A City on the Edge

20:21The stepson got into the vehicle. The gunman came out.

20:29The gunman shot into the back of the car trying to shoot the stepson and it actually shot De Niro in the back of the head.

20:38Band members and De Niro's family rushed to the hospital. His mother Yolanda got there too late. And they had him laying on his tail. And he just looked like he was sleeping. And his arm was hanging down. And I just said to Nero, please wake up and tell me you love me like you did last night.

21:26To take him away from us the way that happened was very difficult for a lot of us.

21:39Is it hard to be here? It is. Knowing that this, well, he took his last breath. De Nirol Shaver's sister, Nikita, took us to the street to piece together what happened the night a gunshot took her brother away. What did his stepson see? What did he tell the police initially? He just saw somebody running towards the car. He said go, but it happened too fast. I didn't really see anything. De Niro's stepson might not have seen anything, but Nikita believes there were plenty of people on this street who did. And as far as you know, there were people who saw this. Yeah. Those witnesses may be the key to finding De Niro Shaver's assailant.

22:30But in Helen Hill's case, there is much less to work with. Her husband described the killer as a black male believed to have entered the house through the back door. Do the police have anybody, even a possible suspect in this case? I don't believe at this point they do, but I have confidence. Helen's older brother, Jake Hill, went to her now empty house to find a pile of unopened mail. This is their 15th year reunion at Harvard. This is the class report. And in that report, Helen's own words about her wonderful life, with no idea that it was about to end. We made it back to New Orleans after a year in South Carolina, and I love being back here.

23:20Every single person has a Katrina story, and folks are still having a hard time. We feel lucky we have little Francis to keep us busy and happy. Did anyone have a reason to want to kill Helen? Absolutely not. It's absurd. Police ruled out Paul as a suspect. And then we could all move on to finding the son of a bitch who did this. But when Jake met with investigators, he was shocked and troubled by what he saw. The day we arrived here, I thought I was going to the police station to meet with the detectives. And then I understood the detectives were working out of temporary facilities. And I guess I didn't quite understand what that was until I got there and they were working in trailers.

24:06It's been 500 days, you know, since Katrina. My sister was just murdered and I'm going to meet with detectives in trailers.

24:15Erin Moriarty:Our offices are in a FEMA trailer in the middle of the tennis court in the city park. Almost two years after Katrina? Yes. Actually, I've got to see what street we're on. Most of the street signs are missing. A cop for 27 years, Lieutenant Mike Glasser also leads the police association. Here's a beautiful corner. It's an excellent place to be shot. Since the storm, he says, police have fewer tools than ever to stop criminals. We're operating with nothing and trying to combat an escalating problem. There was something almost jarring about that, that my sister has just been killed. In the United States of America, you expect there's a competent legal system that's going to take charge.

24:57And then you come somewhere like this, and they don't have a crime lab. Last summer, the city finally did open a new crime lab. But the police department still struggles to replace the more than 500 police officers it lost. Looks like the National Guard is on duty. Nearly three years after the storm, there are still sections of New Orleans that have to be patrolled by the National Guard.

25:24Erin Moriarty:The American military patrolling the streets of an American city is not a sign of success.

25:32Helen Hill's killer could be anyone, anywhere. Before Katrina, this house where Paula and Helen lived was in a neighborhood considered safe. But now police say a new breed of criminal roams the city. Young, cold-blooded killers who have no fear they'll ever pay for their crimes.

25:52Erin Moriarty:Police say they found an unidentified man lying on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds to his body. Officers found a 33-year-old man shot several times. An unidentified, 57-year-old man lying inside. Lying on the floor inside of a boat. Lying in a vacant house.

26:14Erin Moriarty:I actually heard it on the radio. Music professor and cafe owner Beatty Landis had tuned out the violence until she heard a friend's name. 25-year-old De Niro Shavers. It's one of those things that you can't believe you've actually heard it. They couldn't be talking about De Niro. Then on January 4th, one week later, another name. But weeping friends and neighbors identified the victim as filmmaker Helen Hill. Her neighbor, Helen Hill. To hear that when I was so raw from De Niro's death, it felt for that moment like an unfathomable statistic. Beatty decided she had to do something. With a few friends, she launched an organization called Silence is Violence with a march on City Hall.

27:07Erin Moriarty:I was thinking a few dozen, maybe 60, 75 people from the neighborhood would walk with us. But that day, not dozens, not even hundreds, but thousands of people came marching. From neighborhoods all over New Orleans. We have come to lodge our complaints. So many New Orleanians were finding the means to express their own grief and their own anger and their own fear. I ask that you not let the death of my brother, Mrs. Helen Hill, and all the rest of my New Orleans citizens go in vain. It was a cry for change. The criminal justice system and the government is broken. that city officials like Mayor Ray Nagin couldn't ignore.

