Who Will Pray For Camden?

Seeking justice for Jason Santos, a young man who died on the streets of a bleeding city.

by Mike Newall

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Published: Jul 16, 2008

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

The shooting went down in the Chestnut Court Apartments courtyard at Seventh and Chestnut streets in South Camden. It was 8:40 p.m. on Father's Day. The night was hot, the air heavy, and the neon sign above Eddie's Liquor cast a dull yellow light across the desolate intersection.

Jason Santos, a 23-year-old with a 2-year-old daughter, a promising job with the Camden County Board of Education and a clean record, was sharing beers with a friend when he ran into Alvin Santos (no relation) and Ricky Gonzalez.* Alvin is Ricky's uncle. Alvin is 25; Ricky, 17. Both of them have serious "jackets" — as criminal records are known on the streets here — and both have ties to the Latin Kings street gang.

Jason and Alvin had prior altercations in the past, police say. Jason's family and friends call him Pork Chop, because Jason is bulky. Alvin is not. Jason won those prior altercations, police say.

On this night, Alvin and Ricky are carrying guns. Jason is not. Words are exchanged. Then punches. Alvin falls to the ground, his handgun skittering across the pavement. This is when police say Ricky pulls his gun, which jams, so he picks up Uncle Alvin's and begins firing. Bullets perforate Jason's heart, lung and spleen. Jason falls to the sidewalk, bleeding there in the dull yellow light as Ricky and Alvin disappear into the night.

Jason's friend heaves Jason's body into the back of a car.

"My boy's been shot, my boy's been shot," the friend keeps saying.

At 9:09 p.m., a Cooper Trauma surgeon named Richard Burns pronounces Jason dead. Police record it as Camden's 28th homicide of 2008, about a dozen more than the city had this time last year.

Ricky is identified as the shooter. The next morning a judge hands down a warrant, which quickly reaches Bill Wiley's desk. A Camden police officer for 16 years, Wiley is also a member of the U.S. Marshal NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force. The Department of Justice assigned the Force to Camden in 2005, the same year Morgan Quitno Press, a national research company that ranks cities according to FBI crime statistics, branded Camden as America's "most dangerous" metropolis for the second year running. The Task Force consists of about a dozen U.S. Marshals, some brought in from other districts, mainly Philadelphia, as well as deputized local and state law enforcement officers, like Wiley. It has one directive: Catch fugitives.

"Our job is not to solve the murder," explains Wiley a few days after Jason's death, sitting in his cramped office on the second floor of Camden's Federal Courthouse. "Our job is to catch people."

The Marshals have been a welcome addition to Camden's law enforcement community, allowing overwhelmed local cops to focus on preventing and solving crimes.

"The local department has to serve the public every day with limited resources," says U.S. Marshal Supervisory Inspector William J. Plitt Jr. "We come in and assist the best we can."

Camden City's murder rate has dipped in recent years, declining to 32 murders in 2006 from a record high of 58 in 1995. And last year, Camden dropped to the fifth spot in the most-violent-city rankings. (The 2007 ranking is due out in November.)

While Camden's murder stats may seem miniscule compared to Philadelphia, one should keep in mind Camden's size. It's a shoebox of a city, a 9-square-mile deathtrap with a population of about 80,000 — roughly the size of a single Philadelphia police district. There were 42 murders in Camden last year, compared to 391 in Philadelphia. If Philadelphia had its sister city's murder rate, based on population, it would have had roughly 800 murders last year.

Most of Camden looks like the deadly Badlands of North Philadelphia during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early '90s — if not worse. While signs of rebirth sprout along the waterfront, whole swaths of North and South Camden are urban disasters reminiscent of Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro and Kingston. Countless open-air drug markets occupy rubble-ravaged corners like bargain circuses, the blaze-eyed dealers momentarily turning their heads toward the sky and scratching their goatees whenever a police cruiser drives past. Newly organized gangs furiously murder off independent drug dealers in a battle for limited turf. And then there are the more mundane, but equally deadly, street operas, like the one involving Jason Santos, which play out almost nightly.

This year has been a particularly bloody one for Camden. If the current homicide rate holds, Camden could surpass its 1995 homicide record of 58, and once again be pegged America's most dangerous city.

"It's been a tough year," says Wiley, "and the summer's just getting started."

