Wednesday, June 20, 2007

June 20

Shooter(s) leaping from cars wounded four in front of 1535 N. Patterson Park Ave.

"Dixon Tells Police Her Crime Plan; Critics Blast It"
No reporters were allowed into the meeting, but union president Paul Blair reassured citizens that they didn't miss much: "She doesn't have a crime plan, it is a PowerPoint presentation." He added that police are still following the O'M "quality of life" strategy, noting that there's an entire squad "ordered to focus on open-container violations." (Seriously?!)
In spite of the ban on reporters, and on police talking to reporters (so Castro*!), Annie Linskey discovered that:
- Det. Robert Cherry Jr. got a standing O when he said that the patrol division lacks leadership.
- Everybody hates Debbie Owens
- ... and neither Owens nor Hamm are going anywhere soon, though Dixon declared that former commissioner Ed Norris' plan (which calls for Hamm's can) "sounds like a duplicate of my plan" and "really was in sync with what I've been saying."

Jonathan Brodie, 25, shot his girlfriend’s stepfather in the head during a dispute over a utility bill. He got 35 years in prison for attempting to murder the stepfather, Dewayne Washington, and pled guilty to robbing five stores, too.

Murder Ink has last week's nine homicides.

Questions remain in the "Redwood Trust" murders of Jason Convertino and Sean Wisniewski.

County: Two bodies were found in a Hillendale townhouse, one on the first and second floors, and two unharmed children.

Defense lawyer: Former Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell's racism, sexism could prejudice jury in bribery trial.

Former investors in Raven Ray Lewis’ barbecue restaurant have filed a $6 million lawsuit, saying the finances were a "leaking ship."

The state of MD has money for "bupe," but addicts are having a hard time gettng any.

36 comments:

John Galt said...

The Examiner's story on the police meeting with the Mayor indicates the rank and file officers want Hamm gone too.

John Galt said...

And now (will surprises never cease), Dixon wants even less oversight!

Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

If there's gonna be a charter amendment, it should require a minimum competency qualifying exam for Mayoral candidates. A prelim qualifying exam from a major university's graduate Public Administration program would probably suffice.

ppatin said...

Did anyone else take a look at Ed Norris's crime plan on HFS's website? It's pretty short, but there's some interesting stuff. Together with the obvious (better pay and recruiting standards, prosecute every felon with a gun under Project Exile) he also seems to believe that there's too much manpower in CID. One of the suggestions was keep investigative units for serious crimes downtown, and return all the other officers to district commanders. That makes sense, assuming the BPD has good people in charge of its districts.

ppatin said...

Here's the part that really stuck out.

"Restore power to the district commanders and forget about drug crimes. Focusing on drug crimes when people are being slaughtered in the streets is a waste of limited police resources.

Disband the current organized crime structure and give the majority back to District Commanders. This country will never win the war on drugs and to waste vast resources on a futile battle is a poor use of resources. District commanders should be given the personnel to attack day to day "corner activity" and a cadre of seasoned detectives should be kept at headquarters to build major cases...real major cases. Filling the War Memorial from floor to ceiling with confiscated drugs is meaningless if people are still being slaughtered at a rate many times the national average. The most talented core of officers should be moved to fugitive enforcement."

ppatin said...

I wasn't surprised to see that the rank & file detest the chief of patrol. The Baltimore Sun's message boards (yeah, I know that 90% of the posts & posters on there are idiotic) have a fair number of current & retired cops, and last year every one of them was saying that she's an unqualified hack.

Anonymous said...

...This legislation coming from someone notorious for trying to find loopholes to spending money without having to be held accountable for it. The reason she wants an eight council member vote is because she knows everyone on the council and her two biggest opponents (Mitchell and Harris) are gone after this year (assuming neither are elected), and the other ones will be little more than pushovers.

This is a patent case of her trying to manipulate the city's finances in order to do who knows what. I sincerely hope that the State Prosecutor is watching her every move now.

Oh, to have a hard nosed conservative running this city for once, if only to try another evil...

ppatin said...

Baltimore County police found two bodies in Hillendale this morning. No word on cause of death yet.

Unknown said...

what can you say? This city is going down the drain with this kind of leadership...who voted her into office anyway..them people who got shot everyday?

ppatin said...

Leeander Blake's murder trial is supposed to end this afternoon. Lets hope that little monster gets locked up for the rest of his life.

John Galt said...

FYI, police-involved shooting on N. Linwood in East Baltimore.

John Galt said...

Philadelphians have got about as good aim as Baltimoreans.

SUPREME said...

Hey Galt,can you recommend a reasonably priced scanner??
That Police involved shooting(N. Linwood) is why all this traffic is being diverted through my quiet street(lol)

John Galt said...

Philly had 186 homicides as of yesterday.

SUPREME said...

"Philadelphians have got about as good aim as Baltimoreans."

