Detectives practice bridge-building

Need for witnesses spurs Hub outreach

Thomas Lee, head of the police homicide unit, spoke to a community gathering at Codman Square Library last week. (Justine Hunt/Globe Staff)

On a rainy Monday night, Thomas Lee, who heads the Boston police homicide unit, stood before about 30 residents at the Codman Square Library and asked whether any of them watched the show "CSI."

About a dozen hands went up.

"I hear it's a good show," Lee said. "I can't stand it."

Solving homicides rarely rests on DNA evidence, he said. Instead, it takes old-fashioned police work: finding witnesses.

"We find a witness, we walk up and knock on their door," he said. "Just like they did in the 1800s."

Homicide detectives do not typically attend community meetings, preferring to work anonymously behind the yellow police tape. But since January, Lee and his detectives have been fanning out to meet the public in places like the Mildred Avenue Community Center in Mattapan.

The department has realized that a unit that depends on public cooperation to solve crimes cannot be hidden from that same community.

That is why last week, Lee and several officers he supervises as commander of the Criminal Investigation Division went to Dorchester for the monthly meeting of the Community Improvement Association.

Bad weather had kept many residents at home that night, and most of the people gathered were middle-age and elderly residents, who listened quietly as the officials spoke.

Lee, a tall, 49-year-old deputy superintendent in a crisp, dark suit, seemed to relish the role of public speaker. He joked easily with the crowd and called the meeting leader, Joan McCoy, "Joanie."

"The reality is most cases are solved by you, the public," he said. He urged his listeners not to be afraid to come forward.

"You're not a snitch," Lee said. "You're a witness, and a witness, to me, is a hero."

Kevin Buckley, a 51-year-old detective with a neat mustache and meticulously shined shoes, seemed shyer than his supervisor and said little. But he tried to warm up the crowd with an anecdote about the history of the library site, which he said was once home to a trade school that taught baking.

"I used to get doughnuts from the basement of this building," he said, drawing chuckles.

The two officers did not share much information about the neighborhood's most recent homicide, the March 9 stabbing of Melissa Santiago on Washington Street.

But for McCoy, who is 76, the exchange between the detectives and the public was a welcome change.

"Close-mouthed" is how she described investigators she has met. Often, she said, they would dismiss her questions with a curt "we can't tell you, ma'am. It's under investigation."

McCoy, a retired pediatric nurse who has lived in Dorchester for at least 40 years, said homicide detectives cannot expect the public to open up if they won't.

"They want us to talk to them and tell us every detail we can dredge up and we're willing, most of us," she said in a telephone interview after the meeting. "But . . . we expect them to talk to us. We realize they can't tell us everything when things are under investigation, but we have the feeling that they could tell us more than they are, and help break down the resistance between the police and the community by being as open as they can be."

McCoy said she has heard from many people who often feel there is no point in cooperating with police because they believe officers already have enough information to solve a case.

Buckley said it is an attitude with which he is too familiar.

At times, he said, he has asked witnesses for help, only to hear this reply: " 'You know who did it. Now go do your job.' "

In recent years, even some older residents in the community had stopped helping police, either because of fear or apathy, Lee said.

But lately, he said, detectives have witnessed more cooperation, a development he attributes in part to the new strategies, but also to new state and county programs. Since November 2006, two grand juries, instead of one, have been weighing evidence and hearing witness testimony in criminal cases, allowing the court to be more productive. The grand jury also allows prosecutors to subpoena reluctant witnesses, who must testify under oath.

Since May 2006, the state has authorized funding for a witness protection program that pays for hotel stays, relocation, and even public housing outside of Boston. The program has enabled detectives to offer assurances to potential witnesses that they will be kept safe even if they testify.

Witness cooperation "is still a struggle, a real struggle," Lee said. "But I think it's changing."

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.