Saturday, October 13, 2007

13th and 14th October

Short on details, but, surprise surprise, there's been another murder: 1700 block of Latrobe Street, shot in the head. Depending on whether or not the guy from the 12th died, this guy is either #245 or #246. I think.

The use of potentially excessive force to protect the well-being of a police cruiser becomes the 28th police-involved shooting in the City this year.

It's been thirty-years since Marvin Mandel's indictment, but, um, don't we have better things to worry about? Guess not.

"[M]iscommunication and possible equipment misuse" is the verdict in the Baltimore City Fire Department's report on the death of firefighter Allan M. Roberts on 10 October of last year. I have to admit, at first, I thought this story was about Racheal Wilson.

Rodney Curtis and Darien Watson, sentenced to hard time for a Joplin Street attack last year -- forty years Curtis, life for Watson. Here's my question: Curtis got "all but fifteen years suspended", Watson "all but five." What. The. Fuck? Seriously.

Ahh, here's a little white-collar-crime for a blue-collar-crime city.

Now that Baltimore's got a police commissioner -- and we've all got our fingers crossed that he's going to be great (but we'll settle for 'good') -- the City's Police Department is formalizing its new command staff. Anthony E. Barksdale is now the deputy commissioner of operations; Deborah A. Owens as deputy commissioner of the department's administrative bureau; John Skinner to chief of patrol, and others.

The trial of the guy who did the 2006 New Year's Day slaying of Ronny Martin is over, and here's hoping his family can try to put this behind them: Anthony Dickson, convicted. His sentencing is scheduled for December 7th, and here's hoping he goes the way of the U.S. Pacific Fleet: torpedoed and sunk. Most likely, he'll get sentenced to five years with all but a week suspended. Because this is Baltimore!

A tale of a pervert attempting to be perverted and the girl not-too-stupid-enough to fall for it, near the high school I graduated from. The article calls it 'Atholton', but anyone who has ever gone there calls it 'Assleton.'

STUPIDEST HEADLINE EVER: "Baltimore Police Search For Murderer." WHAT? Shouldn't it be: "Baltimore Police Search For Many Many Many Murderers." ????!!!!

The headline does say it all: "Failed by the system -- taken by the streets" regarding the life of The Sun's #211* - Davon Qualls.
(*Baltimore Crime's count puts him at #219)

Here's a fuzzy-wuzzy for this late Baltimore Crime entry: hats off to John Itati in his 2:16:24 win of the Baltimore City Marathon. It's nice to know the city's spiking homicide rate isn't scaring everybody away from Bodymore.

23 comments:

BmoreCareful said...

anyone know the severity of crime around the wabash street area and surrounding liberty rd/patterson street? obviously its not w.bmore street but hey u never know right lol

Gor said...

Okay, let me get this straight.

Bank fraud and ID theft gets you 6 years in prison, and shooting a person in the face with a saw-off shotgun gets 5 years.

Hmmmm.

graham said...

Why shoot his legs and not his head?? Last time I checked my taxes were high enough without having to pay for more police cars due to crackhead-induced damage. Once you're swinging a tire iron around near a cop, sounds like fair game to me.

BmoreCareful said...

theres enough head shots in baltimore to let one go dont u think?

ppatin said...

Bit of a Wire reference, but does anyone else hear see the irony in the new deputy ops being named Barksdale?

John Galt said...

Responsive to BurgerSub's post on crips vs. bloods,...

Here are some partial indicators of where the various gangs are strongest:

Table 4: Members of Security Threat Groups released to Baltimore

Gang Name # of Members
Black Guerrilla Family 49
Bloods 69
Crips 10
DMI 8
Polar Bear Family 5
Five Percenters 4
Philosophical Liberation Movement 2
Murder, Inc. 1


Table 1 Largest Gangs/Sets in Baltimore City


Insane Red Devil HilltopPIRU (IRD TTP) 75
Bloods Edmondson Avenue Bloods 66
Treetop PIRU (TTP) Bloods 63
North & Braddish Zone 48
Purple City Dip Set Bloods 39
Veronica Avenue Boys 35
721 Eastside Blood Bangers 34
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) 31
Hillside Boys 21

Over 1,500 gang-affiliates have been positively identified in Baltimore. There are many more, however.

