Stabbing probers kept race a secret
Darth Sidious
Alexandria, Va., investigators kept racially
sensitive details of the stabbing death of
8-year-old
Kevin Shifflett a secret from their own police
officers,
law enforcement sources familiar with the case
told
The Washington Times yesterday.
The sources said they were not told that
the
stabbing of Kevin, who was white, may have been
racially motivated — information that could
have led
officers more quickly to the killer.
"The information was held back. That
should not
happen when this is a serious homicide," said a
law
enforcement source familiar with the case.
Alexandria police told The Times early in
the
homicide investigation that investigators did
not believe
race played a role in the April 19 killing, and
that
Kevin's attacker did not say anything during
the
slaying.
But new details recently revealed about
the case
contradict those statements.
The Washington Post reported Friday that a
witness told police that Kevin's killer, a
black man,
made a statement about hating white people
before
slashing the third-grader's throat.
And law enforcement sources tell The Times
that
homicide detectives are now looking at Gregory
Devon Murphy, 29, who is from the same Del Ray
neighborhood where the attack occurred, as a
suspect
in the case.
Murphy, who is jailed in Fairfax County on
unrelated charges, has not been charged in
Kevin's
homicide.
But Murphy, who had recently been released
from
prison, came under increased scrutiny after
police
found a suspicious note in a hotel room the
ex-convict
stayed in two days before Kevin's slaying.
The note included the phrase "kill them
racist white
kids" in broken and misspelled English,
according to
law enforcement officials.
The Alexandria Journal and The Post have
also
reported that DNA evidence ties Murphy to a
taxicab
that investigators believe was used by the
suspect
shortly after Kevin was killed.
Murphy has a lengthy criminal record in
the area
with arrests on charges of rape, assaulting a
police
officer, malicious wounding and sodomy, among
others, records show.
At a hearing yesterday on Murphy's April
17 arrest
at a hotel in Fairfax County, witnesses
testified the
naked, incoherent man was "combative" and swore
repeatedly at firefighters as they forcibly
removed him
from the room he set afire.
Murphy's family members said yesterday
they still
support him.
"Of course we believe that he didn't do
it," said his
mother, Mae Murphy, as she sobbed on the
telephone.
Alexandria police spokesman Lt. John
Crawford
dismissed questions about the charge that the
department withheld important information from
its
officers and other police agencies.
Regarding the allegation that the killer
made racial
comments during the attack, Lt. Crawford said:
"I
don't know if that's been substantiated yet. As
far as
what was said at the crime scene, this is still
being
analyzed."
Any comments made by the attacker "could
be a
very critical component of the investigation,"
Lt.
Crawford said, declining to discuss the matter
further.
Some law enforcement officers in the area
agreed
that withholding the racial information may
have hurt
the investigation.
"I'm surprised the [Alexandria] officers
were not
apprised of the nature of the crime," one law
enforcement source told The Times. "It would
have
helped them. In a case of this magnitude, it is
not a
few detectives, but the entire department that
is
investigating it. The bottom line is the
detectives
released nothing.
"They had thousands of leads, and if they
had
known there was a racial component, they could
have
saved some time," the source said.
Police agencies throughout the region
normally
withhold from the public key pieces of
information in
important cases as a way to determine if
information
offered by witnesses or sources is accurate.
But former D.C. Police Detective Trevor
Hewick,
who retired last year and is now working as a
private
investigator, said that detectives who share
crucial
information with patrol officers can help close
cases.
As a patrol officer, Mr. Hewick helped
solve a
1989 double murder when the detective on the
case
shared the nicknames of two suspects with him.
Mr.
Hewick quickly realized that he was
investigating the
two men for other crimes.
"The lead detective knew me well enough
and
confided with me their first names and
nicknames, and
I said, 'I got the guys' pictures right here,'
" Mr.
Hewick said. "We were able to lock up those
guys
within 24 hours."
Alexandria City Manager Philip Sunderland
last
night defended his police department's handling
of the
case. Detectives didn't have any evidence at
the
beginning that the crime was racially
motivated, Mr.
Sunderland said. And whether other officers
should
have known such details shouldn't make any
difference in how a case is investigated.
"How knowing that would assist or hinder
an
investigation, I don't quite understand that,"
he said.
Law enforcement officials have also
quietly
questioned whether the Alexandria police could
have
made better use of the resources of federal
agencies,
especially the FBI.
The federal agency provided Alexandria
police
with the help of profiling experts — agents who
gave
probable characteristics of the killer — and a
computer program to manage the thousands of
leads
and bits of information collected during the
case.
But Alexandria police rejected a specific
offer of
help to search for the killer with FBI agents
and a
fugitive task force, according to a law
enforcement
official familiar with the matter.
The FBI's role was limited because the
Alexandria
police have not asked for any additional FBI
assistance in the probe, said another veteran
agent
who requested anonymity, although the bureau's
scientific expertise and highly trained agents
are often
in demand by police agencies nationwide when a
grisly, local crime has been committed.
"Why we're not doing more is a question
that
needs to be directed to Alexandria police,"
said the
agent.
Lt. Crawford said the FBI's help with
profiling and
the computer program was "very valuable" and
disputed that the FBI's role was limited.
"I don't believe that to be the case,"
said the
lieutenant. "We never refused assistance from
any
agency. We would welcome any assistance during
the
course of a high-profile investigation."
• Jerry Seper, Jim Keary and Gerald
Mizejewski
contributed to this report.
--
--------------------------------------------------
"wipe them out.....all of them!"
Darth Sidious episode I
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Richard Jorgensen
for a few miles.
On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 17:11:24 GMT, Darth Sidious
<darth_s...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>
> Alexandria, Va., investigators kept racially
> sensitive details of the stabbing death of
>8-year-old
> Kevin Shifflett a secret from their own police
>officers,
> law enforcement sources familiar with the case
>told
> The Washington Times yesterday.
> The sources said they were not told that
>the
> stabbing of Kevin, who was white, may have been
> racially motivated ? information that could
> with the help of profiling experts ? agents who
>gave
> probable characteristics of the killer ? and a
> ? Jerry Seper, Jim Keary and Gerald
>Mizejewski
> contributed to this report.
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