POLICE FEAR HOMICIDE WITNESS LIST GOT OUT

Names Said Found After Car Chase

Boston police have launched an investigation into how an internal
police report containing the names of witnesses in a homicide case
wound up in the hands of a 20-year-old Jamaica Plain man fleeing
police in a car linked to a fatal shooting hours earlier, two police
officials briefed on the investigation said.

Police are concerned that someone in law enforcement may have given
the report to a criminal suspect who could have used it to target
police informants or witnesses, the officials said. The department's
Internal Affairs division began trying to trace the report on
Thursday, a third law enforcement official said.

The document is an investigative summary written by gang unit
officers for their supervisor, according to the third official, who,
like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the case.

Finding the internal report outside department possession alarmed
police, who have been under fire for a surge in crime and who have
not been able to identify suspects in 70 percent of homicide cases
this year -- often because witnesses won't help police and
prosecutors for fear of retaliation. Law enforcement officials have
expressed increasing worry in recent months that those who cooperate
with police are identified and targeted for violence by criminals.

The internal report with the witness names was found in the
possession of James Finch, one of five men arrested early Tuesday
after a high-speed chase that started in Dorchester and ended in
Milton. One of the officials said Finch told police a friend had
mailed it to him, and investigators said it might have come from a
prison inmate whose lawyer had legal access to such a document.

Police officials declined to speak publicly about details of the
case, or to describe the contents of the police document, confirming
only that Finch was arrested with the document and that police had
seized it. "The case is under investigation," said a department
spokesman, Officer John Boyle.

According to an arrest report obtained by the Globe, the case started
with an attempted traffic stop in Dorchester. Officers tried to pull
Finch and the others over near the corner of Norfolk Street and
Woodrow Avenue because their car did not have an inspection sticker.

But the green Chevy Lumina sped off toward Mattapan, striking another
car in a Blue Hill Avenue intersection and reaching speeds exceeding
120 miles per hour before police and state troopers stopped it on
Route 138 in Milton, the report said.

Police smashed a window to extract the driver, 21-year-old Nasean
Johnson of Mattapan, who had refused to get out of the car. They
cuffed him, Finch, and the other passengers, Charles Devoe, 19, of
Roxbury, Lamory Gray, 20, of Jamaica Plain, and Stanley Young, 18, of
Roxbury, according to the arrest report.

Police found a spent shell casing in the back seat of the car, the
internal police document in Finch's possession, and several bags of
crack cocaine down the street, the report said. All five men were
arrested and charged with drug possession. Johnson also was charged
with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and failure to stop.

The timing of the car chase -- which started two hours after
17-year-old Carl Searcy was gunned down in Roxbury -- and the fact
that the car was registered to an address across the street from the
shooting prompted police to seize the car for homicide investigators,
the arrest report said.

It's unclear whether Searcy's name appears on the internal police
report, and neither Finch nor the others has been charged in
connection with the killing.

Finch's lawyer, Jay Odunukwe, said Thursday that he was not aware
that the police report found in his client's pocket listed witness names.

Odunukwe also said Finch had nothing to do with the drugs found near
the car. "He has no prior convictions," Odunukwe said. "They found
drugs 100 yards away, and somehow they tied it to the people in the car."

Unless judges order otherwise, documents listing witnesses must be
made available to suspected offenders and their lawyers during the
discovery phase of criminal trials, defense attorneys say. Those
documents could include an internal investigative summary by gang
officers if it's part of a prosecution's case or if it quotes
witnesses to be used at trial.

"Anything the prosecution's going to use in the case has to be turned
over," said Michael Tumposky, a criminal defense lawyer in Boston.

It's a practice some state legislators and Boston law enforcement
officials want to stop. A bill approved by the state Senate in
October and supported by Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley
and Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole would restrict
defense attorneys' ability to give grand jury documents with witness
names to criminal defendants. The bill has yet to pass the House, but
could be voted on in January when legislators resume their session.

Its main sponsor, Senator Jarrett T. Barrios of Cambridge, said
yesterday that he wants to amend the bill to cover other documents
that include witness names. "The defendant might be in jail awaiting
trial, but they have associates on the street who can successfully
intimidate the witness from testifying," he said.

Maria Cramer of the Globe staff contributed to this report.