When you talk about Bloods and Crips in Baltimore, you have to keep in mind that while the national organizations out of New York are trying to rein them in, many of these Baltimore 'franchisees' are kinda loose cannon, so formal crip-ness becomes sorta relative locally. That's why they seem so underrepresented. Look for blue hats/bandanas, baggy bluejeans, and
long white tees, plus blue bead choker necklaces. Those are proto-crips.

I'll probably post a members map on my blog, but you'll find that the presence in Park Heights is pretty sparse and most of the gang activity is on the lower, rather than upper, stretch of Greenmount/York Rd., that is, in Barclay/Harwood/Waverly/Pen Lucy.

My immediate surrounds are controlled by crip wannabees, but just six blocks southwest of here the Black Guerillas and Bloods have been shooting it out to define their respective territories. One of the failures of the gang structure here is that rival Blood sets are increasingly in conflict. The nationals have been trying to introduce effective bylaws (no, I'm serious...) to rectify that problem and consolidate territory.

ppatin said...

I had to chuckle when you said look for baggy jeans and long white t-shirts in Baltimore :)

John Galt said...

As in, these guys.

John Galt said...

And we have another double-shooting.

Maurice Bradbury said...

hi from Savannah GA-- did Debbie Owens just get a giant demotion?

John Galt said...

No, I think it's considered a horizontal move.

It is a total coup, however, for John Skinner to take over command of patrols. One day, he'll be your Commissioner.

Now, how about the long-avoided hiring of many, many needed officers of high quality ?? As in, this lifetime ???

Maurice Bradbury said...

two things I don't give a rat's crap about: sports and gangs. People were murdered and you're leading with some jogger, Snay, rilly now. This isn't runningdouches.blogspot.com.

The David Kennedy thing was really interesting and I'll summarize my notes on it one of these days, but a good point was that the crime comes from little crews of criminals, 6-10 people. What color their hankies are doesn't make any difference.

Another very good point: most of the murders are not drug-related. The killers may have had prior drug arrests or whatever, but most (90 % IHO) are about petty disputes-- "boy-girl stuff" or perceived insults of some kind.

Maurice Bradbury said...

Sorry to be harsh there Snay. I do appreciate your labors.

Maurice Bradbury said...

ps the stupidest headline ever remains JZ's all-time classic "Murder Victim Found Dead."

Anonymous said...

I assume there are some little wannabe Crips near my house in New Southwest/Mount Clare. Mainly because I found some sharpied graffiti on my front step that read "Criiiiiiips." It wasn't even the pretty kind of graffiti though.

On a side note, I love Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. They really DO erase everything.

Maurice Bradbury said...

ps I am really sad to hear about the death of Dean Johnson of Dean and the Weenies fame.

Here he is singing my personal theme song.

Maurice Bradbury said...

so i guess you ID'd your guy from the photo lineup Lucid?
Sounds like he didn't learn much from jail the first time.

John Galt said...

Cybes, agreed. Note that the 10th largest gang is less than 20 guys, so the vast majority are just a couple of neighborhood knuckleheads. They tend to be very 'personal' in their crime; the job of the nationals is to professionalize them.

Lucid, a lot of the s-called crips/bloods/etc. are just wannabe punks.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Actually no I haven't been down yet. I told them not to ask me until after Thursday last week as I had an exam to prepare for. I am planning on calling the detective today to see when he wants me there.

And John, yes I'm aware they're mostly punks, which is why I used the modifier "wannabe." Also they call me ma'am whenever I yell at them, so they can't be all that "hardcore."

BmoreCareful said...

thanks for the info Galt...i remember there was a double homocide involving a member of the "black guerila family" killing a blood and his friend via shotgun...the "BGF" wear black bandanas correct?

ppatin said...

"i remember there was a double homocide "

Double homocide? Were two gay people killed?

Sorry to be nitpicky, for some reason that typo always gets to me.

BmoreCareful said...

good one, hey but can we say for sure that they werent gay? this is bmore after all, could be related to Omar Little