28:04I heard everything that you said. And this city will focus on murders. There was a lot at stake as the investigations into De Niro and Helen's murders continued. A lot of people would be watching.

28:25Before Christmas 2006, members of the Rob Wynn High School Band were still practicing on school books and desks. The instruments that their band leader, De Niro Shavers, had worked so hard to get finally arrived, just days after he was murdered.

28:49A lot of the horns and the drums were sitting in the office as soon as I opened the door. Principal Kevin George. He would always show me the list of things that he ordered.

29:09And when I saw that in my office, it really touched my heart.

29:24I just said I wanted to cry, but I was like, nah, I can't do it. Why not? It's like, I hurt it so bad, if I cry, I'm going to keep on crying, crying, crying, crying.

29:42Erin Moriarty:Today, police arrested 17-year-old David Bonds. On December 29th of 2006, police made an arrest in the murder of De Niro Shavers. David Bonds is 17 years old. Lieutenant Joe Meisch was head of homicide for the New Orleans Police Department. He said three witnesses, all young girls, named David Bonds as the gunman. At this point, how many witnesses do you have that are willing to go to trial? Actually, in this case, we have several, several witnesses that are very strong witnesses. And I'm 100 percent confident that David Bonds will be convicted of this case. As confident as the police say they are, the truth is convictions for murder in New Orleans are rare.

30:29Just how rare? Well, De Niro's shavers was one of 162 homicides in 2006. Police made arrests in a third of those cases, but there have only been five convictions. The numbers don't lie. In New Orleans, a lot of people are getting away with murder. How important is it that these cases actually go to trial and someone is held accountable? That is the biggest thing here. and I think that's why so many of these killers are so callous. They very rarely see anybody go to trial and go to jail. In 2007, nearly 3 ,000 suspects, ranging from alleged drug dealers to murderers, were simply released because a district attorney failed to file charges.

31:18But even when charges are filed, cases often fall apart. And what's the effect? I think the effect is no one wants to testify because they're afraid that this guy's gonna be out of jail. No one wants to put themselves out there. And even De Niro's students understand that fear. So if any of you witnessed a crime would you be afraid to come forward and say what you saw? Because I wouldn't want to jeopardize my life of my family life, so I wouldn't come forward. We have to think about, after I talk, what are we going to do now? How will the police protect my family? Where are they going to be at?

32:06Still, police say they're confident that in De Niro Shaver's case, witness testimony will put away the alleged killer. It sounds like in this case, the witnesses are crucial to convicting David Bond. Absolutely, absolutely.

32:20Erin Moriarty:The witnesses are crucial. I think they have the wrong guy. William Boggs, a public defender, is David Bond's lawyer. He claims the overtaxed police department did a shoddy investigation. You had a rumor which was repeated by a 15-year-old, maybe two 15-year-olds, that the police seized upon and then declared the case solved. I believe they did that because of the pressure that was on them to solve murders in the city. According to Boggs, there's no physical evidence to connect Bonds to the murder. Police found the murder weapon, a semi-automatic handgun like this, but they can't connect it to Bonds.

33:03And the several witnesses Lieutenant Meisch was so confident about, they begin to back out.

33:12Erin Moriarty:There were, by all accounts, up to 20 on the street. And it would stand to reason that if you've got all those people, there should be lots of witnesses who saw what happened. There should be lots of witnesses. And how many witnesses did the prosecution offer? One witness. That witness was a 15-year-old girl, and with all the pressure on her, her mother refuses to let her testify. She called a local television station to explain. They should have been getting all these witnesses instead of depending on one little child. In June 2007, De Niro's sister Nikita and Beatty Landis come to court only to see the case against a man accused of killing De Niro fall apart.

34:02Erin Moriarty:Today, DA Eddie Jordan dropped the second-degree murder charges against 18-year-old David Bonds.

34:11Beatty and Nikita leave in shock. Like so many other suspects, David Bonds is simply released without going to trial. There isn't anything that they could say to me that would justify them dropping the case. Anything at all.

34:34Erin Moriarty:Who's running the train? Who's flying this plane? New Orleans' most popular radio talk show host, Garland Robinette, believes the entire justice system in New Orleans is failing, and he blames city leaders. Why won't these witnesses come through? Why can't this DA and police chief find more witnesses? Because they prove to us on a regular basis that they're going to put them back on the street. Whether it's police that can't write a report that the DA can accept, whether it's the DA that doesn't know how to file the charges to keep them off the street, or whether it's a judge that turns them loose.

35:13Erin Moriarty:If we don't remove the power structure and rebuild it, the whole system will fall apart. Shame on you, Mayor Nagin, Superintendent Riley, District Attorney Jordan. You have really let us down. To learn each day that the system is more broken than you believed it had been the previous day is very discouraging. It's so deeply, so fundamentally broken.

36:10Erin Moriarty:Did you kill De Niro Shavers? Just one month after charges were dropped and David Bonds was released. Bonds is charged with second degree murder. He was re-indicted for the murder of De Niro Shavers. We have the cooperation of several witnesses. Prosecutors had three critical witnesses, including the 15-year-old who had allegedly seen the murder, but who had earlier refused to testify. When the trial began in April, everyone was sure that their testimony would convict Bonds of murder. Prosecutors began making their second-degree murder case against David Bonds this afternoon, saying three teenage witnesses identified him as the shooter in separate photographic lineups.

36:56Then a bombshell. The day the key eyewitness took the stand, the prosecution's case fell apart again. The 15-year-old would only say, quote, I don't see nobody, end quote. But another witness, just 13 years old, testified she did see the shooting. The stark contradiction left the jury deadlocked. And then a decision.

37:24Erin Moriarty:After deliberating for five hours and two split votes, a jury clears David Bonds of all charges in the killing of New Orleans musician De Nirol Shavers. Once again, David Bonds was released. De Nirol's sister was devastated. The little bit of hope that we did have in the system and thinking that we were headed in the right direction is gone. As for Helen Hill's case, nearly a year after she was murdered, there were still no suspects. Am I disappointed that it's been eight months and it seems like the case is cold? Absolutely. Desperate, Helen's brother Jake returns to New Orleans. My sister was murdered about eight months ago.

38:16He's betting a$15 ,000 reward will motivate someone to talk and help find his sister's killer. His sister was killed eight months ago, early in the morning. I don't know anyone that knows anything. We're pleading with you to come forward, to do the right thing to help solve this despicable crime. I'm afraid for our safety, and I think I'll always have that fear a little bit in me as long as they haven't found that person. Helen's husband Paul struggles to move on without his wife. Everything is completely different and empty without her. With his young son Francis, Paul now lives as far from New Orleans as possible, feeling betrayed by the city that he and his wife once loved.

39:00Helen just loved that city so much and the people responsible for taking care of that city before and after the hurricane haven't done their jobs. It's a scandal. It's unbelievable. And Helen's death is a result of it.

39:20Helen and De Niro's murders served as a wake-up call for the city at large. We have come to declare that a city which could not be drowned in the waters of a storm will not be drowned in the blood of its citizens.

39:34Erin Moriarty:Pastor John Raphael, once a New Orleans cop, is still walking a beat. How you all doing this evening? Trying to change attitudes one person at a time. We've seen enough murder, enough families destroyed, enough mothers having to bury their children, and we're doing all that we can to bring back the value of life and to save lives in this city. Ironically, it's the same message De Nirol Shavers was trying to get out before his own brutal murder. Stop the violence. The hurricane wasn't enough to wake you up. I don't know what it is. I mean, live your life, man. Have fun. I mean, come on now. You're from New Orleans.

40:15Act like you're from New Orleans. I think if he had more time, he would have been like the Martin Luther King of music. Shamar Allen says De Niro had a calling. He had so much that he wanted to say and so much that he wanted to do, and he would have spent his whole life doing it. Is it still hard to believe? It's still hard to believe to this day, especially when his son is always with me now.

40:48The hardest part is knowing that he ain't gonna be able to see the great musician that his son is gonna be. It's impossible to watch DJ at age seven and not think of his father. My daddy, he was a cool person. Everywhere he go, he bring me one.

41:14DJ no longer have a father. I no longer have a brother. Harry no longer have a drummer. His students no longer have a teacher. Every time I walk in here, every time I hear the word bang, I think about Mr. Chavez. Like when he died I was crying but after De Niro's murder some of his students thought about leaving the band I was gonna quit. I was like well then who gonna teach us why? It ain't no sense to come but like something hit me like I'll keep on going Rashad. We started keep on going And the marching band that De Niro envisioned Long before they even had instruments has now taken root

41:57Erin Moriarty:One, two, three, four. They were invited to a band camp held at the University of Southern California with the renowned Trojan Marching Band. Man, it's a big opportunity. It's like it's a once in a lifetime chance. De Niro Shavers would have been proud. We lost someone who truly loved the kids. We just lost a New Orleans treasure on De Niro Shavers.

42:33Helen Hill and De Niro Shavers came back after the hurricane to save the city they loved.

42:39Erin Moriarty:You can't kill this spirit, Katrina!

42:44Katrina couldn't kill New Orleans, but the continuing storm of murder just might.

42:55Erin Moriarty:Ellen Hill's murder remains unsolved.