Wednesday, April 25, 2007

April 25

Hamm gave an interview to the Examiner, and it's worth reading whether you like him or hate him. He points out that 61 of the first 72 homicide victims in 2007 had a criminal record. Allow me to point out that 11 of the first 72 homicide victims had no criminal record, which suggests that 11 innocent people have been murdered in the first 3 1/2 months of the year.

Human remains were found in a shallow grave in Dorchester County.

One teenager was arrested and others were being sought for a home invasion assault and robbery in the Central against a woman who had ordered them off of her property.

Charles Eugene Burns was found guilty for the murder of Lillian Phelps.

Suspected Boston murderer Earnest Ferguson was arrested in Baltimore after being profiled on America's Most Wanted.

The six Bowling Brook staff members who were charged with reckless endangerment in the death of Isaiah Simmons III have surrendered or agreed to surrender; five of the six have been released on personal recognizance.

Phillip Carter got 30 years for attacking 73-year-old Sun reporter Carl Schoettler and 65-year-old Johnny Johnson.

Jody Hudson got three years time and five years probation for causing life-threatening injuries while on drugs. She was coming off a crack and methadone high and was driving with her 9-year-old son when she hit a father and son who were changing a flat tire. Both of the victims lost a leg due to the accident.

Perv du jour: 51-year-old addictions counselor Emerson Davis was found guilty for assaulting two of his female patients last August.

School bus rage in Edgewood.

Now that felons who have completed their sentences can vote in Maryland, we'll definitely get some good political leadership.

A MoCo cop in a car hit a MoCo cop on foot, then crashed into a tree. Both officers were chasing an alleged drunk driver who was fleeing on foot.

Racist vandals are running amok at the UB law school. (Well, at least if you call one case of flier defacing "running amok.")

Two Indonesian men got 366 days each for "attempting to illegally export night vision devices and money laundering." Now, if WJZ will explain to us how one would export money laundering, we'll all feel a little bit better.

5 comments:

burgersub said...

you didn't read murder ink today? it answers yesterday's question of the missing murder by the sun's tally.

ppatin said...

Jody Hudson's sentence wasn't nearly long enough. She should have gotten a couple of decades of prison time.

ppatin said...

Did anyone see the reader comments by "Mike Adams" at the bottom of the examiner article? This guy is actually blaming gay marriage for violent crime.

John Galt said...

Lenny Hamm has some fine points to make. And then, of course, there's the truth.

Hamm: one in three homicide victims was on parole/probation.

Truth: But citywide, about one in four adult black males is on parole/probation. So, what ???


Hamm: But they had previous arrests.

Truth: So do one half of adult black males in this city. Each year, statistically. Of those arrests, only half are for prosecuble charges. So, what ??

Hamm: “An audit?” he said. “I don’t think so."

Truth: The number of crimes which are reported to the FBI as UCR Part I are a fraction, albeit a considerable one, of those reported to the BCPD. The degree of nonrecording varies inversely with the degree of violence involved. The number which are not reported to the police themselves also varies inversely with the degree of severity and certainly includes a mountain of Part II offenses, as to which the BCPD doesn't disclose anything at all. Audit. I think so.

Hamm: “You stay away from drugs, your life is great in this city."

Truth: Depends what he means. Personally, I haven't touched CDS since 1978. The crime in my lil' part of the city makes my life miserable. And he hasn't done squat about it, nor really have his predecessors done anything systematic and sufficient in over 15 years.

Now if he means "go to a part of the city where there are substantially no druggies", then we're talking about Guilford, Roland Park, Homeland, but certainly not Federal Hill, Charles Village, Hamilton, or Hamden. But that just means middle-class Baltimore is out of bounds. That would be a patently ridiculous thing for a police commissioner to say.

A modest estimate of the drug-addicted population here is 50,000, which is to say about one in three adult black males. In practice the ratio is probably a bit less on account of females and nonblack users. To avoid all those people, you need to be in an enclave. I won't be in such an enclave, certainly not because the police commissioner cannot adequately fulfill his recruitment obligations.

Now, if he means 'stay away from drug people', as opposed to use of CDS, then how would he know, given that his own step-daughter is an inveterate and enthusiastic drug addict ?

Bottom line, he needs to stop with the lousy excuses. This place is a nightmare. A state of emergency is quite appropriate (except perhaps in the enclaves) and his department is the operative service-provider. We have a very, very burdensome offender population, so yes, it's time to recruit and supply an appropriately large staff of overseers. Commr. Hamm needs to stop 'hoping' for change and deliver it.

Now, if he looks at Baltimore and determines it's a great place to live, either he has no context for comparison with the civilized world or public servants have access to even more potently hallucinogenic substances than are found out here on the streets.

Anonymous said...

As to the UB story, its not just a case of one flier being racially defiled. There have been incidents of vocal defiling towards those who homosexual. Perhaps if the incident was not brushed off by the administration and yourself, more people would began to see that that type of behavior is unacceptable especially for people who, in the future, are to uphold the law and push for a progressive society.