Two Baltimore officers, Hadyn D. Gross and Anita C. Pitts, are being investigated for perjury.
The murder trial of John William Smith, 40, aka the guy who stabbed the guy at a dinner for the homeless, is scheduled for 9:30 Monday morning before Judge Wanda K. Heard. The BCGJ indicted Smith July 25, 2005 for first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and weapons counts. Court documents allege that on June 18, 2005 Smith stabbed Rodney Dickerson, 42, once in the chest at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church. Smith and Dickerson allegedly began arguing in the church's dining area while eating dinner.
The murder trial of Martin Michael Morgan, 18, is scheduled to begin at 9:30 Monday morning before Judge Wanda K. Heard (yes, Wanda's got two trials at once, so expect postponements). Morgan was indicted April 7, 2004 for the shooting death of Wade Walker, 32, on March 12, 2004 inside a carryout in the 3700 block of W. Belvedere Avenue. The Grand Jury also indicted Morgan for the attempted first-degree murder of Tavon Jennings, 16, who was shot on March 6, 2004 in the 3700 block Beehler Avenue. Morgan remains held on a no-bail status at the Baltimore City Detention Center. A co-defendant in this case, James Murphy, pled guilty January 10 of last year to second-degree murder and is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence.
Edward Johnson, 21, pled guilty today to second-degree murder. Judge Lynn K. Stewart sentenced Johnson to 18 years in prison. On April 30, 2005, Johnson stabbed Henry Trociuk, 41, to death at Ditto's Bar on Hudson Street during physical altercation.
The Associated Press managed to get an un-censored copy of the Florida consultant's report about the problems at Central Booking. The conclusions: Stop arresting people for crimes that won't result in charges, reduce paperwork, provide more phones and TVs to inmates so they stop getting bored and wrecking shit, have medical staff conduct medical screenings instead of corrections officers. The story also hints at backstory of the mess: Schmoke had the state take over Central Booking in 1991, and then "a lack of sustained accountability throughout the booking process created conditions that led to frequent violations of a state law."
Temitayo Olowolayemo was fatally shot during a robbery in the Northwestern. James Ronald Wright, 31, was identified as the shooting victim found at GreenMount School.
A witness who was shot to prevent him from taking the stand showed up and took the stand anyway in the murder case against brothers Tracy Love and Tamall Parker, who are accused of shooting James Wise for robbing drug dealers. The trial is going on now before the Honorable Judge Cox, Part 27, Room 407, Mitchell Courthouse.
In AACo, a Severn teenager was convicted of killing 52-year-old EMT David Brown, who was taking a walk in the park. Said Terry Cooks Jr., "I went to the park to shoot someone... I felt sorry for him at first, but then I didn't worry about it."
Condemned inmate Vernon Evans Jr. has a blog and is taking questions.
The trial of Gregory A. Alston, 20, (you'll remember him as the carjacker who reported his stolen car stolen) is scheduled for 9:30 Monday morning before Judge John M. Glynn. A BCGJ indicted Alston June 16, 2005 with two counts of carjacking, two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of second-degree assault, one count of theft under $500, one count of theft over $500, one count of car theft and one count of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. If convicted on all counts, Alston could receive a maximum prison sentence of 144 years.
An MTA officer fired shots at armed robbery suspects in Hopkins Plaza.
A 45-year-old Texas woman, Lan Dang, got 12 federal years for a cocaine posession/distribution charge in HarfCo.
Loyola has stepped up patrols following three muggings so far this school year.
Some students in Frederick made their own $10 bills on the computer... and got caught, of course.
Editorial: Time for Ehrlich to come clean about his relationship with felon Jack Abramoff. Meanwhile, buckle your seatbelts for a dirty race: Ehrlich has hired a campaign manager notorious in GA for airing ads comparing a Vietnam-vet triple-amputee to Osama Bin Laden.
10 comments:
High-crime silver medalist Baltimore has few comparables other than the gold winner, Detroit, worst city in the U.S.
Because Baltimore's exceptionally high violent crime rate is incomparable, we examine instead jurisdictions with comparable levels of violent crime. These are typically not cities, which are dwarfed by our level of crime, but rather states. Were it classified as a state, Baltimore would rank right around the median level for violent crime at 11,667 annually. The eleven states forming the decile about that mean have average violent crime of 12,951 per year. Note that these are not strictly rural states and they contain numerous characteristic inner cities.
