He said, "Things are still under investigation. We're working with the State's Attorney's office to make determinations." Well yah, isn't that what you do all day? Hence the name Medical 'Examiner'?!
I asked about the specific names, as suggested by a 'non, which I had to submit in writing:
[Sept. 1 2006]
Dear Medical Examiner's Office:
May I please have the total number of homicides for the year (Jan 1 to the present) in Baltimore City is according to your office.
In particular, there are a few that I'm wondering if there's a ruling on yet:
Ernest Miller, 58, found dead on 3/14/06 in the 6600 block of Holabird Ave.
Lana Jean Whalen, 37, found dead on 4/5/06 on the shoulder of I-95 in Southeast Baltimore.
An unidentified male, who died on 5/27/06 after struggling with police in the 1800 block of Fleet St.
Robert Benway, 45, who died on 7/1/06 after sustaining a head injury on the job at one of the city's ports on 6/26/06.
On 8/17/06, the body of another unidentified male was found in the 500 block of South Vincent St.
An unidentified male, found dead on 8/23/06 in the 600 block of North Paca St.
Thanks!
[my real name here]
... apparently all of those are all "under investigation," even the one from March.
Can you give me an idea of how many cases you have open?
No, they can't.
No ballpark figure, nothing.
What do you think is going on?
Meanwhile, by my count
(and we don't count Robert Benway or Fleet St. police-struggle man) we're at
197.
That's my number and I'm sticking to it.
22 comments:
What's going on?
They don't want to get into the habit of having dialogs with random bloggers who may or may not be irresponsible with the information provided to them.
What's up with the body-count obsession, anyways? Seems to be a lot of it going around on the baltimore blog-o-sphere?
-H.
it doesn't matter if you're a blogger, katie couric or an insane man wearing a foil hat -- public information is public information.
Yes, but it is sensitive material about the death of people. Like court records (which are also public), there are a number of reasons why such info should not be casually accessible to the public. Otherwise, the data should be on the internet and searchable via google.
Bottom line... a dozen or so dead bodies are not yet clearly identified as homicides, so what?
I suppose that if life were a TV drama like "CSI" or "Crossing Jordan", the causes of death would be known in 30 minutes, and the killers deduced within 48 hours.
Sadly, such is not reality.
-H.
Should it be up to the ME to define what a "responsible" news source is? If they keep good office, what would they have to worry about? And anyway it doesn't matter who's calling, they're a government agency and it is public information that any citizen has the right to know and is legally entitled to, like how much lead is in the water.
Why count bodies? Because it's about as clear as it gets in crime-- even with the grey area of intent a dead body is a dead body, unlike defining, say, 'assault.' It's also a cross-cultural index, making it a better piece of information than, like, how many stolen bicycles a city has.
And the mayor's office has made quite a point of talking about crime numbers, and if a politician makes a point of saying something's down when it's actually up, people will notice. And a previous police commissioner, Kevin Clark, pretty much came out and said the O"m admin was screwing with the numbers and he got fired for not going along with it. If the number's being whittled by the police then that would be clear, indisputable proof of corruption.
... And if they find me dead it was not a suicide!
court records are totally casually acceptable (and often juicy)! If i was single i would totally check that out before dating anyone.
ahh! online court records! I stand corrected. Is this relatively new?
juicy indeed-- I thought while noting and ignoring voluminous terms and conditions.
Well, then, hopefully the same thing can happen to the medical examiner's office. Still, I wouldn't expect the info to come out any faster.
in your total do you have the dead guy they hauled out of the inner harbor in may and the last three "undetermined deaths" to happen since i posted my list, which are:
1) unidentified female, 5100 block Beaufort Ave, 8/30/06
2) unidentified female, 2300 block Winchester St, 9/6/06
3) unidentified person (no gender reported), 5200 block Fairlawn Ave, 9/6/06
i guess to really be fair though, you should not count Richard Witherspoon, George Davis, Antoine Ellis, or William N Gibson, since they all died before 2006 but were just ruled as homicides this year.
I'll take "Election Year Politics for 500, Alex."
"The answer is: The Mayor of Baltimore is running for Guv'na."
"Why Baltimore City won't release the 2006 homicide data?"
We'd LOVE to have you on the ed norris show to talk aboutthis! We can protect your identity!
