Lack Of Information Slows Police

   Chattanooga police are investigating another shooting, one of several this week. This one happened early this morning on Glass Street and police are looking for a suspect with a nickname only.

 Common threads have emerged among these recent shootings such as victims somehow getting to the hospital by themselves.Investigating officers don't see a connection or gang activity but one trend is surfacing: gunshot victims not talking to police.

  A call of shots fired early this morning in the 22 hundred block of Glass Street went to police. Officers tried to flesh out information of a man shot, but ran into roadblocks. Information officer Lieutenant Kim Noorbergen explained, "When the police officer arrived on the scene we couldn't locate anything. We couldn't locate any evidence of shooting. No cooperation, no one told us anything that had happened."

   But a trickle of information unfolds out of Memorial Hospital. The victim got there, not by ambulance, but private transport. Lt. Noorbergen explained how the investigation progressed, "A short time later, we got a call from the hospital, stating that our victim was there and he had been shot twice in both legs."

   The victim is 38 year old Thomas Ellison. We found him at a duplex off Arlington Avenue. We asked him why the man shot him. Ellison told us, "I don't know man."

   Ellison clearly didn't want to talk but we kept asking. Specifically, we quizzed him about information in the police report that the shooting may have been over a past robbery. Ellison responded, "Yeah, yeah, he robbed somebody. He didn't rob me though."

   Officers questioned Ellison at the hospital and got their first semblance of a lead. "He became uncooperative, he didn't want to talk to us, but stated that a suspect we were looking for by the name of "Jabo" had shot him twice in the legs and it stemmed from a robbery that had happened sometime back," Lt. Noorbergen said.

   Police do NOT see a link between this shooting and the others that have happened in recent days, such as the Saturday morning double shooting at East Lake Courts. But a trend emerges. Two men were shot at East Lake Courts. One is hit one time, the other several times. Again, information is hard to come by. "We're finding that more and more. As time goes on, we're finding that people are becoming less cooperative. I don't know if it's retaliation they're afraid of or just cooperating with the police. People just don't want to get involved. It is becoming a problem," Noorbergen said.

  Police say cases like this with lack of information drains their resources. Officers say investigations typically take two times as long.