Photo By: Michael T. Regan A U.S. Marshals Task Force member surveils a Camden street; opposite, the corner where Jason Santos died. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Excepting undercover officers, Marshals may have the most risky job in law enforcement. Ramming through doors in the twilight hours, they represent the last divide between a fugitive's freedom and prison. Some fugitives go easily. Others come out blasting.

The Marshals gain little public notice, though. The FBI often elbows in front of the cameras when big cases are closed, and the press usually pays attention only once a year, during Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally), when Marshals partner with local law enforcement agencies for a monthlong, nationwide fugitive sweep. Since its inception in 2005, the program has resulted in more than 50,000 arrests across the country.

"These are the guys we don't get to on a daily basis because we're working [violent crimes]," explains Plitt on an early June morning, as about 60 Marshals collect in the predawn hours in a Home Depot parking lot for this year's operation.

FALCON is a clearing-of-the-dockets exercise, a round-up of bail-hoppers and court no-shows.

"It's like the broken-window theory," says Plitt. "These guys could be buying dope now but committing murder later. We get them into the system and hope for the best."

That "best" often means many of the fugitives rounded up today will process through Camden County's overwhelmed court system and be back on the streets in a matter of weeks. The Marshals would rather concentrate on cases like the Santos murder. Still, FALCON makes for good public relations, which, in turn, makes the program popular with the Washington higher-ups.

In the Home Depot parking lot, Plitt hands out assignments. The Task Force stands in the gray morning, some men carrying MP5 sub-machine guns.

"None of today's guys are wanted for homicide," explains U.S. Marshal Supervisory Inspector Dennis O'Brien, driving down the first of many devastated streets. "But you could have an old bullshit warrant for a guy and not know what he's done in the meantime."

O'Brien and Plitt once served a warrant on a parole violator unaware the man had recently stabbed his daughter's boyfriend. They spotted the guy on the steps of his daughter's home and went in after him. Another Marshal went around back. The guy jumped out onto the back patio and closed in on the Marshal with a butcher's knife and carving fork. The Marshal squeezed off three shots as the guy fell onto him.

"You never know what could happen," says O'Brien.

Luckily, today's fugitives go quieter.

Take Leroy Sobers.

Leroy lives with his girlfriend and her family at 221 Eutaw St., a pleasant street by Camden's standards, with only a few boarded-up homes and even some well-manicured lawns.

"That's fine Camden grass," O'Brien admires as we approach the house.

Leroy is 26 years old, 6 foot 5, 280 pounds and wanted on a warrant for not appearing in court on drug charges and resisting arrest. The Marshals bang on the door. Leroy tries to hold it closed with his foot. A woman can be heard wailing inside. Leroy lets the door loose and the Task Force rushes in. Leroy is brought out in cuffs and sat down in a folding chair on the porch. He is wearing a cut-off T-shirt, jean shorts and a sorrowful expression. O'Brien snaps a photo.

"Smile," he says.

Leroy hangs his head in his lap. "Damn," he mutters.

A Marshal mans the door, his radio crackling.

There are 10 people inside, including Leroy's girlfriend's still-crying mother, who is lying in a hospice bed in the living room. There are three men in the basement, whom the Marshals run for warrants. The house is cockroach-infested — bugs scurry across the walls, floors and countertops.

"Infested like I've never seen before," says one Task Force member. "And the kitchen is like a waterbed, the floorboards are so rickety."

Leroy's girlfriend, Sedia, comes out onto the porch. She is a large woman with dyed purple braids. Ten months ago, she gave birth to Leroy's daughter, Jamiyah.

"He's a good dude, a good father," she says to no one in particular.

Sedia bends down and pulls socks over Leroy's feet. Next, she laces up his boots. She is crying as she does this; the tears not registering a change in her facial expression, just streaming down her cheeks.

"How many generations you got in there?" asks the Marshal manning the door.

"My brothers, my sisters, my mama, my baby and my grand-uncle," Sedia answers.

Sedia lights a cigarette and places it to Leroy's lips.

Then she reaches into Leroy's jeans pocket and pulls out some crumpled money, stuffing it into the pink bra she wears underneath her polka-dot shirt.

"In the vault," says the Marshal manning the door.

