Atlantic City: Police stress importance of help from community residents in solving crimes

Police stress importance of help from community residents in solving crimes
By LYNDA COHEN, Staff Writer pressofAtlanticCity.com

Solving crimes takes more than just good police work, authorities insist. It takes witnesses.

"You can't expect law enforcement is going to get it all done themselves," Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel said. "The people have to come forward and assist."


Atlantic City's two most high-profile cases this year show that can happen.

Five days after Sunil Rattu, 28, was killed and his girlfriend wounded in a carjacking that began in the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort parking garage, three Camden men were in custody in the crime.

"It's an example of what can be done when people come forward," Housel said. "People came forward, some I believe anonymously. That makes a world of difference."

One of the biggest breaks in the deadly carjacking came when a Bally's casino dealer told authorities he remembered a strange altercation with three males hours before the Sept. 17 carjacking. It got so uncomfortable, he drove away - but not before taking down the car's make, model and license plate number. That gave investigators the suspects' vehicle - a car reported stolen from Haddonfield - and helped pinpoint where they may have been to help in tracking video of them.

In that case, however, both the victims and the suspects were from far outside Atlantic City.

"Atlantic City, in a very real sense, is a small town," Housel said. "People do know each other. A lot of times you get people who are the victims themselves who won't cooperate. That happens so often, it's pathetic."

On Sept. 8, 2010, a man and woman were gunned down as they talked on a Caspian Avenue stoop during daylight hours. The neighbors welcomed police and Prosecutor's Office detectives when they canvassed the area for help. But no one, it appears, came forward. Many residents didn't even want to give their names.

"Usually the main witness is the victim or the victim's family," Atlantic City Deputy Police Chief Ernest Jubilee said of the violence. "They fear there may be some retaliation."

Sometimes there is another motivation.

"A lot of times we have people involved in criminal activity shooting each other," Jubilee said "They feel they can handle it themselves as opposed to involving police. They want their own street justice."

Investigators know that was the case at least once this year. One victim of an unsolved homicide was the main suspect in the killing of another man about a month earlier. Housel would not name the cases.

"We can't prove it, so we can't bring closure to the family," he said. "Because people still won't come forward."

But people finally did speak out in the case of Nadirah Ruffin, 19, who was taken from her cousin's Back Maryland home at gunpoint, then later found dead in Philadelphia's Schuylkill River.

Almost immediately after her disappearance, there was a community-led effort that included rallies and people going door to door to encourage possible witnesses to come forward. After her death, the movement gained even more momentum.

"Nadirah Ruffin was a heinous, heinous crime," Jubilee said. "That just shocked the whole community. We've had marches and we've had causes raised, but Nadirah's murder had a lot of people in the community upset.

"She was thought to be the innocent person or innocent bystander affected by crime," he added. "I think that's what got cooperation of the people."

Things are getting better, Jubilee said.

"More people are cooperating this year as the bad things happen," he said.

There have been arrests in nine of Atlantic City's 14 homicides this year, the latest two of which happened last Sunday. Just three of last year's dozen killings are considered solved.

Those open include the July 13, 2010 killing of Eric Prater, 30, who was gunned down just a week after Saleem Tolbert, 26, was shot to death a half-block away, and more than a year after Prater's younger brother, Quintin, 24, was killed. All three killings happened in Atlantic City's Back Maryland section, the same area Ruffin was when she was abducted.

"To a certain degree there has always been some apprehension by some people to talk to police," said Jose Ruiz, a police captain in Pleasantville, which saw a drop in violence beginning with a spate of peace rallies last year.

The police are also getting involved, he said. They have been attending meetings of the community-led Pleasantville Watch and also have members on a newly formed county Stop the Violence committee, which includes Mayor Jesse Tweedle and has conducted two town hall meetings so far.

"We want to get the word out to everybody, there is a way of reporting crime anonymously where you don't have to leave a name or any information," Ruiz said. "You don't have to identify yourself, we just want to be steered in the right direction."

The message is getting out, he said.

"We've gotten more calls as far as suspicious activity," Ruiz said. "I think that's a result of us going out there and speaking to the public and us going out to these neighborhood watch meetings. We made it clear that it would definitely help if the community cooperated."

Atlantic City homicides in 2011
*Feb. 15: Charles Baker Jr., 22, Fort Myers, Fla.; shot at Hobart and Marmora avenues.

Feb. 16: Bruce Bowers, Atlantic City; found shot dead in Lighthouse Plaza

*March 26: Nadirah Ruffin, 19, of Atlantic City; abducted from Back Maryland apartment

*April 21: Deziree Vivian, 27, of Atlantic City; stabbed at store on S. Georgia Ave.

*May 2: Nyimah Janet Elain Burns, 4½ months; fatally shaken in N. Indiana Ave. home

May 26: Antwon A. Ward, 20, of Pleasantville; shot in 300 block N. North Carolina Ave.

*July 11: Ignacio Castro, 45, of Atlantic City; stabbed at Pacific and Florida avenues

July 23: Tajajuan Russell, 25, of Atlantic City; shot near church on Lexington Avenue

*July 29: Alfred Kessleski, 71, of Atlantic City; beaten outside apartment building

Aug. 18: Shamir Tirone Harper, 28, of Hamilton; shot inside My Place Deli, New York Ave.

*Sept. 10: Craig Giatto, 42, homeless; stabbed to death inside abandoned building

*Sept. 17: Sunil Rattu, 28, of Middlesex County; shot after carjacking from Taj Mahal

Nov. 20: Darren Holcomb-Tally, 17, of Atlantic City; shot in 800 block North Maryland Ave.

*Nov. 20: Corleone Hayes,29, of Atlantic City; shot inside 1330 Baltic Ave. building

*Arrests made