J and donellan, he was convicted.

He got thirty seven years to live. For what it's worth, his lawyers don't think he did IT. That's actually unusual for them.

A man, you will watch the whole trial. And he came away not at all convinced dan ellsey was guilty. I still don't know what to think.

So what exactly did they have on devon homes? No video, no physical evidence, no finger parents, no DNA, no gun. I found that dave on apparently had made a statement placing himself in the vicinity of the crime, saying he'd been at the family dollar at the top of the street and had seen people running to me.

Dave on denied making any such statement. Police had got ten his cell records, which show that he was indeed nearby at the time of the shooting. But considering he lives only a few blocks from where the shooting happened, the cell record seemed overwhelming.

So the eye witnesses were paramount. And again, at least on paper, they're web. There was john the guy dave on new, but he had offered information from jail. Witnesses like that are inherently weak. The defense can always argue the person's lying to get a deal.

I wasn't able to reach john, but I did talk to someone close to him, who I believe is reliable, who said they had talk to john about his statement. This person told me that with john told the police, quote, it's not true. This person said john had lied to save himselve to try to avoid going to prison.

They didn't think john did IT because of his brother's death that, yes, he does still suffer over his brother. They didn't think that was the reason to online about davon. So the landscape's ID was probably the strongest thing they had.

I wasn't sure what to make of his sudden clarity fifty seven days post shooting. Was he somehow manipulated by the police? Or maybe he'd been scared of choosing the wrong person or the right person.

Maybe he just made a mistake. I went looking for him one day at various addresses around the city, a manual I left, notes and our business cards tucked in male boxes in front doors. IT worked.

I gotto call that same night from the landscape. He did not trust me. His neighbours had seen a manual in me walking round with our hands in our pockets.

We looked at cops. I told him I was cold outside. That's why I asked him if we could meet so he could see for himself.

I was harmless, but the more I asked, the more suspicious he got. I was trying to set him up to arrest them. We spoke a couple of times on the phone.

He was upset. His name was part of dave van's case. He was told his name would stay out of IT. He said they threat me that if they didn't come to court, they put me in jail.

He thinks they drop dave van's case because they didn't wanna pay out the reward money, which was twenty five thousand dollars. The landscape was full of conspirators oral further, which I got the feeling he had come by honestly. Sometime later, a woman called me.

He said he was family to the landscape. SHE said, you should be careful what you do, because you can come in and ask all these questions, but then you get to leave. And we don't.

We live here. These people will kill you. We have cops in our family.

I know how things happen. I told her. I know she's right. I am trying to try delicately. We talked for a long time.

We were friendly by the end, he said he tell the landscape er to talk to me, but he never did before i'd hung up with him that last time the landscape had asked me, have you talked to the baby's family? He'd been in contact with Charles waight field, I veels father. He said, you should talk to the family that's coming up after the break.

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That's M A D E I N coquart dot com. I've been waiting to contact mister wake field until I don't know. I had more information, I guess. But really, I was avoiding IT. I figured IT would be painful for him and professionally.

of little use to me. We know, I know the whole story, so I guys say, is just the way in going. I was being a dummy.

Chard's wake field is a lovely, welcoming person who says he knows exactly what happened.

First, should hit in the back at the front part, retire in a single bullet, one into the death board in a second bullet, one in a corner of the passenger window, which were my mom was said that in a third bullet went in the back door into her car seat.

Charles wasn't there himself. He wasn't a witness. He doesn't have any proof for his version of what happened. It's all information he's gathered from other people. So i'm gonna beaming out a name here.

The version of the story he feels confident is true is that some guys were shooting days in a building on east hundred and forty fifty street of kinswomen. Sometime earlier, one of them had been robed, maybe at another dice game, or theyd been some gambling issue. Charles wasn't sure about that part.

I later learned there had been a shooting. Anyway, these guys were ready to retaliate. They were on the look out for a particular car, a car that looked a lot like Charles is car. Charles said, the guy they were after had a White two thousand oldman bile aora. Charles had a White two thousand one old mobile aora.

