NEWARK, N.J. – It was a contest of wills between a street thug and a college girl, between the very worst of Newark and the very best.

She was confined in a hospital bed, shot in the face, lapsing in and out of consciousness. But she was fully aware that the people who murdered her little brother and two of her best friends were still on the street, with a clear motive to kill her.

He is the chief suspect, a grown man with a history of arrests. He was charged last year with aggravated assault and weapons charges. And on the night of the killings, he was awaiting trial on separate charges that he repeatedly raped a young girl beginning when she was 5 years old.

But it was the college girl who stood her ground, a 19-year-old psychology major at Delaware State University, a saxophone player. And a girl with every excuse to keep silent.

Instead, Natasha Aeriel did what so many others in this city are understandably afraid to do: She helped police find the suspect.

She pointed to his face in a picture lineup. She gave a full statement. She stuck out her neck.

So, five days after these horrifying Saturday-night killings, Newark finally found its hero. And that is a start.

The problem is that we can’t depend on heroes to make the system work. There aren’t enough of them to go around.

And the thugs in Newark seem to know that. They have derailed several murder cases in recent years by killing key witnesses or threatening them into silence.

The most notorious came in November 2004, when four people were executed in a vacant lot in Newark’s South Ward. One of the four was a witness to a gang murder, and prosecutors believe that’s why she was killed, along with the three others who happened to be with her that night.

And it worked. Charges in the murder she allegedly witnessed were dropped. By adding violence to violence, a criminal can literally get away with murder.

“This is one of our highest priorities,” Attorney General Anne Milgram says. “It’s a very significant problem in the state right now.”

In the Ivy Hill neighborhood, where these killings took place, you can find plenty of decent people who say they’d keep quiet if they had witnessed the killings. James McClain is one of them.

“We’re just too afraid now that if you testify the police won’t be able to protect you,” he says. “We know this is a terrible loss. But we have our own families to worry about.”

The state has a program to relocate witnesses, and it helps. But Paula Dow, the prosecutor in Essex County, complains that the money falls far short of the need and that eligibility rules can bar people with a history of drug use, or those who have no job.

Another problem: The penalty for witness intimidation is weak. It’s a third-degree crime, on a level with burglary. Milgram says she will push this fall to change that.

“It should be a first-degree or second-degree crime as a general rule,” she says.

Those changes, if they are made, will probably come too late to help Aeriel. Two police officers are stationed outside her hospital room, and Mayor Cory Booker said her family is being protected as well.

“She’s going to need protection for a long time,” says George Kelling, a criminal justice expert based at Rutgers University. “Even thugs have friends.”

Yes, Newark has more than its share of thugs, and that’s all some people can see.

But this young woman, and the ocean of rage over these killings, has reminded us that the thugs are outnumbered, and that Newark also has an army of good people who are searching for some way to push back.

And in a dark week like this, that is enough to keep hope alive.