Over Half of City’s 2010 Shooting Deaths Remain Unsolved
Thursday, September 01, 2011
After the ringing of the doorbell, the door slowly cracked open.
A middle-aged woman appeared, her hair hidden under a checkered black and white bandana. On the right side of her neck was a tattoo that spelled out in large black letters: “Kevron.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTIt was more than a year ago, but Sarah Poston is still mourning the death of her 20-year-old son.
“It really did hurt,” Poston said. “He had a son. He had a daughter. … He had nephews and nieces who loved him dearly.”
“We miss him dearly,” she added.
Kevron Poston was one of 11 victims of fatal shootings in Providence in 2010. Five of them, including Kevron, were in their 20s. Three were teenagers and two were in their early 30s. Just one was older than that—a 55-year-old West End resident. Most of them lived in the all-too-familiar pockets of poverty in Providence—the South Side, the Chad Brown housing complex, the neighborhood around Valley Street, and Elmwood. (Click here and here for two in-depth profiles.)
One year later, half of these homicides remain unsolved.
‘It’s not going to bring back my son’
GoLocalProv made repeated efforts to visit or call the homes of the families of all the victims.
Some said it too painful even to talk about their loss. A woman who answered the door at the Miner Street home of Luis Dominguez, who died at 18, didn’t want to talk about her son.
“It’s not going to bring back my son,” she said.
“It’s going to make me sad,” she added. “I’m not ready to talk about him.”
GoLocalProv found the family of the only person shot at home, Ernesto Juarez, barricaded in their house behind a chain link fence, a rusted gate, and metal grates over their windows and doors. A faded U.S. Flag was wrapped tightly around its pole, off their porch, and even their mailbox was tucked away from view. Efforts to interview family members by phone were unsuccessful.
But other families wanted to share their stories. One family spent more than an hour talking with a reporter in broken Spanish about their slain son and showing memorabilia from his life—everything from a kindergarten diploma to an iPhone video of him smiling and laughing as a young man. (Read their story.)
For some, it wasn’t the first time violence had torn them apart. In one family, the year before their son was murdered another son had been nearly killed in another shooting incident. And, four years before Kevron Poston was gunned down, his older brother James (nicknamed “Smoke”) was sentenced to 50 years in prison for fatally shooting a teenager.
Poverty, poor education ‘killing us’
The head of the Providence chapter to the NAACP tells GoLocalProv that the violence that erupts in places like Chad Brown and the South Side is a product of the economic and social circumstances in those communities.
“It’s not that people are prone to violence,” said Jim Vincent, President of the Providence NAACP. “There are things that affect families and communities that lead to that violence. We have to come together to solve the root problems of this mayhem.”
Some of those root causes, according to Vincent, are: poverty, poor education, and high unemployment, especially among black youth. “That’s killing us,” he said.
He said those without hope and opportunity often turn to less acceptable behaviors, such as violent crime. “It disrupts the fabric of our society,” he said. “It disrupts the normality of Rhode Island.”
Questions over unsolved cases
He also questioned how much those outside of the affected neighborhoods really care about the violence. “I think to a certain extent people pay more attention when victims are white,” Vincent said.
That sentiment was echoed among some parents who spoke with GoLocalProv. “What made you come here for Kevron?” said Sarah Poston. “Nobody come here before.”
Some parents wondered whether the police are doing enough. “I definitely would like to see justice,” Poston said, adding that police say they know who murdered her son, which leads her to wonder why the case remains open. “How do I know what they’re doing?” she said.
The mother of Luis Dominguez was more pointed in her criticism. “I don’t believe the police are doing a good job,” she said, declining to provide her name.
Police official: It’s not like CSI
While the murders may have dropped out of sight and mind for the public, local law enforcement haven’t forgotten about them, Providence Police Maj. Thomas Oates told GoLocalProv. “We just never say it’s all done and that’s the end of it and it gets put away,” Oates said. “We’re continually working on these cases. We never close a homicide case. It’s just at some point we run into dead ends.”
But as the years pass, Oates said the closure rate goes up. For example, slightly more than half, or 54 percent, of the homicide cases from 2009 have been solved. For 2008, 77 percent of the cases have been solved, according to Oates.
One challenge in bringing closure to a murder case: “The biggest problem with homicide cases—all of them—is getting people with the knowledge to come forward,” Oates said. “We do understand there’s a fear factor, number one, and there’s also a snitch factor.”
Oates said it can be hard even to get relatives who witnessed a shooting to come forward in a homicide case. If there was more than one relative present, that compounds the problem: If one relative is asked to share information on the shooting, he might ask why he is being asked to talk when the other relative hasn’t come forward, Oates said.