Only difference was he has had tenant winter, and ours had the same roof.

The guys playing the dice game, seeing old's bile coming, Charles says, one of them .

recognized that somebody that was there with dom knew my car, and I told they said, I need to car.

But one guy started firing anyway, travel's fian say I issue was driving. His elderly mother was in the passenger seat. Behind her was evil, and behind nisa was her other daughter, who was eight years old.

They were driving to the stability just a few blocks away to get ingredients for trousers. Birthday's ke, this is birthday. The next day .

i'd seen a person with that car, but I don't know who is. I actually made the um the car wash when I first you know somebody got the same type of car today you know conversation his car.

I'm not sure why this hadn't occurred to me before, but he was hit me now talking to Charles. He lives right here. The shooting happened down the street from where we're sitting.

The people he thinks are involved with his daughter's death. They also live right here within box of each other. Some of them, of course, he knew things, had heard things. I S Charles about dave on think when he got arrested, you you think of, okay, they .

got him.

I know this is where i'm going to a start beaming because Charles doesn't think IT was tank. He tells me story about another .

person who he named was fire. My car was hit. One of the those come one and to me first words come out his mouth is say he can help let you 来， 我在 讲 乐子 what did you take that to me that he's going hole at you .

like he's got to see us to speak you about something like .

pretty much he was really gone。 I believe they didn't think my daughter was going to die. So he was gonna, you know.

try to patch up.

but but he end up dying. So IT he can, he can do. And no more.

And then I was party. Few days later, our street started talking in figures. Point back to how many .

people talk to you about IT about .

four or five people make. And you're pretty sure IT wasn't just .

an echo chAmber where was like they'd all heard the same single rumour. IT was a different information.

different information.

Charles knows this guy he's talking about. They weren't close friends, but they definitely knew each other and had been cool with each other. And he says, ever since the shooting, this guy acts strAngely when he sees them twitchy. Twitchy is a useful time in the movie version of the story, but IT is not evidence of anything really. But to Charles, IT feels like this guy's body language is what gives them away.

And it's not with me like he he would see one of my bodies that i'm kind of close way, and my body would tell this hard, he says. And I was like, he took off, like he jumped in, somebody carded, he wasn't even in and took off. And i'm like, bra, he did he like, I no bra.

Charles says he finally confronted the guy .

himself in the street like why you keep running from me, you know, he I running from you, I say, well, got to stand the middle street to flag you down to come .

back right .

now that what happened from this house.

you saw in a car and you stood .

out people across the street. I was walking back from the door. He was faced in this way.

And when I turned the corner, he backed up in my drive way and went that way. So i'm in the middle of street like this. When my arms are, wait for him.

Looked to the review me. Finally, he looks to the review meeting. He start the car, he comes back, but he got someone in the car winning and look on his face with that acting.

He just wanted me to do some tone so he can press charges and give me like that. And i'm looking at life, and I want to tell me what have. And I like my daughter day.

I know you wanted leave. You try running from me every time you see me, and he may know what to tell you. I was the wrong place, the wrong time, or some the car.

I was the wrong car, some whatever he told me, but i'm telling him like that, I, you know, I like that all know, and I just me as much you were. You got a national people. You kill the inner baby. Like, I can stop people from doing what they feel in my heart. I'm not only person to know your face .

now was this like you're telling this to me in a in a very moderate tone? Was at the tone of the conversation where you screaming in the street.

just like i'm telling you talking you yeah.

Charles wasn't scared, wasn't worried about someone coming after him for telling police what he had heard. He's the grieving father of a dead baby daughter. The rules didn't apply to him. Or if they did, didn't care, he thought, should side step the game too, and turn himself in.

So IT was this other guy, I aster's. Why did he think people started calling in anonymous tips about David on one reason, he said, was because davon changed disappearance soon after the shooting. He cut his dreads.

he cut his of em, and that he a had a warm for some he did on the west. So we made everybody think, you know, he has on to do with IT. So 彼 讲 无 彼 联手。

Wait, so you're saying pink was there, he was there and he had a gun. He just .

didn't shoot him there.

