Detective work is not all "tea and crumpets," said the attorney for alleged crooked cop William King as the corruption trial of his and fellow officer Antonio Murray kicked off. The pair are accused of robbing addicts of drugs and money, then reselling the drugs on the street.Rose Peterson, the mollycoddling-yet-felonious mom who's charged with witness intimidation, assault and misconduct in office, pled not guilty at an arraignment this morning. The court scheduled a jury trial for May 25 before Judge Althea Handy, 464 Mitchell Courthouse.
The murder trial of Inshalla "Lisa" Owens and Derrick Taylor, originally scheduled to begin Monday, was postponed today at the request of the State following two days of pre-trial motions. The defense subpoenaed the lead prosecutor as a witness in this case. A new Assistant State's Attorney will take over the case. The defendants are accused of killing three men in a Remington halfway house.
A 37-year-old man, Kian Moody, was stabbed to death in East Baltimore. The man shot Monday was identified as Kacife Parker, 28. (By my count) the current 2006 homicide number is 52.
CP reports that police have closed 16 of 49 of the year's homicides (32 percent).
Anthony Conaway, a 41-year-old inmate who was stabbed at the City Detention Center by another inmate has died of his injuries.
A stabbing in the Southeast and (ewwwwww) a crypt opened at a cemetery in Essex in the Blotter.
A hit-and-run vehicular homicide killed Charles Arbogast in AA County. Police are seeking a Chevy Trailblazer with a missing grill. Also in AAC a girl was sexually assaulted in the bathroom at High Point Elementary School.
Ronald Stewart, 31, got two years and three months for attempting to defraud CitiFinancial of <$400k.
DIS! OW! Schaefer called Ehrlich "Glendening Jr."
13 comments:
now im confused. Who is the mug above your links on the right hand column?
That's 36-year-old Irvin Merritt, who allegedly slit the throat of Frederica Moseley on N. Bond Street a month ago and is still at large.
National City Corp. rates Baltimore real estate overvalued by at least 30%, far more than Philly or New York, which have better public safety. We're in for a fall. Again. Here, it doesn't translate into dollars, but into flight. The flight results, always, in a further concentration of the criminal element. As suburban realty becomes affordable again, the law-abiding vote with their feet. We get left with the dysfunctional misanthropes remaining.
To self, "Hmmm. I think what I'll do is go out and try to make a difference in peoples lives, then. Even if I don't help anyone at all by trying, at least I won't feel so helpless."
I was reading the Messenger's archives and found this story story from February 2005 that shows what could be evidence of a desire to under-report homicides. A 26 year old is found dead near a bridge and heres how the police reacted according to the guy's parents:
"But from the moment an officer knocked on their door that morning, "We got the distinct feeling they didn't want to see this as a homicide," said Jim Marsalek, who teaches at the Jemicy School.
The officer told them that their son had either committed suicide or fallen from the bridge while urinating. Suicide was later ruled out.
"We never believed it was an accident," Jim Marsalek said. "We never believed it was suicide.""
It seems if he fell while urinating it would be clear b/c his pants would be open. It sounds like a case with little evidence of suspect that the police wanted to keep off the homicide totals. Especially with the initial reaction of the police.
Warning: This is kinda long.
Why is the property market important to Baltimore Crime?
A recent article in the city paper discusses the popular myth that homeowner blocks are better than renter areas, citing urban pioneers in Reservoir Hill who report trash dumping and surveil drug dealers, upset when renters arrive on 'their' block.
Policy analyst Sandra Newman correctly observes that the 'good homeowner' is hard to identify and quantify. Some of the owners are not particularly good and many of the good are not owners.
The correct observation about the 'urban pioneers' taking back the streets is that they are providing for private reasons (their home investment) a public service which might ordinarily be provided by the public authority in a more functioinal city. What I believe you would find with a sufficiently rich (ie. imaginary) dataset is that the health of a neighborhood depends crucially upon a variable such as [a*public policing + b*private security + c*volunteer neighborhood patrol /surveillance], where a, b, and c are effectiveness coefficients. Note that the weighted components become substitutes, so that any improvement in results owing to community activism could alternatively be provided by adequate policing. A very established result in real estate econometrics is that 1) safety and 2) public school education quality are the most important determinants of housing market values, physical attributes being equal.
So, the good news is that you can privately provide a (very imperfect) substitute for policing. The bad news is that you could alternatively and equivalently just move to a place where the policing is provided publicly and/or the hoodlums cannot afford to live in, which turn out to be the same thing. And that's exactly what happens over and over in a city which is well-known for its inadequate policing over many years. Each cycle leaves Baltimore proportionately more dysfunctional, like Detroit. It will never have a longterm trend upward until the expectation of public safety in habitable neighborhoods is comparable to other, rival cities. That's the real meaning of Believe-ing. Belief in what's real and true.
Make it real. Make it true. Anything else is a weasel politician's lie. Citizens may be conned into following these weasels; markets always bring the lie into the open and accord it its just desserts.
Mayor McCheese has apparently called for the appointment of 'competent' personnel to the Maryland State PSC and to emphasize the 'Public' in the Public Service Commission.
Along similar lines, let's appoint a new and Competent police Commissioner and get the pols (politicians, that is)out of the department.
The Marsalek case... that was what compelled me start the blog in the first place, if you didn't know. Last night while I was at the O'Malley thing the finacee was up at Frazier's, turned out he saw a friend who knew Nick M. from grade school (smalltimore). And the story just gets stranger and stranger. Nothing points to suicide, especially if you know that bridge. Apparently he was a top-ranked wrestler in high school, but there were no signs of struggle. Was his wallet missing?
Galt, can you dumb it down a little for the ladies and gentiles?
The point is that while no one seems to like the idea of policing very much in this town, it turns out that that's what makes neighborhoods good in a city, regarldess of all the popular rhetoric about owner vs. renter and 'community building' through social work. In good, safe cities, no one cares about owner/renter because renters are just other decent neighbors without mortgages and owners live there out of choice, not desperation. Here, problem renters are people who cannot subsist in any decent town. Decent people who don't wish to own at this moment generally don't stick around here for long. It's really about the mobility of functional people. They don't want to stay here because this city will get you killed in the long run. Those who cannot leave ..must stay. Your most tired, your most poor, your hoodlum masses...
... yearning to plea free.
the article on the marsalek case says he had $7 in his wallet, but not the tips he should have been expected to have. Signs of struggle wouldn't be there if he was just pushed off a bridge, would there?
as for homeowner vs. renter, I know I changed my point of view about where I lived when I became a homeowner. I became care more about the neighborhood and other things that I didn't care about as a renter.
Well, there's big wall there, so someone would have had to gotten him up and over the wall-- but I guess if you grabbed someone by their clothes or under the arms that wouldn't be evident.
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