It’s hard police work like that, Oates said, that really solves these cases. “It’s great when you watch these special CSI shows and they get DNA off a rock and DNA comes back from the lab in three hours, which is completely not the world we live in,” he said.
But Oates concedes there is one area where the Police Department could do a better job: keeping in touch with the families of victims. However, such lack of communication is out of respect for those families, rather than indifference, according to Oates. “Every time you talk to them about the case, you open up old wounds,” Oates said. “A lot of times they don’t want to hear from you unless we have some new information.”
For mothers like Sarah Poston, not knowing who killed her son adds to the pain of her loss.
“We’re still grieving,” she said. “He’s the baby—He was my baby.”
The Victims of Providence Shooting Fatalities—2010
Solved Cases
■ Alex Delanveces, 26: Was killed after breaking into the apartment of Matthew Salvato, a state-licensed medical marijuana grower. Oates said the incident appears to be a case of self-defense. But Salvato still found himself in trouble with the law, later pleading guilty to a drug charge and receiving a three-year suspended sentence.
■ Paulo Barbosa, 28: A Pawtucket resident, Barbosa was fatally shot outside the Club Balloons strip club early on a Sunday morning in July 2010. Later that month, the Providence Board of Licenses closed down the after-hours strip club. The suspected shooter, 22-year-old Tyrone Taylor was arrested earlier this year.
■ Luis Dominguez, 18: Late in July 2010, Dominguez was in a West End home with several other youths. They were reportedly playing around with guns when Dominguez was shot. The gunman, Joshua Rosario, reportedly pointed a sawed-off shotgun at Dominguez, before firing. Rosario was originally charged with murder, but that charge was dismissed and he later pled guilty to manslaughter and carrying a pistol without a permit. Rosario—who turned 20 this year—was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with 11 to serve.
■ Manuel Hilario, 19: Was shot in his car in a drive by shooting at Sam’s, a convenience store and gas station in the Chad Brown area. The man charged with killing him, Devon Letourneau, who also turns 20 this year, has a trial date of October 11. In addition to a murder charge, Letourneau faces two related weapons charges.
■ Pedro DeJesus, 30: Was allegedly shot by his girlfriend’s nephew during an argument in an apartment December 2010. The murder trial for the suspected shooter, Dujuan Powell, 19, is set for September 6.
Unsolved Cases
■ Kevron Poston, 20: In mid-January, 2010, Kevron was getting a haircut at a Smith Street barber shop—within a mile of the Statehouse—when a lone gunman entered and shot him. Kevron, a resident of the Elmwood neighborhood, was pronounced dead at the scene.
■ Timothy Kilgore, 25: A resident of Silver Lake, Kilgore was shot in the middle of a street fight in the West End in early April 2010.
■ Ruben Lopez, 33: A Pawtucket resident, Lopez was shot in the auto repair shop and used car business where he worked, Rhode Island Automotive Specialist Sales and Service, on Delaine Street. Lopez was reportedly shot by two men who stormed into his office and opened fire after saying three words to him. Local authorities have not disclosed what they said to him.
■ Lamarr Trisvane, 26: Was with his girlfriend at a Memorial Day cookout when he was fatally shot five times. The incident occurred behind the Vincent A. Cianci Jr. Head Start Center, near the Chad Brown housing complex—one block away from the fatal shooting of Hilario. (CLICK HERE to read about how his adopted brother is coping with his loss.)
■ Andy Luna, 19: On the afternoon of June 16, 2010, a man in a black hooded sweatshirt walked into the Blanco Blanco Barber Shop on Elmwood Avenue, strolled past several customers, and shot Luna while he was getting a haircut. The shooting was reportedly gang related, although family members have denied that Luna was involved in a gang. (CLICK HERE to read an in-depth profile of Luna and his family.)
■ Ernesto Juarez, 55: His wife found Juarez shot dead in their West End home in December 2010. There reportedly were no signs of robbery or forced entry.
Sources: Providence Police Department, Rhode Island Judiciary, local news reports.
If you valued this article, please LIKE GoLocalProv.com on Facebook by clicking HERE.
Related Articles
- UPDATED Kilmartin - No Early Release for Violent Criminals
- Where Does Providence Rank Nationally in Crime
- Murder in Providence: One Son Saved, the Other Lost
- Murder in Providence: ‘I Just Want to Get Away from Here’
- Crime on the Rise in Providence
- Hard Crime: Rhode Island’s Most Wanted List
- Keeping Crime Down: How Other Cities Did It
- Major Criminal Justice Refom Becomes Law