Have you ever spoken to him? Do you spoken to take .

you spoken today? Oh.

you did. Where do you see you store .

they're on to told me .

he didn't know the wake field family and you guys speak what he said.

you know, he say pretty much size me up to see if us you'll take if he had something do what IT or i'm going, you know, do something to him or you know like that but he know and if I want to do somebody, baby, I respect that man enough. He stayed into for about a year. For some he didn't do. So you're saying .

he knows what happened.

He knows, but I mean, he didn't do. IT is a difference between no one in doing and has two different things.

Why do you think IT took so long for them to let him out?

That was that was trying to give him the senate on. That was just to dry out. Try just that. I was they not do that, never letting Charles .

think the state, indeed, dave, on on three different kinds of murder charges and held him in a filthy jail cell for a full year in hopes that he'd turned on. Davon told me he doesn't know. Charles feels pretty sure he does.

To be clear, Charles did not know who dave on was before all this happened, but he told me several times he's got no problem with him now. okay. So i've been talking to dave on for four months by this point, and he had not said any of this to me, he'd been categorical. He knew nothing about that shooting.

Wasn't there? Didn't know any of these people. After I talked to Charles, I went back to on and ran all this buy him and he said, aside from, yes, recognizing Charles weight field on the street, none of IT was true.

He said he'd heard all these same rumors I had, but that's what they were, rumors, stories, which by virtual repetition, do not become true. I don't know if devon's telling me the truth about what he knows or doesn't know, but now that I know what I know, I wouldn't be surprised if he's not. I might be the oldest, nicest, minus lady, but at the end of the day, i'm still an outsider. And while I can understand why Charles feels that his information is solid and true, at the end of the day, it's all second hand.

You're naming to me like individual people who you think we're there and and know the same story you're tying me. And yet not one of them IT seems like has gone to the police, are talk to the police about IT does that surprise you?

No, not really. I mean, I can say he comes the board until nobody wanna be labeled as nate like everybody tell me who did IT but you know, because I can go to the over as well so that so just told me they have to tell that, you know, so I don't notice .

that make you mad at all. Your neighbor's .

IT peces me all way you like. Every time I go outside, I just look at everybody different, like, you know, happy what you want to say that, you know. So that's just how I look at everybody like, you know, it's the same one of the hair, okay? And my hey, and I like my, you know, you can know this all time.

Charles is a big man, big and soft around the edges. His mother told me he was always a crier, but now the tears seem to leak from him unbidden. His mom told me the loss of his baby was a soft hurt, which I took to mean still tender.

I didn't know him before avil died, but my sense now is that he is ravaged by the loss of her. Halfway through a conversation, I realized I was talking him from the same places, sleeps and oversized armchair and matching autumn in the living room at the food of the mix shift bed was a coffee table covered with photographs. In momentous of avil, Charles had been a stayed hot father.

I used to worked, and so he took care of abbia all day. He felt very close to her since the shooting. He's had a hard time not thinking about her and her death in the unsolved case every minute .

is just kind of making going to take matters to you on. Is that a possibility .

that you would do something .

about IT yourself? No OK. Nobody in this point that I feel can nobody is there with IT just may know somebody can be sitting feeling like this. okay. How can with .

ground .

and paying you want? I get a country is like, I can leave like that. But they worked IT and the head opportunity planets are nowhere yet norwest day norway piano everyday I need like as as will hurt me.

Like, maybe I should go again. Like anyone, I will be honor. That's why I get master satisfaction from knowing that his life will never be to say they are going right now as we speak. He pretty laugh in IT, but IT is my school.

right?

Charles fields, as though he can't directly ask anyone to come forward and speak to the police. He understands snitches get killed. He wants to live in world where switching is unnecessary. I heard this from several people in interviewing cleveland. If the cops just did their jobs Better, civilians wouldn't be put in this impossible position.

