Days after all arms of the criminal justice system vowed to attack crime more vigilantly, some said city prosecutors were already bungling cases, after a case was dismissed against an Algiers man who allegedly robbed two women.

WWL

Over the past two years, this community has banned together to follow the case, eager to get a suspected criminal off their streets. After 5 continuences, trial was set for January 9. That's when prosecutors dropped the case.

Residents in Algiers have followed the case closely and were outraged Friday. They said because the case was dropped, a criminal could be back on the streets of their community.

It all stemmed back to a 2004 armed robbery in Algiers Point. Police arrested a man by tracking the women’s stolen cell phones, and the victims reportedly picked him out of a line-up.

Ron Brown, 35, who has been in jail several times on a list of charges including aggravated battery, attempted murder and armed robbery, has appeared in court dozens of times for the case over the past two years. Tuesday, prosecutors dropped the case, because they said they could not find their key witness: A New Orleans Police detective who was the lead investigator on the case and has since retired.

When Eyewitness News asked Ralph Brandt, an assistant district attorney, how hard it could be to find a former police detective, he responded, “It’s like any witness. It’s as easy or hard as the witness wants to make it. In this case, we did exhaustive work trying to get this detective in.”

Meanwhile, after about an hour of searching, Eyewitness News located former officer Ed Dieringer at his home in New Orleans. It was the same house he’d lived in before he resigned in September and the same home where he has received subpoenas for court cases in the past.

Prosecutors said they would charge Ron Brown again if they found Dieringer. Brown had been in jail since his arrest in 2004, but with the charges dropped, he was set free.

Eyewitness News tried to contact Brown’s attorney for comment, but the call was not immediately returned.