Baltimore needs to bring that guy here!!! but it will def' be a SHOT IN THE DARK....no intervention of sorts
will ever be implemented...

John Galt said...

See WJZ's coverage of the continuing violence, including observations by the police union.

ppatin said...

"Hey Galt,can you recommend a reasonably priced scanner?? "

Hmm, interesting idea. I did a bit of research, the Radio Shack Pro-97 seems like a decent bargain. I might pick one up when I move to Fells Point.

SUPREME said...

Radio Shack Pro-97

Good find PPatin I'am right on it.....

ppatin said...

One thing though, be sure to read up a bit about trunking radio systems. You can't just tune into a frequency, the scanner needs to be programmed. Also, I'm pretty sure that they still use an analog system in Baltimore, but doublecheck before you buy anything. The Pro-97 can't do digital audio.

John Galt said...

Well, remember how the Mayor bailed out the schools to save face in the race for Governor?

They've flushed another $25MM.

ppatin said...

I was about to post something about the schools story.

Unfuckingbelievable.

We need to bring back flogging and use it as a punishment for incompetent public officials. Hell, do what the Chinese do and execute corrupt officeholders. I really feel for my poor roommate who works in that godawful school system.

ppatin said...

BTW, wasn't Keiffer Mitchell the architect of the last schools bailout?

Anonymous said...

This city's notorious for fiscal blunders, so this isn't remotely surprising.

I love the fact that $200,000 can be scrounged up to research a TROLLEY but they can't f*cking fix up schools adequately.

Baltimore looks more and more like a clown colony with each passing day.

ppatin said...

I think the 200k for the trolley (bad name, makes it sound frivolous) is actually money well spent. Public transportation in Baltimore sucks big ole balls. Better public transit would be a worthwhile investment. Their inability to fix schools has nothing to do with a lack of money, it has to do with idiotic school system leaders not being publicly whipped the last time they lost tens of millions of dollars.

Ok, I admit that's a bit over the top, but Baltimore isn't actually that short on cash. They just piss it away.

John Galt said...

Have you seen their logo? Is that a riot, or what?

Kinda like 'Baltimore: the city that reads.'

It's not for lack of money. It's for lack of integrity. A Baltimore characteristic.

John Galt said...

Since several Charles Village area readers appear to be from Mary Pat Clarke's District, I'd encourage them to call her and find out why her committee isn't seeking the prosecution of the public administrators responsible ? That is what the rest of the world does with massive defalcation.

Rule 1 - Baltimore government people never hold other Baltimore government people responsible.

Rule 2 - Get you some of that taxpayer money.

John Galt said...

The purpose of the trolley is to make it easier to travel between parts of Baltimore A without having to see Baltimore B. That's denial.

How about routing it along Greenmount, where it historically always was before ? {silence}

Wouldn't it be easier to just repeal desegregation ?

ppatin said...

The Sun has a story about how the Baltimore PD has run out of size 36 & 38 uniform pants. Why am I not surprised that there's no shortage of size 32s...

ppatin said...

There was a fatal shooting on the 3100 block of Ellerslie in "Better" Waverly around midnight.

ppatin said...

"The purpose of the trolley is to make it easier to travel between parts of Baltimore A without having to see Baltimore B. That's denial.

How about routing it along Greenmount, where it historically always was before ? {silence}"

I'm assuming a large part of the streetcar line's ridership (sounds better than "trolley" IMO) would be people who live in Charles Village or Roland Park and work downtown. If that's the case a line down Charles St. makes way more sense than one down Greenmount.

Anonymous said...

Hi ppatin, I moved to Hopkins House from 26th and St Paul, and now I'm gazing out my immense window over the lush tree line of Roland Park. Ahhh, the best $250 extra per month I've ever spent! No more chipped paint, no sleazy slumlord, no fear I'll get a screwdriver stuck in my face when I take out the garbage!

ppatin said...

Glad you like the building. Just be sure to invest in some quality mousetraps, otherwise it's a nice place.

Maurice Bradbury said...

Thank you for the ear-splitting flush noise, galt.
And yes that is the worst logo ever in the history of logos.
Hopkins House is really close! We should go drink 40's on the playground and sneak into your pool!

ppatin said...

Heh, the pool the Nazis at Hopkins House charge $5 per guest, unless it's a weekend in which case it's $10! If you want to sneak into a pool try the Carlyle. They don't care who goes up there, or at least they didn't two or three years ago.

Mr. Mephistopheles said...

If and when they build this trolley, could the city PLEASE rework the traffic light system so that the trolley has the right of way at ALL times? The worst part of the light rail is having to wait at red lights along the Howard St corridor.

ppatin said...

The traffic lights on Howard St. are already set up so that light rail has priority. The city won't let MTA use that feature though.

Gor said...

Did anybody notice that the Sun didn't list Bromwell's political affiliation?