Black religious and community leaders in Boston are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever committed Boston’s worst multiple homicide in a decade, the Boston Globe reports. The effort kicked off a campaign they hope will coax reluctant witnesses to come forward in many of the 285 unsolved killings in Boston since 1994. Flanked by photos of slain young men, organizers of Citizens Against Crime said they will run a hot line where people fearful of contacting police can leave information anonymously. They said the Dec. 13 slaying of four young men was ”a good place to start” the reward system, and promised to raise money to solve other killings as well.
The packed press conference at the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers became a forum for frustrations about the rising homicide rate. Audience members sounded off on everything from violent rap lyrics to the shortage of good jobs in black neighborhoods. One prominent minister raised one of the city’s most divisive racial episodes: the wrongful arrest of a black man in the 1989 murder of Carol Stuart, who was white.
Link: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/01/17/citizens_group_aims_to_help_so