Looking for trust
The city breathed a sigh of relief over the weekend with the news that two men had been arrested in the slaying of Chiara Levin.
Reverend Bruce Wall put credit for the break in the case in proper perspective yesterday. "If they have the right people, that's great," he said. "The credit goes first to the community, and second to the police and prosecutors. The neighborhood did their job."
It is no secret that solving homicides has become a challenge for the Boston Police Department, thanks to a public that fears retribution from criminals and has issues with law enforcement. Both problems leave people reluctant to aid in investigations.
The cooperation in this case wasn't all voluntary. A fair number of people knew what had happened, and were squeezed to talk.
Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis admitted as much. "It was a lot of detective work," he said in a telephone interview. "This is not a case where people called us. We had to go see them."
Speaking with guarded optimism, Davis said he hopes the kind of work that cracked this case can be applied to other homicides. "What I hope will be useful is a recognition that the criminal justice system can work," Davis said. "The fact that we're moving forward with this prosecution shows it's not necessary to retaliate on your own. The only way to get out of that cycle is to put trust in police and prosecutors."
Davis is right, but the reality is that trust has become a scarce commodity.
The Levin killing horrified Bostonians, and rightfully so. But she takes her place among dozens of other victims of the past couple of years, and most of those cases are unsolved. Every one of them deserves the full-court press that this case got.
As was obvious all along, Levin was on the receiving end of an attack meant for someone else. According to the account offered by prosecutors, Casimiro Barros, 20, and Manuel Andrade, 33, were firing at each other. Now, they are co defendants in the most notorious homicide of the year. Senseless doesn't even begin to describe it.
Still, the arrests raise a question about why so many cases go unsolved. The rising number of homicides is often compared to the wave of similar violence in the early 1990s, but the dynamic now is different. In the decade since fear of killings last gripped Boston, a strong "no snitching" ethic that was only nascent in the '90s has taken firm hold.
The code of silence is fueled partly by distrust of law enforcement, partly by criminal intimidation, and partly by a belief that problems on the street can and should be solved among gangsters themselves. The police are on the outside looking in. So are thousands of law-abiding citizens caught figuratively -- and sometimes literally -- in the crossfire.
Wall has been steadfast in calling for more community involvement in solving crimes. "People who have the information need to give the information," he said. "We shouldn't have to be coerced. We shouldn't have to be subpoenaed."
Yet, he acknowledges that witnesses are often justified in being afraid to cooperate with prosecutors. After they testify, after the trial is over, they have to return to their neighborhoods, and that can be unnerving.
Wall recalled that in the early days of the Ten Point Coalition, ministers often accompanied witnesses to court when they went in to testify, to help counter intimidation. "The idea was to outflank the other side," he said.
Chiara Levin's slaying prompted a fair amount of soul-searching about local violence. But the most important pondering may need to come from residents themselves, who are going to have to face hard questions about whether maintaining silence in the face of deadly violence makes them more safe, or less so.
Solving homicides is one of the most pressing problems facing this city. And the sad truth is that the criminals are far ahead of their would-be captors. That isn't entirely the fault of law enforcement. And police and prosecutors alone won't fix it.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 