The average population of these jurisdictions is over five times that of Baltimore City, which suggests that our crime is due to a qualitatively inferior population: a big chunk of our population is much much inclined to crime, while jurisdictions of similar incident counts are dealing with the aberrant behavior of a narrow slice of a large, fairly well-behaved population.
Manpower statistics for these states are derived from the reports by state departments and agencies, as well as metropolitan cities and nonmetro cities and towns. The decile averages 3581 full-time sworn officers from these sources.
Since nonmetro counties make up about 18% of the population in these states, a good estimate of average FT sworn manpower would be 4,225. Normalizing the decile's average manpower to Baltimore's violent crime level suggests that Baltimore comparatively ought to have some 3,806 FT sworn officers.
The BCPD has had about 150 structural vacancies for some time. Accordingly, we need about 950 new hires PLUS routine attrition. Further, as the investigation of the Southwestern District flex team demonstrates, numerous of our existing personnel are of such low quality that they will need replacing. It appears we're looking at 1,200 recruits.
Commissioner Hamm has clearly not refrained from recruiting due to City Council budget constraints, because he's managed to squander mucho dinero on overtime at time and a half while burning out the rank and file officers. The money's there, or at least it was.
I understand that not the finest apply for the job: many flunk the drug test. What that tells me is that you need to tighten up your standards, understanding that this will entail more competitive compensation requirement.
Howzaboutit, Commissioner, ready to start doing the job?
"our crime is due to a qualitatively inferior population"...
I'm not even gonna ask for clarification.
Simon:
I was referring to our indigenous propensity to steal/vandalize/assault/kill. Without question, Baltimore's young males are statistically more ill-behaved than those of other major cities, excepting perhaps Detroit, Camden, etc.
Where else are most young males criminals?
This point is very important to understanding Baltimore's problem clearly. The people are not just ill-prepared for life; they are a threat to it. Nor are the instances isolated. Criminality is fundamental to Baltimore B. The dominant industry and largest employer. It is the leading institution by both the force of habit and the willing choice of its practitioners. Paraphrasing the eponymous Scorpion's Tale, "It's what we do."
I just cheked that blog for the condemned murderer... i even posted about it, and sent a letter, whichi posted as well. I don't know what to think, but goddamn he gets more help in jail than i do abiding laws, paying taxes , and working everyday. Maybe this is why Baltimore is so bad, it pays more and has better benefits to be a criminal here. Sheesh
Galt,
What you write sounds like it makes sense, but you need to be dumb it down for us commoners. I'm having flashbacks of economics and math classes.
Yes, Liz, Baltimore goes to great effort to make itself appealing to people on the low end of the behavioral scale. I have personally interviewed many felons with really long... life-long rap sheets, and who had no historical connection with baltimore whatsoever.
Why were they here in central booking (again)? Because the courts in Virginia, Missississippi, and the Carolinas have prior offenses on record and Baltimore is the best of those jurisdictions to be tried in for repeat offenses. Basically, we're the most 'understanding' of crime. Hence, guys who will always be criminals choose NOT to be caught doing things in those tougher jurisdictions, which brings them here. To stay.
Welcome home.
Baltimore is like the lowest point in a sewer pipe. The place where all the solids accumulate.
Insider:
I'm not sure whether to be pleased or embarrased at creating the flashbacks. Guilty as charged, I'm a mathematical economist. Apparently, it shows. The elasticity may have been over the top. It's just answering the question "what percentage change in crime accompanies (ie. is caused by)a given percent change in police?".
One might argue that states have more land area to supervise, but then again neighbors in sparsely-crimalled areas tend to provide a much greater degree of passive surveillance than in inner cities. Also, the sampling method entailed the inclusion of such urban areas as Hartford, Milwaukee, and Las Vegas. Because the method uses median crime-level states, it avoids such rural outliers as vermont, nebraska, and montana. We don't intend to achieve their crime levels, which are artificially low due to selection.
We've got three shhotings in SW, record annual crime in the county, and assaults around Loyola, and journalists par excellence WBALTV leads with which story?
'Jogger kicks poodle'.
I wish it had been me. I hate poodles. And jogging.
as long as we're making fun of the local news outlets, did anyone else notice that in the "27 murders in 25 days" story in the sun a few days ago, one of the more recent murders was said to have taken place in the 2200 block of north collington? as far as i can tell, this block doesn't exist. as a result, there were only 26 dots on the murder map that accompanied the story, and that, of course, was the one that was missing. so their map specialist read the article, couldn't figure out where to put the 27th dot, and just said "fuck it." that's some good journalism.
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