Sedia puts the cigarette to Leroy's lips again as a ragged cat with a halved tail, which looks as if someone sawed it off with a steak knife, silks past and climbs the steps to the adjoining porch to drink dirty water from a dirty saucer.

Photo by Michael T. Regan PERFECTION IN PURGATORY: The Camden Task Force has caught every new homicide fugitive since 2005. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Operation FALCON completed, Task Force member Wiley sits at his desk, combing through the files on Ricky Gonzalez, the 17-year-old wanted in the murder of Jason Santos. Though the hunt is on for Uncle Alvin as well, Ricky, the suspected shooter, is the primary target. There are two mug shots in Ricky's folder — one in which Ricky's black hair is shorn and another, more recent one in which he wears a shaggy afro. In the younger photo, a glint of fear seeps through Ricky's attempt at an angry stare. In the more recent photo, though, the fear is no longer noticeable — his brown eyes stones now, his tough-guy expression more practiced.

"He's no stranger to the system," says Wiley.

Ricky's father is a locked-up Latin King known as King Gumby. His uncles — Alvin, Melvin and Erik — have lengthy records for drugs, guns and assault.

In December 2006, Uncle Erik was wanted for attempted murder and living with Ricky and Ricky's girlfriend in a house in South Camden. The Task Force came up on the house just after dawn. They battered in the door and Ricky lay down and surrendered. Uncle Erik went out the back window onto a second-story deck where Marshals were waiting for him.

There was a closed 4-by-4-foot armoire in the middle bedroom. The Task Force was concerned someone could be hiding in it, and called in K-9s. Opening the armoire, they found a .45-caliber handgun, a .32 revolver, a large quantity of ammo — including 151 hollow point bullets — a bulletproof vest and a sweat jacket, the pockets filled with 50 plastic bags of "a white rock-like substance" and 39 glass vials containing "green vegetation." Two other handguns were found along with more drugs, a weight scale and $1,138.

Now, Ricky has been on the lam for almost a week. Wiley has been collecting tips from informants. Thirty-nine years old, Wiley is an affable, stocky man who still retains some of the athletic frame from when he quarterbacked Pennsauken High School to its last football championship. He laughs a lot — a needed defense mechanism, he says, for his job.

Wiley was a Camden patrolman on injured leave in 2001 when a family friend, Christine Eberle, was pushed into her Honda hatchback and abducted by two men at the High-Speed Line Ferry Avenue Station on her way home from work. The men drove Eberle to a nearby field and attempted to rape her, then strangled her with her purse strap and sliced her with a machete.

The next morning, Eberle's mother called Wiley.

"If something happened to her in Camden, we'll find her in Camden," Wiley said.

Wiley drove through Camden with Eberle's father until they came across her car being driven by one of the murderers. The man said he bought the car for drugs, but Wiley and other cops broke him down and he confessed.

"She fought hard for her life," says Wiley of Eberle. "She hid her engagement ring in her sock. They found it in the morgue."

In chasing a fugitive like Ricky, who is likely burrowing down in his own neighborhood, Wiley and his partner, U.S. Marshal Inspector Ken King, prefer to "calm things down a bit," take their time and let the fugitive "relax."

"Our boy is originally from this area," says King as we drive into South Camden. "We're trying to find out what friends, associates and family members he could be staying with — tracking leads, doing surveillance, checking tags."

King has been a Marshal for 12 years — 10 in Philly and the last two in Camden. He's worked four cop shootings during that time, including the Gary Skerski case. He also helped track down Walter Richardson, who in 2006 killed a New York State police officer during a jewelry store heist. Richardson hijacked a tow-truck driver and fled to Chester.

"We set up on six of his relatives' houses," remembers King, a tall, goateed man. "The last house of the day, he comes out shooting and it was on, and he lost."

The Marshals drive past Ricky's grandfather's house, Wiley taking logistical notes in case the Task Force needs to raid the house in the days ahead ("good rear access from the alleyway," he says) while King calls out license plate numbers of cars matching descriptions of vehicles owned by Ricky's known associates.

"The way the culture is out here," says King, "Ricky's got all these people protecting him because they think he's got street cred now."

"They're protecting him from us and from Jason's boys," adds Wiley. "Someone kills your boy, you're expected to man up and do something. That's the mentality."

Now the Marshals cruise past a stretch of beat-up car garages.

"We got a tip from an informant that our guy is hiding out in a garage somewhere in this area with a desert eagle handgun," says Wiley.

