Black and Hispanic murders are less likely to be solved | The reasons why are complicated

DALLAS (CBSDFW.com) - Outside the Miller home in southeast Dallas, you can see 1-year-old Rory Norman still flashing the dimples his mother gave him.

"It feels like everything still happened yesterday," said Ebony Miller, standing by the sign with his picture she keeps planted in the front lawn. "I still wonder why? What was the reasoning? Who?"

Miller and her family awoke one night in January of 2020 to the sound of gunfire.

"The person may have stepped through here," said her brother, Jaylon Miller, pointing to the passageway along the side of their house, now protected by a gate. 

Someone fired shots into the side of their house that night. Dallas police chief Renee Hall said the shots were angled downward and aimed at the family's beds.

"He went from room to room to room," said Jaylon.

Rory's uncle was injured.

"I got hit by five of them," said Jaylon, who still has scars along his left shoulder.

By the time the family reached Rory's room, he was dead.

"It happened on my watch and I am angry and this sh—has to stop in this city," announced Chief Hall in a press conference.

In the midst of a spike in violent crime, city leaders expressed outrage.

"We must bring the killer to justice swiftly," tweeted Mayor Eric Johnson.

"We will not rest until we find out exactly what happened," said Chief Hall.

Ebony felt confident police would find the person responsible.

"And then they just disappeared," she said.

Two and half years later, there's still been no arrest.

"I feel like they have forgot about him," she said.

Rory was one of 236 people killed in Dallas that year. Dallas police report they solved more than three quarters of those cases, recording a homicide clearance rate of 77.69%. That's well above the national average, which has sunk to around 50%. 

When the CBS News Innovation Lab dug into the FBI's trove of crime data, it found something striking. The likelihood of a murder being solved in the US is significantly lower when the victims are Black or Hispanic. In fact, police have grown more successful year after year at closing murders cases involving white victims, while growing less successful at closing those involving Black victims.

In 2020, the year Rory died, the innovation lab found police were 28% more likely to identify a suspect in a White person's murder than in a Black person's. It comes as no surprise to Ebony.

"The area we stay in… the crime, the things that go on in this area is not so important," said Ebony.

In the Miller's Bonton neighborhood, most residents are Black or Hispanic. Fewer than 6% identify as White. And, Ebony feels police, city leaders, and the media take the violent crime here for granted.

"I feel like they would just put it as, hey, it's another thing in the hood," said Ebony.

Even as victims, she and Jaylon say they felt under suspicion.

"Of course being a young Black man, you know, 'Was he in a gang? What was the mother doing? Who was she talking to?'," he said of the questions people seemed to be asking.

In a new interview with CBS News, former chief Hall, who resigned at the end of 2020, said the race of a victim doesn't affect the effort put into a case. 

"Every homicide is given the same level of attention," she said.

"There's no backing off in-- in neighborhoods of color?" asked CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod.

"Not to my experience. Not that I have seen," responded Hall.

UT Dallas professor Tim Bray, former deputy chief for the Illinois State Police, agreed some murders are simply easier to solve.

"Let's say one group in the population is much more likely to have a homicide or assault that occurs between intimate partners, known family members or business dealings, right? Those tend to be easier to solve than those stranger crimes gone bad type of situation," said Bray.

There is another explanation, too. 

"I think there are a lot of factors. Part of it is the apprehension of a Black person to come to the police," said Jesuorobo Enobakhare, chair of the Dallas Police Oversight Board.

In minority communities, he said, witnesses are less likely to feel comfortable coming forward with information.

"There's some reasonable mistrust here," said Enobakhare. "Black men and women killed by police, couple that with slower response times for calls in the Black community as opposed to the white community."

He sees signs of progress, though, in cities like Dallas.

"Chief Garcia really is going out into the community and listening," he said of current police chief Eddie Garcia. "When you feel as though you've been heard you're more likely to be able to establish trust."

It's not just police trying to repair relationships, though. Marcus Estelle, who spent 13 years behind bars for aggravated robbery, now dedicates his time to promoting peace in underserved neighborhoods, like Pleasant Grove, where he grew up. 

"The people in urban communities see the police as takers, that when they come into the community, they're taking. All you see is them taking your life, taking your freedom, or they're taking your car. Take, take, take, take, take. So therefore, there comes up a code of silence against them."

That code, he said, only causes black and brown communities to suffer more. So, he argues, they need to be part of the solution.

"Somebody be accountable and stop the action. You know what I mean? Because we're dying here. We're dying! Somebody shoots my daughter... I'm gonna want somebody to stand up and say who did it," he said.

Ebony is convinced there are people who know who killed her son.

"I feel like they have to know. They have to know something," she said.

One day, she's confident, she will get answers. For now, she's focused on moving forward.

"A lot of people tell me all the time, "I thought you were going to lose your mind'," she said. "They thought I would fall apart."

Instead, Ebony went back to school and became a pediatric nurse. Jaylon graduated, too, and started his own business. Ebony credits Rory. She feels he's still very much present in their lives. His memory, they said, gives them strength to defy all expectations.

"People think once this happens in your life, you're not going to go anywhere. You're going to be in the same position for your whole life. So, just prove them wrong. Prove them wrong," she said.