SILENCING A WITNESS
Man tries to get away with homicide by killing more
Eddie Powe knew the man who shot him. That’s not uncommon in Milwaukee or in other cities plagued with gun violence. But what Powe did next was unusual: He told police who did it. Many shooting victims avoid cooperating. Some fear retaliation or don’t trust the system. Others prefer to exact justice their own way. Why did Powe talk? Maybe because he was angry or scared. Maybe because he was flooded with the sort of emotions only a 35-year-old man
lying in an ambulance with six bullet holes in him can feel.
An officer asked who shot him.
Tone, Powe said. Paramedics scrambled to control the bleeding.
Was there a car involved? the officer asked. Powe remembered a white Chevrolet SUV.
Tone shot him on the sidewalk, Powe said, and he didn’t know why.
A paramedic pulled an oxygen mask over Powe’s mouth.
The officer asked him once more if he was certain Tone had shot him. Powe nodded. He died two hours later at Froedtert Hospital.
The killing of Powe came during the violent summer of 2015 when the number of homicides in Milwaukee soared to a high not seen since the early 1990s.
It set off a cascade of violence as the man who shot him tried to methodically eliminate witnesses he believed had cooperated with police to put him behind bars.
And it is only one of a number of high-stakes witness intimidation cases in Milwaukee County.
In the past two years, prosecutors have filed charges in at least five homicides, five attempted homicides and two conspiracies to commit a homicide — all cases involving efforts to permanently silence a witness.
In 2015, prosecutors charged nearly 190 people with witness intimidation — a 250% increase from a decade before, a Journal Sentinel analysis of court data found.
Those cases resulted in a lower rate of dismissals, more convictions and longer sentences than those issued in 2005, the analysis showed.
Milwaukee County underwent a fundamental shift in witness protection tactics after the 2007 murder of Maurice Pulley Jr., who was killed after he resisted threats and bribes and testified against a man who had shot him.
Vowing to beat back such brazen efforts to undercut justice, District Attorney John Chisholm created a small team of investigators to target people who threaten witnesses.
Since then, the team has grown to seven investigators who work closely with sheriff’s deputies and local police. Using specialized software that flags cases where intimidation is likely, the investigators pore over recorded jail calls and online social networks. They stake out courtrooms looking for any sign of intimidation: a gesture in the court gallery, a photo taken of someone on the witness stand or chatter of someone not showing up in court.
They’ve had successes, but the volume of cases makes it difficult for investigators to keep up. “No face, no case,” is still a common saying for those behind bars.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for police and a public safety system that struggles to remain credible among communities beset by violent crime.
“This never affects just one case; it goes to the integrity of the whole system,” Chisholm said. “We need people to trust in the system. We don’t want it resolved out in the community.”
Powe wasn’t the only one who told police a man named Tone shot him.
The killing took place before a small crowd on N. Port Sunlight Way, a oneway curved street in the heart of the Garden Homes neighborhood on the city’s north side.
The brainchild of Milwaukee’s first socialist mayor, the cluster of twostory stucco cottages was built in the 1920s in what was then the outskirts of town. Every resident owned shares in the neighborhood and it was racially restricted to whites only, according to city documents.
The restrictions fell and new families, mostly black, moved in during the 1960s. The coming decades brought white flight and disinvestment, starting with the loss of manufacturing jobs in the 1970s and ’80s, followed by the foreclosure crisis, evictions and tax delinquencies of today.
As the challenges mounted, so did crime.
The isolated neighborhood, tucked into the wedge created by the intersection of W. Atkinson and N. Teutonia avenues, was plagued by drug-dealing, street gambling and prostitution. Port Sunlight Way became known simply and ominously as “The One-Way.”
Still, residents have worked to improve the area and have come to rely on tight networks of neighbors. Safe Zones, a grassroots effort to combat gun violence, began in Garden Homes during the turbulent summer of 2015. Just hours before Powe was killed, the initiative hosted a community picnic and block party. The festivities ended before dusk and people lingered outside.
What exactly prompted the confrontation between Tone and Powe that evening remains unclear, but it may have come down to two things at the heart of many disputes: women and money.
A day or two before he was killed, Powe had argued with his former girlfriend over money she owed him.
Word of the confrontation, which some said involved a gun, got back to Tone, her new boyfriend and the father of her unborn child.
Tone had been released from prison five months earlier. One witness later told police about a possible drug territory dispute. Powe had been selling around N. 27th St. and W. Atkinson Ave., Tone’s turf before he went to prison, the witness said.
Regardless of motive, several other witnesses gave the same account of Powe’s killing:
The two men argued, at times heatedly. After several minutes, Powe pulled out a gun and waved it in the air. Tone told him to put it away. No need for a gun, he said.
As Powe turned and put away his weapon, Tone pulled out his own .45-caliber handgun and fired it multiple times.
Powe crumpled to the ground. Tone turned and casually walked to a parked SUV and drove off.
An older man rushed over to hold Powe, a friend of his. Then Breanna Eskridge, Powe’s girlfriend, ran to comfort him, taking the man’s place.
As Eskridge held her dying boyfriend, she heard sirens getting closer. The 17-year-old Eskridge didn’t know what to do. In a panic, she picked up Powe’s phone, keys and glasses.
She ran away, covered in his blood.
The older man rushed to the street corner and flagged down the ambulance.
Even though he had seen everything, he didn’t hang around to talk to police.
Instead, he walked home. His name was John Spivey.
Spivey told his girlfriend about the murder of Powe, known in the neighborhood as “E.P.” She implored him not to get involved.
Spivey, 48, drank a few beers and decided to go back out. He stopped by his aunt’s house and grabbed his .40-caliber Glock to take revenge on the person who had shot his friend.
As he walked the dark streets near The One-Way, Spivey fired off a round in honor of Powe.
The gunfire caught the attention of police still in the area for the earlier homicide. Officers ran after Spivey and arrested him. With a prior felony drug conviction, Spivey was barred from having a gun.
Facing several new charges, Spivey soon decided to talk.
That’s Powe’s blood, he told detectives, pointing at stains on his left sock and shoe. He described how the shooting unfolded but claimed he didn’t know the real name of the triggerman.
Nine days later, detectives came to visit Spivey at the House of Correction in Franklin. They brought a selection of mugshots, including a photo of Antonio “Tone” Smith who they believed to be the shooter.
Spivey pointed at Smith’s photo.
“Yup, that’s the boy,” he said. “It’s an old picture, but this is the boy.”
He circled “yes” on the form.
Then he wrote on the back of the photo, misspelling his friend’s name: “To whom it may concern this is the person that i observe shoot Mr. Poe.”
Detectives entered an order in their computer system for officers to pick up Smith for questioning if they saw him.
They knew the stakes were high.
One of the other witnesses to Powe’s killing was already dead.