Edna McAbier had her home firebombed in January 2005 by members of a neighborhood gang who felt had she snitched on them by calling police about their criminal activities.
In July 2004, 15-year-old Quartrina Johnson was strangled so she wouldn't testify in a statutory-rape case. Three men were convicted of her murder and a fourth of conspiracy to commit murder. Jason T. Richards, the man who was charged with statutory rape and who prosecutors say ordered Quartrina's death, called one of his co-defendants a "punk" and a "snitch." Richards even threw the N-word in there for good measure.
All involved in the Quartrina Johnson case, victim and perpetrators, were black. Most of Baltimore's homicide victims - whose killers sometimes go free because of witness intimidation inspired by "stop snitching" - are also black. That's why Anna Sowers issued the call specifically for black leaders to step up and condemn Baltimore's stop-snitching culture. When non blacks condemn "stop snitching," Sowers said, it appears like they're outsiders criticizing a culture they don't understand.
"We need strong black leaders to publicly slam this atrocious trend in a troubled sector of the black community," Sowers wrote in her e-mail.
I wish her luck in her efforts. But the outlook is dim. In February 2006, rapper Busta Rhymes saw his bodyguard murdered in front of his very eyes and still hasn't told New York City police who committed the crime. When he made an appearance eight months later at Morgan State University, not one Baltimore black leader condemned the appearance at a taxpayer-funded university of a man who could be the poster boy for the stop-snitching movement.
But let Don Imus speak anywhere in this town and see how fast the picket lines go up. Heck, let Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas come to town and see how fast black leaders condemn his appearance.
These are the same folks Sowers wants to condemn "stop snitching." I get the feeling she'll stay on them until they do. Sowers was outraged when the man who all but murdered her husband got a 40-year prison sentence with a possibility of parole in 20 years. She's now channeled that anger into activism.
Baltimore's hoodlum element that so cherishes its stop-snitching code may well rue the day they got this woman started.
greg.kane@baltsun.com