Give me a ring at 410-825-1000 x273 to discuss further.
Freedom of Information laws that require public agencies to provide public information in response to requests exist. This site provides links for each state including Maryland. You might want to request again citing the correct law.
Maybe you can get Jayne Miller to do an expose?!
Dear most helpful 'non, is there any way to verify or corroborate your list?
I did not count harbor guy. That's the kind of one where you just can't assume. Some anonymous person with bullet hole we should count, but I'm not the one to make the call about suspicious accidents.
But yes to people who died before but were ruled this year, to be consistent.
I should go back and re-count one more time, but it is really time-consuming. Perhaps it's safer (but certainly not easier) to say that the number is minimally 186, probably 197, possibly higher, and we may never find the real number.
Another reason to have a boner for homicide numbers-- there's relatively few of them. Trying to count assaults would make you blind.
What about the DEAD bodies found or (not) found in the 20,000 or so vacant buildings in B'More..??? People are missing every year..
Exciting! Please let us know when you go on the Ed Norris show... just saw him on THE WIRE premiere last night!
i got everything on my list straight from the online edition of the sun. i'm the guy that has the murder map website so i check all the news sources in maryland and dc every day and make a spreadsheet of all the murders and, just in case, all the undetermined deaths i see. i got a few from other local jurisdictions too, if you want 'em.
in regards to harbor guy, i think you should count him as well. although i can't find any sun articles about it using their search function, i remember reading articles that said a witness claimed to have seen at least one bullet hole in the body, that homicide detectives were investigating, and that it was wrapped in plastic tarp. i think. i may have just made all that up. anyhow, it seems reasonable to me to include him on the list if we're including this whole slew of other deaths whose circumstances we really don't know anything about. the common thread here is that the discovery of the body was reported, but no conclusions about it were, if any were ever reached.
So... the reason why you people are tallying bodies so carefully is that you think there is a conspiracy to lower the homicide numbers by ~10 or so? And that the mayor is behind it??
I would think that if there really was a conspiracy that a large number dead bodies would simply not be publicized at all. Aren't the ones in question simply wierd deaths, whose status is unclear at this time? Does anyone know what is involved in determining whether or not a homicide occured? (TV-show experience doesn't count)
Maybe you guys need to meditate on achim's razor a little bit?
Occam's.
Hey, I wonder if it becomes Hakim's in Arabic?
Many murders aren't publicized. That's why this blog exists!
When the Mayor is basing his gubernational campaign, in part, on reducing violent crime by "40 %" in Baltimore, ten uncounted murders really do make a difference.
No, I'm not tallying them because there's a conspiracy, I'm tallying them because if there are a lot of unaccounted-for dead bodies in my city, that's pretty creepy and I would like ot know about it.
Besides, what if someone is looking for them? If you're missing a relative, wouldn't you be interested to know that the Baltimore City ME has 10+ unaccounted-for mystery bodies? I mean, these are our neighbors, somebody's child, not sweaters in the lost-and-found.
Is it okay with you if the city's 'tude is, "oh, we found a body (or 10 or 20), and we don't know who this is are or how they died, let's just assume they have no friends or relatives and no one cares about them ... and by the way, we're also not really sure how many of these bodies we have..."
Yeah, maybe we should count harbor guy, maybe not. The only real-ish numbers will be from the State's Attorney's office.
A homicide is determined by intent. That's why yes, we don't want to just count "weird" deaths.. on the other hand we don't want to not count them, because you're right, having something ruled "undetermined" or an "accident" would be the only way to fake numbers going down... that's why the Medical Examiner's numbers are key. If we had them, we could perhaps figure out
1. how many bodies we have
2. how many bodies are homicides
3. what percentage of homicides the police are clearing in a given time period
4. how many homicides end up having someone charged
5. how many are convicted of murder and how many are pled out, and finally the answer to the most important question:
if I get killed tomorrow, what are the chances that the police will ever find out who did it?
I still think that the way this government responds depends on whether they think your body looks like someone who matters. If you're wearing a $600 Hugo Boss suit, they'll find out who you were and where your next of kin can be contacted. If you're wearing an oversize T-shirt and Family Dollar sneakers, we can just rename you 'unidentified body in Baltimore.'
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