SEATTLE - Some photos and a few belongings are all 84-year-old Everlena Joplin of Seattle has left of the great-grandson she raised.
"He just turned and went out the door and that was the next thing I heard. He was shot. He was dead," she said.
Seventeen-year-old Allen Joplin was gunned down at a party on lower Queen Anne in front of some of his closest friends. But police and prosecutors say not one witness has stepped forward to testify.
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"They in a gang. They tell me they know who shot Allen, who killed him, but who knows don't want to let it to be known because they're afraid of retaliation," said Joplin.
Gang signs scrawled on Allen's bedroom door identify him as a Black Gangster Disciple (BGD) Deuce-8. A short distance away, Seattle Police Gang Detective Bobby Sevaaetasi shows us similar gang signs on a vacant house.
"They have the pitchfork for the BGD - their star and 28th Street," said Sevaaetasi.
The gang claims Seattle's central district as its turf and police believe a lot of people around here know who murdered Allen, but they're follow a code: "Don't snitch."
"Even the enemies, when they do crime amongst each other, against each other, nine times out of ten will not tell on each other," said Seattle Police Gang Detective Miko Santiago.
Longtime Seattle gang member "Praz" runs with a south end gang called "Down with the Crew," but he says the code is the same.
"Don't snitch," he said. "I don't care if you are a Blood, Crip, a Disciple, a Vice Lord, silence of secrecy is number one, number one. It's us against them."
The KING 5 Investigators obtained video of a gang related shooting unfolding in crowded Pioneer Square in 2006. There's a scuffle. The fight dies out, but soon one man is back with a gun. There are people right there as he fires off eleven rounds, killing one man and wounding two others.
Every witness takes off, ignoring one victim's screams. The case was stalled until the video, which was taken by a street musician, surfaced. It identifies Kevin Monday of Federal Way, as the suspect. Monday is later convicted of first degree murder and assault.
"The prosecution of Mr. Monday would not have happened in all likelihood had we not had a videotape of the crime," said King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.
But there is no videotape to help police solve most homicides. Of five Seattle area teens and one young man killed in gang shootings since January, there's been only one arrest.
Even when gang detectives are able to find out what happened through street contacts, they can't get people to testify and the case stalls.
"If we don't have a witness, we don't have a case," said Satterberg.
Satterberg says it's not just gang members refusing to step forward anymore. Their associates, other teens, and even adults who live in communities where the crimes happen are staying silent. The "Don't Snitch" code has been heavily promoted and marketed on the internet and through rap music.
"There's nothing we can do to solve these cases without witnesses. So people have to have the courage to step forward and trust the system. They have to want to reclaim their neighborhoods from the gangs," said Satterberg.
Until the code is broken, the deadly cycle of retaliation will continue.
"Snitches end up in ditches. We kill those guys, we kill those guys," says gang member "Praz".
Everlena Joplin wonders if there will ever be justice for the teenage boy she still thinks of as her baby.
Asked if she thinks someone should step forward to identify the shooter, she said "Yeah, that's what they should do ... should have did that the first night he got killed."
Despite all of the fear, Satterberg says he's never seen retaliation against a witness who's stepped forward to testify in King County.
And his office does have some money to help people relocate to another neighborhood if they need to.
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