They pull up on one of the suspected garages. A man lounging out front spots the tinted-out Explorer and disappears inside, closing a metal fence behind him.

"That's interesting," says Wiley, jotting down the address.

The Marshals choose not to pursue.

"You can't go around banging every address," says Wiley.

"Can't blow your load too early," adds King.

"It's a game," says Wiley. "They're doing counter-surveillance on us, making false calls, seeing how long it takes us to respond. Or they could be calling to get us down here while they move him somewhere across town. We won't hit a place unless we have solid information our guy's inside."

Wiley and King's patient approach to this case was compromised somewhat when officials from a different branch of Camden law enforcement authorized raids on all of Ricky's and Alvin's known addresses before the warrants were delivered to the Marshals.

"We know for a fact now that the day after the murder, Alvin was at Sesame Place with his girlfriend and her baby," says Wiley. "By the time he came home they had hit his and Ricky's house. We would've liked to have taken some time with it."

"Fugitives always know what they did," continues Wiley, "but they don't always know they've been identified, and we like them to think that."

The Marshals turn onto Clover Street, a trash-strewn sliver of crumbling brick rowhomes, and stop at No. 1136, Ricky's last known address.

"Ricky lived there with his baby-mama," says Wiley. "Then he knocked up a girl three doors down. Now he's got twins on the way with her."

"Ricky's probably going to be in jail for a long time," says King. "Sad thing is, his twins will probably be in the system by the time he gets out."

The car garage tip didn't pan out. But more tips have been trickling in over the last few days. Catching fugitives is an informant-run business, Marshals say. Some Camden informants pull in large sums of money putting people in cuffs. Some are so talented at their job they'll be riding shotgun with a fugitive when he or she is apprehended.

There's even a story of a mother putting her own son in cuffs for $500. "She understood the way of the street," says Wiley. "She knew she could either visit her son in jail or at the grave."

Wiley pulls in to an auto rental shop popular among Camden drug dealers. Rental rates start at $9.95 per day; the parking lot is filled with dinged-up Impalas and Pontiacs. Inside, the place is cramped with dirty carpets and dirty walls. An area fan hums. A fat guy works the desk. Wiley's gotten a tip that either Ricky or one of his uncles rented a car from here shortly before the murder.

Ricky's photo looks familiar, says the fat guy, but he doesn't recall renting to him.

Wiley asks whether anyone had rented a Concord recently, the model Ricky was supposedly driving around the time of the murder.

A dead end.

Next stop is a cab service place that Ricky might've used to go meet a girlfriend — not one of his baby-mamas — just a few days before the murder. "Find the hole, you find the pole," says Wiley as we approach the weed-strangled lot. A group of Mexicans smoke cigarettes by the gate.

"Hola," says one.

A white mechanic blasts Springsteen's "Mansion on the Hill" (There's a beautiful full moon rising above the mansion on the hill) as he takes apart an engine. He wipes grease from his tools and says nothing as Wiley walks past.

The dispatch booth is a run-down shack painted blue. Decorating the walls are security television screens and a framed copy of Psalm 23 (Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil). The counter-girl has a scar on her arm the size of a bullet hole.

Wiley reviews the records. Another dead end.

He's not concerned. "We'll get him," he says. "If the streets don't first."

Photo By: Michael T. Regan KNOCK, KNOCK: Task Force members descend on the residence of a Falcon fugitive. Sometimes they go easy, sometimes they come out blasting. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Wiley receives the call from an informant around 11 p.m. on the night of July 2. Ricky is at the Clover Street house, his last known address. Maybe Uncle Alvin, too. At home now after a brother's wedding dinner, Wiley calls it into the office and dresses quickly. Within 20 minutes, Wiley, his partner King and a unit of Camden patrolmen are at the address, Wiley banging on the door with King next to him grasping a Heckler & Koch UMP 40 sub-machine gun. The battering ram is broken out, but the door won't budge. Ricky has wedged a thick piece of wood across the back of the door and chain-locked the rear entrance. The door finally gives. Ricky is hiding upstairs. The Marshals try to coax him down, while they do a protective sweep of the house. A framed painted portrait of Ricky and his girlfriend, the kind drawn at amusement parks, is knocked to the floor. So are a stack of gangster rap DVDs.