On April 13, 2006, at approximately 10:45 am, Mr. Rodney Bethea was arrested for possession of marijuana. At this time the defendant was transported to the Northeast District to be interviewed by detectives of the District Detectives Unit (DDU). After being interviewed, while waiting for the wagon to transport him to the Central Booking Intake Facility, Mr. Bethea attempted to hang himself in the interview room with a string. This attempt was unsuccessful at which time Mr. Bethea removed one halogen light bulb from the overhead light in the interview room approximately 3 feet in length. Officer Paul Southard at this time responded to the interview room and noticed that the lights had been turned off, causing the room to be dark. Officer Southard then opened the door to the interview room to check on Mr. Bethea. At which time Mr. Bethea jumped off the table located inside the interview room, striking Officer Southard over the head, shattering the halogen bulb, causing numerous lacerations to Officer Southard's head. Officer Southard fell to the ground ... Mr. Bethea ran out of the interview room and into the Northeast DDU office.Better-late-than-never news we missed: The Grand Jury returned an indictment August 22 charging Baltimore police officer William Darrell Welch, 40, of Quiet Stream Court, Timonium, Maryland with one count of second-degree rape and three counts of misconduct in office. The court pre-set bail in the amount of $50,000 in this matter. If convicted of the count of rape, Welch could be sentenced to imprisonment not exceeding 20 years. Misconduct in office is a common law offense that carries a period of incarceration in whatever amount a court deems is fair and reasonable. The indictment alleges that on July 16, 2006 in the Southeastern District Station Welch had sexual intercourse with a 16-year old girl after she had been taken into custody by another officer.
At approximately 11:56 am a Signal 13 was dropped at the Northeast district for an escaped prisoner. Mr. Bethea at this time ran into the office of Community Services Officer Jessica Marcus-Lowe, a civilian employed at the district, and locked the door behind him, arming himself with a pair of scissors and a letter opener. He held CSO Macus-Lowe against her will and refused to allow her to leave. After over two hours of a stand-off, Baltimore City SWAT forced the door open and utilized a stun gun to take Mr. Bethea into custody.
Youths at the Baltimore City Detention Center beat a boy for 90 minutes before anyone on staff noticed.
Eric Hicks and Nicholas Floyd were arrested for the murder of Kimberly Skyers. Murder victim #177 was identified as 35-year-old Juliet Robinson.
A man beat a stranger with a metal pole in Hampden, a man was mugged and shot in the cheek with a BB gun on York Road, and plenty of break-ins in Charles Village in the Messenger blotter.
If you live in the County and enjoy extramarital affairs with psychotic secretaries, William Buie III (left) is a judicial candidate you can relate to.... and in totally unrelated news, four female congregants of Salisbury's New Life Apostolic Church were allegedly told by bishop Richard C. Lawson that his wife was sick and he was shopping for someone to replace her when she died. His son, the pastor, was also indicted (but acquitted) on charges that he had sex with a 16-year-old girl. No word on the health of Mrs. Lawson.
Leeander J. Blake was indicted federally, and as the state trial was never completed, that means he's not technically being tried twice for the same crime. The Post reports that prosecutors may have new evidence. If not, can the federal prosecutors use evidence inadmissible in state court? Sounds like a risky move, though the guy did admit to carjacking Straughan Griffin, shooting him in the head and running him over with his own car. The Sun has a timeline of the case.
In PG County a civil jury awarded $6.4 million to a man who was interrogated for more than 38 hours, then wrongfully imprisoned for his wife's murder.
Baltimore County prosecutors have decided not to pursue charges against Louis Clark, the gym teacher at Dundalk High accused of stealing from students' gym lockers (what's with the headline?).
Stephen Janis rounds up another citizen claiming to be wronged by the city's Dept. of Transportation. Hey lady, if your son is 29, shouldn't he be responsible for his own car?
Summer really is over, sigh... the OC Dispatch recaps a summerful of crime (among other things), including various stabbings, a NJ cop + a 15-year-old girl + bottle of Jagermeister, and a drunken "Pop-Pop" firing a .38 semi-automatic at children he was supposed to be babysitting.
Quote of the day: "At this point, HBO knows it doesn't have a breakout hit on its hands." -- David Simon on season four of The Wire
10 comments:
Leeander Blake's confession was ruled out on Constitutional grounds, not Maryland state law grounds, and so it probably could not be used against him at trial -- although federal prosecutors could try to make the same arguments to a federal judge that were not successful before the Maryland Court of Appeals.
People who don't confess are still convicted regularly, so one would hope that the prosecution could succeed even without his confession.
I can't believe some woman actually slept with him and is pregnant with his poor bastard child. A married lawyer, that's bad. A married pastor, worse. A hideous dumbass who shot a guy and ran over him with his own car ... what, were no attractive sociopaths available to sperminate her that day? Geeyuck.
I can't tell if you're trying to be funny with all the misspellings in the post (a joke a la WJZ) or just in a hurry. I think you're just trying to be funny.
Pardon me, I'm an idiot, it was only 2!
No, I just wasn't paying attention. Pasting posts into Word to spell-check them is just more time and effort than I can muster, I save that kind of effort for paying jobs. The interns* at JZ must have the same attitude.
*I have to believe they're unapid interns working for community-college credit; otherwise it's too depressing.
Try downloading ieSpell. It's not bad.
Qustion: Why do we only step up anti-crime efforts when it shows up "high-profile" cases in "upscale areas"? I mean, are downscale areas with low-profile cases ok to kill someone in?
The Sun article revisits DC's emergency response. Typically, The Justice Policy Institute's answer is Don't police. Hand out lotsa cash instead. Throw money at criminals. Pelt them with $1,000 bills.
the story
3 foot halogen bulb? Is that a typo, or do they mean Floresent?
Would this be an example of sloppy police reporting, or sloppyness on the part of the DA?
1. I use Safari. Do they make a Safari spell-checker?
2. yay, galt's back! i was starting to worry you were duct-taped in your basement. Yes, it's okay to kill people in downscale low-profile areas. Just make sure you don't accidentally hit some county cracker down shopping for a fix.
3. Yeah, that would be one nuclear bulb. That's the statement of facts from the police. You should call them and suggest they get a certified lighting deigner on board to vet their info.
Don't wanna talk about that basement. It was cold and dark down there for three days. And my circulation was cut off by the restraints. Nothin' but baloney sandwiches to eat.
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