Malcolm Robinson remembers the moment he stopped trusting police and got schooled in the street code of snitching. He was 5.
His father had been pulled over by an officer who asked the young Robinson, " 'Do your daddy got a gun in the car?' And I said, yes," said Robinson, 17. "He tricked us."
Although his father talked his way out of the situation, he warned his son, "You could have sent me to jail," Robinson said.
That early encounter shaped Robinson's relationship with police. It instilled the notion that telling "the law" other people's business was "snitching," and that was wrong.
Teens say they won't talk to law enforcement for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they fear reprisal. They may know the person suspected of a crime, or they may have a criminal history of their own. Sometimes they're just mistrustful of police.
The stigma of being a "snitch" has become a serious obstacle to solving crimes, police say.
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