Opinion: Solutions for reducing crime not so simple

It happens all the time in Clovis’ high-crime neighborhoods.

Shots are fired.

Property is damaged.

Sometimes people get hurt.

Police don’t always find out right away. And when they do, sometimes “nobody saw a thing.”

Police earlier this month issued a news release chastising residents of the Clovis Apartments for waiting 40 minutes before reporting almost two dozen gunshots.

The police have a point, of course. They can’t be everywhere crime occurs when it’s happening. They can’t catch bad guys without help from good guys.

But Marie Martinez sees the problem from a different perspective.

A few months ago, somebody fired a bullet into the trailer where she lives.

Her version of the story from here:

About an hour after she reported the gunshot to police, an officer arrived and told her there was little he could do.

She offered video from a security system that showed a car driving by her home, followed by three or four gunshots. She took a photo of a bullet hole in her trailer. Still no results, and it frustrated her.

“I’ve had a lot of other run-ins where I’ve reached out to police for help, given them all the information I had, and they still say there’s nothing they can do,” she said. “Half the time it puts me in more danger when I go to them for help.”

She said she’s concerned about giving police the name of a suspect because that suspect might find out she’s complained.

So a few days after someone shot at her trailer on East Grand, she and her three young children moved to her hometown of Springfield, Mo.

That’s when she was arrested.

Martinez believes her arrest was retaliation for her persistent complaints against police inaction when she had demanded investigations related to the violence in her neighborhood.

There is at least one other side to Martinez’s story, of course. She’s involved in a child-custody dispute, which is why she was arrested – “custodial interference,” she was told -- for leaving Clovis with the kids. She said she spent 42 days in a Missouri jail before returning to Clovis where her ex-husband now has the children.

Also she admits the video of the shooting at her trailer doesn’t clearly show the car or identify a suspect. Officials said five neighborhood homes were shot at that same night so it’s unlikely Martinez was specifically targeted.

Police stated in their news release they are concerned about the “lack of cooperation from the public” when they’re investigating crimes.

Martinez wants the community to understand some crime victims and witnesses have their reasons for not always reporting crime.

“I think it might be good for the community to know that people who actually try to help the Clovis Police Department are either ignored or prosecuted for trying to help,” she said.

Some will hear Marie Martinez’s story and side with police; others will side with her.

But this is not really about who’s right or who’s wrong or who should we believe.

If we want to stop the violence in our community, we have to start by understanding the issues from perspectives that are in stark contrast.

— David Stevens

Publisher