Am I reading this right? A 74-year-old man was stabbed with a steak knife as he tried to steal furniture, and a woman was beaten with a metal pipe at 10 a.m. Saturday on North Avenue.
Irony, Two-Edged Swords, etc
A teenager is being questioned after the death of Dr. Wayne Fenton of Bethesda. Fenton was a nationally known schizophrenia expert and director for clinical affairs in the Division of Mental Disorders, Behavioral Research and AIDS at NIMH ... but apparently didn't realize the danger posed by his own patient.
Crikey! The Crocodile Hunter's been killed ... by a stingray!
Defendants are blogging ... and defense attorneys are getting nervous. [username: chococatsanrio@yahoo.com pwrd: choco] (Thanks PG!)
Boozehoundery
"I did the shots of tequila last night, your honor!" Thanks to a reader for sending this video of a Nevada lawyer litigating under the influence.
Study: Children of alcoholics highly likely to lead effed-up lives.
8 comments:
i believe it says that the 74 year old (who owned the furniture) was stabbed by the guy stealing the furniture.
also, it looks like animal planet has already thrown together a tribute to the crocodile hunter. my guess is they have been expecting him to get killed for some time now and have had this thing in the can for years.
Michael Freeman was shot to death today on Park Heights Ave. I believe another man was shot on the west side as well.
I'd like to initiate a new thread here.
Why is it that the dialogue about the practice of excessive false arrests (including uncharged incidents abated through arrest), which is about the most fundamental civil rights violation I can think of, always gets hijacked into social justice discussions about the need to hand out resources instead of enforcing law?
It seems to me that applying enforcement to actual conduct problems is fundamental and that panhandling for resource appropriations is just a diversion. They are separate discussions.
Why is is that the raising of questions about the proper administration of enforcement consistent with civil rights is instantly associated with the ' crime apologist' (or crime-tolerant, if you prefer) mindset? Why can a constituency not be formed about the quest for good, effective, rights-respectful policing?
I don't understand what you're getting at Galt, but I think it is not possible to get away from arrests without charging. In fact, "abate by arrest" performs a useful function.
In many situations, it is not practical/possible for cops to "catch someone in the act" of a crime. The best they can do is to arrive at a scene, talk to some people, and then, if the suspects are available and there is a strong possibility that they did the crime make an arrest. Whether or not they actors can be prosecuted or even charged often boils down to one person's word against another. For run-of-the-mill "nuisance crimes" I'll take the good judgement of an experienced officer over a disinstrested prosecutor and aloof district judge any day.
In any case, arrests that have no charge can be expunged from one's record-- although I understand it is possible for certain "top secret" background checks like those performed for the NSA to turn up an arrest. Normal employers can't see an arrest if it has been expunged.
But all this is academic, the important thing for law-abiding folks to do is to NOT DO anything that can get you arrested. Obviously, some people have more trouble with that than others.
Yeah "NOT DO anything that can get you arrested" Like getting lost and asking a police office for directions, or reporting your car stolen. Never do anything like that if you want to avoid getting arrested.
There is always more to the story in those freak cases. I mean, I reported my car stolen in 2001. Why did I not get arrested? Could it be that I avoiding doing something stupid that would have gotten me arrested??
In any encounter with an officer it is best to be direct, polite, and courteous and not guileful or argumentative.
(It gets confusing to follow the dialogue between anonymi.)
What you need to understand is just how easy it is to be arrested in Baltimore when you're not a white man/woman in the white neighborhood.
I've only been falsely arrested three times (and no, as hard as it may be to believe, I didn't do something stupid), but I've been stop-frisked so many times I cannot count them for being the wrong color in the right neighborhood.
I wish you could stand in my shoes for a spell. You'd take a very different view after you've been unjustly jailed with a bunch of low-lifes.
I'm very anti-crime, but if an arrest won't stand up to the rigors of trial, it shouldn't be done. Maybe the answer is to have all arrests subjected to a trial for a nominal fine. Then if the trial returns a decision that the arrest was improper and the fine denied, the officer will be noted for false arrest.
Baltimore cops are just bad. Not all of them, but on average they take way too many liberties in order to avoid the cut corners in a very crime-intensive city.
The solution which is proper from a civil liberties perspective is that if the officers have too much work to do it by the book, then get enough officers to do it, respectfully, by the book.
Saving shekels by violating rights just makes you look like a hoodlum city in which some criminals wear oversized jeans and too-long tee-shirts and others wear navy uniforms and badges.
I'm trying to understand why local politicians (in particular a very Irish one) get away with offering that you can either have lousy civil rights and some safety, or civil rights and let 'em all run wild.
Why is this government not held responsible for doing both of those very simple, even if resource-intensive, things ? Why do our citizens always buy into the notion that they have to choose one or the other?
No constituency in a decent city would tolerate that game.
I have to step in, ' non #1, and say no, 'abated by arrest' is a completely illegal, made-up term, unique to Baltimore. It serves the purpose of letting the SA's office not do their job, letting the police arrest whomever they feel like, and breeds mistrust of the system. If someone's committed a crime they need to be charged.
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