The city need the public to do is, jack, that's the same problem. All I do is get out here, ask somebody else to do that. Right now, you get out here and look further. Person, you think did IT want somebody to tell on somebody, I mean.

isn't that them doing their jobs and try to get here? I mean, they're not magic like they weren't here. The only way they get information as people telling them information.

No, they get information by giving out in any streets and finding information itself just like I.

right? But that still would require someone to tell, you know I mean, like if they go to the same people who talk to you.

they're asking them to tell. But no, i'm saying that that person would be telling them instead of telling me you saying that is is easy, like I say, the whole neighborhood and told me what .

happened exactly because he's not a cup. I got to say, most of the detectives I talk to told me that back in the day, twenty years ago, even ten years ago, they did have Better relationships with the people. They police said there wasn't as much animosity toward them.

For one thing, they used to have a substantial community policing unit. The former commander of IT told me. Twenty two police mini stations staff, ed, with two officers each, plus there are officers at schools, officers at public pools.

Police didn't materialize. Only in the afternoon th of disaster, they were visibly around. They could develop relationships, which in turn could lead to information.

You make a quite phone call, and people on the other end of the line would trust you to keep their names out of IT. I don't know whether these guys were waxing nostalgic, but everyone I talk to agree that IT has been degrading in recent years. This relationship with the public, the team in charge of police reform in cleveland recently surveyed officers.

They issued a report a few months ago that included officers estimate that sixty percent of people they come into contact with want nothing to do with them. The police, many stations were asked more than a decade ago, budget cuts LED to the department, losing hundreds of officers. Charles said he did reay everything he'd been hearing to the cops specifically to detective art echoes.

He in detective on degray were running the investigation. Charles said he was calling and calling, leaving messages. I got information. I got another person. He says he never gotten call .

back the guy Charles believes shot of.

All the police are aware of him. Charles didn't tell me anything he had ready, told police in any way, he said detective veco already heard that same guy's name almost as soon as well did this man himself knows the police are aware of him. I met him.

That is, I recognized him one day at the justice center while he was sitting on a bench waiting to make a ti m jail visit. And I asked if I could talk to him about the way field case I gave in my card. He was on equivalent. No, I got nothing to say. I just wants to leave all that in the past and over.

The last time Charles met with the detectives was late november of twenty sixteen. They're called him in aisha to tell them they had important news. They all gathered in the prosecutor's office where the detectives and prosecutors explained they'd be letting dave on homes out of jail, Charles said. He told them, well, yeah, because tink didn't do IT. They said they're still be pursuing the case, still looking at other suspects, including the guy Charles believes in IT they discuss that guy.

They discuss davon tell me he like, well, you know, I believe they're going to be at each other and you know, like you don't even basically they're gone to kill each other. That's what he said to you. Basically this is echo.

Yes, you may bit that was today. They let him go here. You know.

don't worry about IT. Mr, feel they're with each other.

You worry about IT like they're going pretty afterwhile. They're going cross pass and they gone be between them too. Now that's what .

I was like.

pretty much shocked at me. And the guys are we will have DNA proud of like where you mean like that kind of words.

I wasn't able to run this by detective echoes again. The Cliff and police department didn't want to comment on IT. A prosecutor of the meeting said he didn't remember detective vehicle saying that, but I can kind of imagine IT when they had this meeting.

The clever in police department had only twelve homicide detectives murder, and clifton in were reaching their highest numbers in a decade. So yeah, I can see a cop thing to Charles between us. I think your best bet is to let them kill each other.

A quiet, bitter nod to the supremacy of street justice. So what did get dave on on a jail? Well, IT was detective work, but not by detectives that next time on cereal.

Serials produced by Julie snyder manual joshi bank ho in me, with additional reporting by italy's costi and a few scrums editing on this episode from ara glass witney danger field is our digital editor research, in fact, checking by bin fAiling sound design and mixed by stone Nelson. Additional production from k blinky music clearance by Anthony roman setting is our director of Operations.

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