District Attorney Mitch Morrissey has a strong point: It is alarming that only one arrest has been made in the 12 gang-related homicides this year.
Denver Police Chief Robert White also has a point. Identifying suspects in gang shootings in which people are too scared to talk is difficult and takes time.
It took authorities nine months to get an indictment for the murder of Javad Marshall-Fields, who was killed on June 20, 2005, before he was due to testify in a gang murder case.
Marshall-Fields was shot along with his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe. Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens are on death row for those killings.
But Morrissey’s impatience is understandable. Denver can’t devolve into lawlessness. Ganglords do not own this town.
Mayor Hancock and Chief White say they are throwing everything they can into solving these crimes. The spotlight is on White and his department to put a stop to this violence, arrest the killers and send the cases to the DA.
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