Artesha Moses died waiting. The 19-year-old woman reported to police on March 3 that her boyfriend, James Summerville, 18, assaulted her. The police obtained an arrest warrant for Summerville, but it ? like many others ? was never served. Exactly 24 days later, Summerville stabbed Moses to death.
A backlog of 44,000 unserved warrants, like Summerville?s, is one of the foremost problems contributing to domestic violence in Baltimore, according to a report released by the Baltimore City Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team on Wednesday.
“There is often a significant lag between the time a warrant is issued and when it is served,” states the team?s report to the Baltimore City Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. “This allows dangerous abusers to remain at large and to potentially do further harm to others.”
Baltimore City Assistant State?sAttorney Julie Drake said Moses? case illustrates the need for police to identify “highly lethal cases” and quickly serve those warrants.
“We find this really troubling,” she said.
Drake, vice chairwoman of the team, said many domestic violence cases don?t stand up in court because of inexperienced investigators.
“The most obvious problem was inadequate cases because they were investigated by green, street-level patrol officers,” Drake said.
To address this issue, Baltimore police are creating a pilot program for a new specialized unit to investigate domestic violence cases in Baltimore?s Northeast District.
The new unit will be composed of experienced detectives trained in felony-level investigations, Drake said.
The team also wants the city to create a Family Justice Center that would make it easier for domestic violence victims to obtain services. Research shows only 4 percent of domestic violence murder victims ever used domestic violence services, the report states.
The team also lamented what seems to be a lack of urgency in the judiciary about domestic violence assaults.
“An offender is on probation for a domestic violence crime and commits another domestic violence crime,” according to the report. “At the trial, the judge finds the defendant guilty and puts the defendant on probation again with no additional penalties. … Judges should be encouraged to impose consequences for a defendant?s failure to comply with probation.”
