Friday, June 29, 2007

June 29

A man in Park Heights was killed at 5:20 this morning, allegedly while stealing wheels off of a Mercedes.

Three city residents were indicted for using information from stolen credit reports to buy a whole bunch of fancy stuff.

A man having a psychological episode led police on a leisurely car chase near Frederick.

Happy day in the Blotter: No killing, shooting, stabbing, beating, raping, assaulting, child abusing, car jacking, or other generally acceptable Baltimore behavior. There was, however, a robbery on Monday morning at a gas station on W. Franklin St.

Stephen Sellman was arrested on Wednesday after DNA linked him to a 1987 rape.

Threatening letter-writer Michelle J. Dohm got canned by Frederick County.

Department of governmental incompetence and/or corruption:

The Maryland Judiciary failed to get competitive bids for about $4M in equipment.

Four HoCo schools didn't use approved vendors for their fundraisers.

15 comments:

John Galt said...

The current state of the pension scandal:

It turns out there is precedent for the Commissioner looting the pension fund. It's been done on numerous occasions as a bribe to ensure that dismissed senior police personnel don't go public with the details of their cases or the dubious conduct of their superiors. So, it's hush money, expended from the retirees' pension fund by the Commissioner to cover his tracks.

That's generally called misappropriation of public funds. Hey, isn't that what Norris was convicted of? For a few grand? Only Hamm's misappropriated a whole lot more dough: a million bucks in today's dollars.

Hamm's explanation: "That's how we do business."

Well, then,... you need to be fired, don't you ?

If you want to pay people to not disclose what you're doing, that's called hush money, and it's not a legitimate public expenditure.

Prosecute Hamm.

ppatin said...

The money that Norris supposedly misappropriated wasn't even from taxpayer funds. Speaking of dismissed senior police officials, what ended up happening with Kevin Clarke's lawsuit against the city?

Anonymous said...

FYI - this whole thing about the pension is misreported. IT IS NOT TAXPAYER MONEY...the money he might get paid is money from Police and Firefighters pension...meaning only police and firefighters have paid into the system. The taxpayers have nothing to do with it. As a member of the BCFD, it is MY money.

ppatin said...

Did anyone see the Sun's interview with the Hammster? He's still offering the same ridiculous line.

"Of course, we're still struggling with murders in the city, and we're still struggling with nonfatal shootings in the city. Robberies are down, aggravated assaults are down, rapes are down. We're seeing property crimes down."

Liar, shame on you! How stupid do you think we are? It is impossible to believe that non-fatal shootings can go up by over 30% while more easily mis-reported crimes drop. Shit, I bet Hamm and Dixon are trying to figure out how they can fudge the numbers from Shock Trauma and Hopkins so that they can conceal shootings as well.

Anonymous said...

Ppatin, you are so right! Any journalist that doesn't call Hamm and Dixon on their bulls*** should be canned immediately, along with those two clowns, of course. Anyway, what's the real reason the Sun is giving these vapid liars a forum, anyway? Is it in the paper's interest to keep them in office?

ppatin said...

I'm not sure why the Sun is just swallowing this BS. They were pretty well known for being overly cozy with O'Malley, but I wasn't aware that Sheila Dixon also had the Sun in her pocket. It's sad that the Examiner is such crap, I was hoping we'd get a real newspaper in this city.

John Galt said...

Speaking of crap, here's a report that some sociologist thinks immigrants cause decreases in crime. It's the other way: crime is lower where immigrants live, because immigrants generally won't live among ghetto criminals.

Now, back to the pension scandal, the City Solcitor (good description) advises there's nothing in the contract to prevent the Commissioner from faking the layoff of his buddies so they get free pensions. Nope. Nothing but honesty.

Question: should we really have to codify that the damn Police Commissioner cannot be a f#@king liar ???

Whatta lousy city.

John Galt said...

Now, on this subject of taxpayer-funded... if the pension fund receives its contributions from the city and one day it runs short of its obligations because some idiot got generous with the Marcus Browns, who, pray tell, is going to be asked to pick up the residual tab???

The City. Which does nothing and earns nothing other than what is fleeced from the taxpayer.

So yeah, call it taxpayer-derived revenue.

Anonymous said...

Random post: I've just finished a month living in Hopkins House vs the previous year on 26th and St Paul, and I can't believe that I'm exactly ONE MILE away and it's even the same city. My local Post Office is now next to a real bank, a great market, and a starbucks filled with pretty women! Am I dreaming? Is this BALTIMORE? The previous PO was deep in the middle of scary nowhere on an unmarked street in Worser Waverly. Also, NO sex offenders in my zip code vs. 109 in 21218! Hey Homeland security, put some of that fence around 21210, and I'll even vote republican! Now I understand the bs that Hamm, Dixon, and even Bush and Cheney, are slinging--If you're too stupid to afford to live in an area like 21210, then you deserve what you get--no health care, Leonard Hamm to protect you(gulp!), etc, and a**holes like Gregory Kane to lie to you that you're ok 'cause Hamm's black like you. Hey, I feel your pain, but now I feel it from the 17th floor, with a view all the way to Hunt Valley. Good luck, Charles Villagers, my former neighbors, and stay safe.

ppatin said...

Shit, I also live on the 17th floor of HoHo, although I'm moving in a month. Small world.

Almond Smash said...

Yes Hamm thinks we are dumb. How can he have shootings up 30% and aggravated assaults down???? Are shootings not categorized to the FBI as aggravated assaults?

I don't believe any crime is down, its all a big lie. A lie we're supposed to believe as we awake to another day in the city.

Caederus said...

To the anon talking about the pension, the employee only pays part of the cost of the pension. The City pays about twice as much into the fund. Pensions are like Social Security and not a 401K, you get a defined benefit out until you die, not until you run out of money. You usually get X% of final salary for every year of credited service. Most pension plans have a requirement that you reach a certain age or credited years in service before you start getting funds. So if you leave before you get the full number of years you need to wait until you reach a certain age. Any shortfall in the many paid into the pension fund is made up by the city.

In the case in the news, the shifting of time and the slight of hand as to the reason means he starts getting paid several years earlier and a full amount instead of a reduced amount. So multiply the amount he is being paid by the number of years early, plus the "extra" amount for being a full pension by the number of years remaining on his life expectancy and you have a big number.

This can cost a great deal and is the reason the private sector moved away from pensions to employee funded retirement (aka the 401K)

Anonymous said...

Almond, of course you're right. Until things change here, the only way to survive is to stay in these "green zone" neighborhoods, like Roland Park or Guilford, etc. The average Charles Villager usually figures out that they are MUCH better off elsewhere*a la Kim Martin). Everyone else swallows the BS that "crime is down", oh, except for fatal shootings and non fatal shootings, of course. And ppatin, be careful, man! I hope you're moving somewhere safe! Trust me, I thought people thought I was crazy, the way I worried when I lived on 26th and St. Paul, but there was mugging after mugging after mugging, I called nortern district a bunch of times and got completely BS answers, and then that 57 yr old woman was stabbed right outside my door! The next day in the Sun, there was a column on how splendid the trees in Charles Village look this time of year. Bye-bye.

John Galt said...

This sh!t has simply got to be stopped.

Perhaps we need a special law in Baltimore City making it punishable by death to attempt to assault an officer with a fundamentally deadly weapon.

How can Charles Village residents consider feeling safe in Baltimore when even our police officers aren't safe here?

ppatin said...

In Singapore if you commit a crime with a firearm you get an automatic life sentence. If the gun goes off during the commision of that crime it becomes a mandatory death penalty offense.