EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT) – Evansville Police continue to investigate several shootings in recent months. But they say they’re running into roadblocks, and are not getting help from the public.

Information from witnesses are a key part of any investigation, but police say it’s difficult at times to get people to talk about what they saw. Detectives say fear can be a deterrent, which is a problem they are seeing in connection to recent shootings.

“He is doing well. Making improvements daily. He still has a journey to go,” said Mariama Wilson, who runs mothers against senseless killings, describes the condition of her son, Leadron, who was shot on Wall Street in Evansville in August. his condition is improving, but the frustration of no arrests in the case is still with her.

“We see this too often, unfortunately, not only with my son’s case, but several cases that we know of that have gone with no arrests being made. There’s still murders being unsolved,” she says.

Evansville Police Detective Jackie Lowe says fear of retaliation is one reason witnesses don’t come forward in some murder investigations, which he says happens in many investigations.

“That’s one of the problems with a lot of the shootings that we have, that you hear about, but then you never see anything like it’s not being looked in to. But the reason it’s not being looked in to is because the victims in those cases don’t want to do anything because they’re afraid the next time it might be them that’s actually being buried,” he said, during Thursday’s press conference on four murder investigations still unsolved from earlier this year.

But Wilson says some people don’t come forward because of what they perceive is a lack of visible action by police.

Eyewitnesses are the key things that are helping solve murders, but it should not solely be put on the community to find all of these shooters and stop all of the shootings that’s going on,” she says.

Wilson also says she’d like to see police do everything they can to protect those who provide information to detectives in murder investigations.

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(This story was originally published on November 13, 2020)