This is an opinion column.

A witness. There’s almost always at least one. Usually, there are more. Many more, sometimes.

Scripture (Hebrews 12: 1-2) touts “a great cloud of witnesses” that should empower us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”

Such as the sin of silence.

Too often witnesses are like clouds—ominously silent, haunting. Or ghosts, nowhere to be seen, found, nor heard when needed—when desperately needed to solve a crime. Usually a deadly crime.

They’re gone with the wind as cries for justice fill rivers of grief.

No-snitch isn’t new, nor is it confined to any single culture, community, or city. It’s not confined to low-income Black communities—communities where hope is starving, where countless conditions contribute to deadly decisions. Sometimes premeditated, sometimes in a split-second.

Then silence among those who know. Among witnesses.

The shootings and killings that plague our neighborhoods are unconscionable and wearying, the quiet among witnesses is almost worse. Their silence is a virus with no antidote, only lingering pain as investigations traverse an empty path to nowhere.

“In most of our cases, we have a very good idea and may actually know exactly who was responsible,” Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond shared. “But we don’t have someone willing to say, I saw A shoot B. So, we’re just stuck. Somebody’s got to go to court, raise their right hand and testify before a judge and jury and say, ‘Hey, this is what I saw., or this is what I know.’”

Too often, silence.

This time, maybe the crime was so heinously evil, so inexplicable, it moved the cloud, or at least one witness. Moved them to speak.

Moved them to say what they saw, and knew about the abhorrent abduction, torture, and killing of Mahogany Jackson.

The 20-year-old mother in Birmingham with a three-year-old daughter, as you most likely know by now, was, according to investigators, abducted and held against her will, stripped, handcuffed, kicked and beaten, sexually assaulted at gunpoint, and ultimately killed with a bullet to the back of her head.

Her body was found in the early hours on Monday morning, February 26, under two mattresses and bleeding on a rock on an illegal dump site., according to investigators.

Just one week later, eight people were behind bars, charged with atrocious actions connected to the killing—and Birmingham homicide Det. Mark Green was in the courtroom of Jefferson County Judge Keisha Davis sharing the horrid details during an Aniah’s Law hearing.

Just one week later, because a witness quickly came forth. So quickly, investigators were still on the grounds where Jackson’s body had been dumped.

A witness unwilling to be silent and desiring to clear his name from involvement.

A witness with details and critical information: the existence of videos of the crimes made, Green testified, by two of the alleged perpetrators.

Another hearing was held last Wednesday during which more lurid details were revealed.

Eight people are charged. Three – Brandon Pope, 24, Francis “Ace” Harris, 25, and Jeremiah “Kodak” McDowell, 18 – are charged with capital murder during a first-degree kidnapping. Harris is also charged with capital murder during a rape/sodomy.

Teja Lewis, 26, Si’Niya McCall, 23, Giovannie Clapp, 23, Blair Green, 25, and Ariana Lashay Robinson, 23 are charged with felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, and first-degree sodomy. Lewis is also charged with second-degree assault for allegedly pistol-whipping Jackson. Clapp is additionally charged with third-degree assault.

Read full coverage of Mahagony Jackson here.

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Thurmond believes the witness—and others—emerged so swiftly because the crime was “just so overly heinous.”

“I think it just struck a chord with them and they said, ‘I gotta tell somebody. This is just beyond wrong.’”

Nationally, technology is playing an increasingly important role in solving crimes, in achieving justice. Last year, in a study by Thomson Reuters, Data and technology: How law enforcement agencies see the future, about one-third (33%) of law enforcement respondents keeping up with technology was one of their top three areas of concern.

The study noted various technologies and the percentage of respondents using them: in-car/body-worn cameras (58%); license plate readers (39%); drones/thermal imaging/shot spotters (34%); forensic/investigative technologies (33%); and video surveillance hardware/software (32%).

In Chicago police are effectively utilizing new video enhancement technology as the availability of surveillance video explodes. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the technology “contributed to the arrest of 63 offenders and to clearing 131 cases related to subjects involved in armed robberies, burglaries, thefts, and damage to property.”

Last fall, Birmingham introduced Connect Birmingham, a program where business owners and residents with surveillance allow the city’s Real Time Crime Center access to their footage. Though numerous systems have signed up, Thurmond hopes for more, so investigations are less reliant on witnesses coming forth, less handcuffed by the no-snitch culture.

“Let’s just remove that from that piece altogether and let the video speak for itself,” he said. “That’s what judges and juries want to see anyway. ‘Let me see with my own two eyes. I’ll make my decision. We’ll go from there. That way. I know in my heart, my mind, I based it on fact, and I feel good about that.’”

One case. One witness. Thurmond is pleased that someone stepped forth to help investigators begin the long road towards—hopefully—justice for Jackson and her family. Yet it’s not quite enough for him to believe that perhaps the no-snitch culture is waning.

“If we were a scientist, we did one test and it came out great, but we did that test multiple times just to make sure we’re getting the same outcome,” he said. “I need to see a few more situations like that, where the public is saying, ‘We have had enough of this, and we’re going to come forward. We’re going to assist our law enforcement partners and we want a safer Birmingham.’

“I’ve always kind of thought to myself, I wonder when the citizens are just gonna say, ‘We’ve had enough’? When does it get to that? There’ve been times in history where that’s happened, and change occurred. But people had to say, ‘I’ve had enough, and we’re gonna make this right. We’re gonna do something.’”

Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.

The sin of silence.

I’m a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, as well as the Lede. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj