D.A. doubles city's witness protection force
District Attorney Kamala Harris said Sunday that as of today, she has doubled the number of investigators who work part time to protect witnesses in criminal trials, in the wake of the killing of a 22-year-old homicide witness.
Terrell Rollins, who was seriously injured in a shooting in September that killed a friend of his, was shot to death at 10:15 a.m. Thursday at a San Francisco auto repair shop where he and a relative had taken a van to be repaired.
"This is tragic," Harris said Sunday about Rollins' death. "When a witness who is cooperating with law enforcement to bring about justice is killed in cold blood by what I call assassins, we have to make a statement that we are going to protect people who want to come forward as witnesses."
The increase means that 14 of the district attorney's 43 investigators, staff members who help prosecutors build cases by interviewing witnesses and checking other leads, will now spend three-quarters of their regular work hours protecting witnesses, said spokeswoman Bilen Mesfin.
"Really, this is going to be a redistribution of our resources," Harris said. "Of course, this will spread us very thinly, but such is the priority of this program."
When Harris took office in 2003, the district attorney's office had four witnesses under the protection of one part-time investigator. Since then, Harris has increased to 20 the number of people in protection.
Witnesses receive protection -- which includes help relocating to another city, a weekly visit from an investigator and escorts to medical appointments, meetings with prosecutors and any other necessary visits to San Francisco -- if prosecutors deem they are potential targets because of their testimony. Household members automatically qualify for protection, too, Mesfin said.
Harris and other prosecutors noted that participation in witness protection is voluntary. Witnesses must agree to testify in court, abide by program rules and follow the law.
Harris' office already had increased from one to seven the number of investigators who protect witnesses, Mesfin said.
Harris said that in February, she requested that the city increase her budget for 2006-07 by $800,000 so she could hire seven new investigators to handle the increased workload.
The California Witness Protection Program, which is separate from the similar program for witnesses in federal cases, in the fiscal year that ended June 30, covered the cost of protecting 441 witnesses and 681 of their family members across California.
Family members told The Chronicle last week that Rollins had been coming into San Francisco as often as every two weeks for visits before he was shot, though investigators said they did not know of any times Rollins had come to the city without an escort since he went into protection last fall.
Rollins' family members said the city should have done more to ensure he was safe.
Prosecutors said that for some witnesses, the lure of familiarity with their old homes and friends can lead to a dangerous rationalization -- that no one will notice them if they return. Also problematic is the fact that many young people feel invincible.
Jennifer Snyder, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who testified in favor of the program's creation in 1997, said more funding for the program could help fight those tendencies.
Snyder told The Chronicle last week that the federal program spent $160,000 a year to protect each witness in its purview in 1996, while the California program's entire budget has never exceeded $3 million. That amount of funding would protect about 18 people at the 1996 federal rate.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
