(Editor's note: Colin Flaherty has done more reporting than any other journalist on what appears to be a nationwide trend of skyrocketing black-on-white crime, violence and abuse. WND features these reports to counterbalance the virtual blackout by the rest of the media due to their concerns that reporting such incidents would be inflammatory or even racist. WND considers it racist not to report racial abuse solely because of the skin color of the perpetrators or victims.) Videos linked or embedded may contain foul language and violence.
The mayor of Wilmington, Del., knew something was wrong. After one year on the job, this former homicide cop had a hunch his police department had a leak.
"The problems that we were having with this city with crime and information that got out too fast, my suspicion was always somebody might be involved in something," said Mayor Dennis Williams to WDEL radio.
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But that is all it was, a hunch. And it stayed that way until last month, when city police found one of their own – a 911 dispatcher – allegedly giving her thug boyfriend a heads up on a shooting investigation.
She almost got away with it.
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Alleshia Kennedy was working the night shift in January as a 911 dispatcher when several people called to report a shooting. Kennedy took one of the calls and promised the neighbor she would send a police unit right away.
She did not. Instead she's accused of sending a text message to her boyfriend, Deontay Willingham. Kennedy and Willingham lived together at her grandmother's house.
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Neighbors in and around that house have long complained about the large number of people coming and going from that house and the suspected criminal activity there. But that's a different story for a different day.
The call was not about grandmother's house. Police say the shooting was reported at another address she recognized. A friend of her boyfriend lives there. He is only known as "Crook."
In this town of 70,000 that is regularly listed as one of the most dangerous in the country, that does not narrow it down much.
Willingham allegedly texted Crook right away: "Bro sum lady called the cops and told … (your) crib iz where the shots came from," reported the News-Journal. "So be easy and clean up" and that the information about the address "was never put in," along with a final instruction, "Erase dis."
Crook might have erased "dat" on his phone but Willingham did not on his. Three weeks later, he was in police custody – arrested after a high speed chase where he was found wearing body-armor, and in possession of a hand gun and a semi-automatic rifle.
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And, most importantly, a cell phone.
Police say they went through the texts and found the messages to this hard core thug from the 911 dispatcher. A bit of shoe leather later and they figured out they had a bad 911 operator on their hands. Allegedly.
Soon, she was doing the perp walk. City officials are investigating whether the wayward dispatcher had ever issued other private crime alerts.
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The News Journal reports that Kennedy "had been arrested in 2008 and 2011, but both cases were later dropped by prosecutors. A third case, where Kennedy was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia from November 2011, remains pending according to court records."
Her boyfriend is also a convicted felon.
The case comes at a time when city officials are under increasing criticism for going too easy on too many criminals.
In 2013, the city council voted to "Ban the Box" – which means that felons no longer have to disclose – right away – their criminal background. Certain jobs are exempt from Ban the Box, such as police officer.
But because felons are not fully responsible for the conditions that put them in prison, the thinking on city council was that they should be given a second, third, fourth and fifth chance. During the discussion on Ban the Box, not one council member brought up the fact that 60-80 percent of the felons released from prison will return there within a year. A no one said one word about the victims.
However much the city council struggles to control crime, it never has a problem trying to find excuses for the crime. Some say building a freeway through the city 50 years ago did it. Others blame the crime on people from Philadelphia. Others say poverty or racism or guns or not enough social programs.
Or jobs. Curiously, the city council was instrumental in killing a $250 million deal to privatize the Port of Wilmington last year. The Port is losing $8 million a year but city officials and union leaders convinced the state to stop the deal because building a new port would somehow kill jobs.
And without jobs, there is violence.
As the city made its way to what would be record numbers for shootings – 154 shot and 18 dead are the final numbers for the 2013 – the city council found a new excuse in December. It passed a resolution declaring that black violence in Wilmington was the result of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder brought on by slavery.
As the pastor of one of the largest black churches in the state said during the celebration of a local black holiday: "This violence in our community – you don't think it has something to do with the last 400 years?"
Rev. Lawrence M. Livingston told the News Journal, "We didn't create this stuff – all this mess."
The comments came just a few days after a crowd of black people beat an elderly white clergyman until he was unconscious near Livingston's church.
See a trailer for "White Girl Bleed a Lot":