From the New York Times news section:

After Murders ‘Doubled Overnight,’ the N.Y.P.D. Is Solving Fewer Cases

In the Bronx, where the percentage of murders solved by the police has plunged, one family is waiting impatiently for a day that may not come.

By Ali Watkins
Nov. 26, 2021

… In the years before the pandemic, the New York Police Department was solving nearly 90 percent of the murder cases in the city. But in 2020, as shootings and homicides increased, the percentage of homicides the police solved, a statistic known as the clearance rate, plummeted to around 60 percent, according to the department’s records.

The impact fell especially hard in the Bronx, where shootings reached their highest levels in nearly 15 years. This year, the police are solving around 62 percent of murders in the borough, said Lt. William O’Toole, who leads the Bronx’s homicide squad. In addition, he said, 17 murder suspects — including the man the police believe killed Mr. Lewis — have been identified and have active warrants issued against them.

But, Lieutenant O’Toole said, “It’s harder with the pandemic.”

In a city blanketed with surveillance equipment and video cameras, the police say some of the city’s most dangerous pockets do not have enough. The widespread use of masks during the pandemic has made it more difficult to identify assailants, they say. And, the police say, new discovery laws that allow the names of informants to be turned over to defense lawyers have deterred many potential witnesses from coming forward.

“The increase in shootings, that’s got to have a negative impact on clearance rates,” said Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “Their caseload literally doubled overnight. The odds are never great. That’s the unfortunate truth.”

The challenge is particularly acute for gang- and drug-related homicides, which the police believe may have been an impetus for Mr. Lewis’s killing, with his killer possibly mistaking him for another man.

“The dynamics that play out with gang and drug homicides are in neighborhoods that typically don’t have very good relationships with law enforcement, so they question whether they’re able to trust the police with sharing information they might have,” said Anthony Braga, a criminology professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

In the Bronx, Lieutenant O’Toole said, officers have noticed much more reluctance when speaking to the community, a phenomenon he attributes to the state’s discovery laws.

“It’s not for lack of trying,” Lieutenant O’Toole said of the rate of unsolved homicides. “We’re not getting a lot of community help.” …

America doesn’t worry enough about witness-murdering. When I google “witness-murdering” I get…me.

“Witness-murdering” needs to be a Thing that is borne in mind, so when some Soros-funded NGO starts a drive to strip privacy from murder witnesses, other people ask, “But isn’t witness-murdering a Thing?”

[Comment at Unz.com]