The Sun covers the Oakenshawe home-invasion story (note to ed.: there's only one "o" in "do-rag," as in hairdo), and in the Examiner,Raj Dosanjh is disillusioned by the whole episode.
Cuckold James Michael Johnson got 50 years for killing back-door man Matthew Boyd IV.
Gregory Kane dishes up a tearjerker about the family of murder victim Jerrod Hamlett, shot by a 13-year old, and the son Hamlett left behind.
Diabolico Juan Lopez of MS-13 pled guilty in federal court to conspiracy to conduct and participate in the activities of a racketeering enterprise.
George "Stop Fucking Snitching" Butler pled guilty to selling heroin. Claim to fame is the ironic quote, "We don't talk about what we're going to do. We just do it."
Armed robbery at the Fell's Point Subway, various muggings, lots of buglary in the Blotter.
Two gals pled guilty to bilking the University of Maryland Medical Center of more than $317k. And Tremaine Carter got 10 years for firearm possession.
Workers at the Cheltenham youth facility falsified time sheets, didn't get required training. And speaking of youths, police are stepping up enforcement of curfew violations. Anyone under the age of 16 who's out past 11 p.m. can be picked up and taken to a truancy center, and parents can be fined as much as $300.
4 comments:
Gotta wonder why Southwest so rarely gets into the blotter. We're not exactly the crime-free paradise, over here.
Unfortunately, the event described by Mr. Dosanjh was not the only attack in the neighborhood this week. My neighbor on Newland Road (two blocks from 407 Southway), also an attorney, who is elderly, was car jacked on Sunday, June 25th, the evening before the home invasion on Southway. The m/o was similar and the masked gunman likely the same.
The case is being investigated but, of course, we also urge the Mayor and anyone else that can help prevent crime to do so.
In an email, my neighbor described what happened last Sunday:
At about 9:10 PM, as I was going into our house in Baltimore after spending the weekend in the country, I was approached at gunpoint by a masked-man who ordered me to disrobe, give him my money, and drive him to an ATM machine where he made me withdraw the maximum from the bank account and then drive him to West Baltimore, Reservoir Hill, where he made me let him drive the car away.
It was raining that night but I was lucky enough to get a really nice resident of the area to let me into his house, to call “911” and get police help. (A strange apparition I must have been, a drenched old white man in his birthday suit running around in the rain at 9 ten o’clock at night! Sort of Benny Hill character, ‘cept it wasn’t funny!) The whole thing probably took no more than 40 minutes, but scared me to death.
That poor man!
Lock your car doors, people! And don't answer the front door for anyone unless you know who it is!
This is scary stuff. Still, I don't think that Baltimore is getting more dangerous. It's always been dangerous, and Oakenshawe has never been considered a 'safe' neighborhood. Any nice-ish area that's within blocks of a slum, a la Oakenshawe, Guilford or Bolton Hill, is going to be a target.
What's going on is that we're hearing about incidents we didn't heer about before. This stuff always went on before there was e-mail and neighborhood message boards, it's just that no one but a victim's acquaintances would ever hear about them.
Actually, there's more to the pattern.
For many years, residents of Guilford & Oakenshaw were afraid to let anyone know what happened because either a) friends would think ill of them for being easy victims or b) it would diminish the all-important property values.
I take the view: first tell the truth, then if the reality entails more crime than the property value would tolerate, enhance your property value by reducing the crime, rather than concealing it.
Maybe this incident will help shed light on the massive number of really bad people whom the defective criminal justice system allows on the streets just beyond the perimeter of pricey Oakenshawe, Guilford, and Charles Village.
You cannot just prevent crime it 'prime' areas. In that case, you'd need to erect a Great Wall of China around them to exclude the hoodlums, who are very mobile.
The correct strategy is to identify areas which you don't intend to be habitable: take 'em down. All the remaining must have similar intolerance for crime.
Any neighborhood which is allowed to harbour crime is a threat to its neighbors. Consequently, apologists for criminals are not alternative opinions. They're just a problem.
I was at a community meeting last night in one of the Greenmount area neighborhoods. The leadership expressed the view that certain people 'just need to go.' because they're committed to criminality. A handful of people tried to explain that 'it's not really their fault because..." Nope. No excuse for a felony. None.
Certain people just gotta go from this whole city. I don't care whether they're incarcerated or they head for greener pastures. They cannot stay here doing what they do.
Not in Guilford. Or Oakenshawe. Or Waverly. Or CHM. It's not right for anyone to have to live with this nonsense. Decent people in Baltimore should call upon our feeble Mayor to deliver uniform public safety. If he can't hack it, try avoiding convention hotel and electric utility projects until he's done his damn job.
The Council should impose austerity until a level of public safety comparable to decent American cities is attained.
Hint: that doesn't mean disastrous Detroit.
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