Jean Marabella: "If you care about Baltimore, you should read the transcript of what (Judge) Young said... . No, don't just read it, clip it out of the paper or print it on your computer and put it in your pocket. Or stick it in the frame of your mirror, forward it to someone, do something other than just let it pass unheard."
I don't often say this, but Jean's correct. Here's the link again in case you blew off reading Judge David Young's comments.
In the "it'd be funny if it weren't true" department, an Examiner photographer was assaulted outside Reginald F. Lewis High School as she was doing a story on school violence.
Nancy Schmidt was hardly alone: lots of seniors are victimized every day.
Catherine Palmer's bail was lowered to 10 grand.
The dude who crashed his car and killed himself, his girlfriend, and her family on Rt. 1 was here to collect an inheritance, which he and his lady wisely spent on crack, heroin, and PCP.
Espinosa and Canela may be granted an appeal.
While it's awesome that Garland Williams led the construction of a Browning family memorial garden at Cockeysville Middle School, it pisses me off that things like this never seem to happen in the city. I mean, where's the memorial garden for the Dawson family?
If this batch of thieves pool their resources, they can totally start a kickass band with one of them fancy MySpace pages.
Liquor Board chairman Stephan Fogleman slapped Anthony Triplin's hand and then renewed the license for Trip's Place, which is the alcoholic side of Club Choices.
51 comments:
Death penalty opponents often criticize capital punishment because they say the decade or more of appeals prevents the loved ones of victims from getting "closure." One DP opponent in the legislature recently made a comment about how life w/o parole allows you to lock them up & forget about them. Well pardon my French, but that's bullshit. Espinosa and Canela are a prime example. The SA's office never even tried for capital punishment in that case, but they're still appealing away. Hopefully the Court of Special Appeals will do the right thing and tell them to bugger off.
I read your blog everyday, I was born and grew up in Baltimore I am black and female. Judge Young’s comments have moved me. His observations about society in general and Baltimore in particular are correct. What are we going to do about it?
you guys ready for a bloody summer?? half these kids in city schools will commit crimes during the summer...hopefully i wont fall victim to one, if i get to my piece in time the lil booger might not see the next school year (ouch sounds "gangster" but isnt that way of the bmore resident).protecting ones life is paramount to any law or any rule...
OK tough guy. Lil booger... WTF!
Oh, and by the way, being "gangster" is not the Baltimore way. I think it's about being tight community based and proud of where you live. If you have a problem with it, move the fuck out! Your posts make me sick.
hahaha hey Wheat im sure you have a better idea (stay in the house all day and night huh?) ....you are lost..keep trying to rationalize the thought process of scum that will take your life in a second and go smoke a blunt...
"I think it's about being tight community based and proud of where you live"
haha you sound like a hartford county resident or something..wake up and smell the bloodshed, your "tight based community" doesnt give a rats ass about the crime in baltimore..good luck with that and hurry home before dark, better yet, call your friendly neighbor to lend you a hand when your approached by some of your communites lovely teens this summer...im sure they just want to know what time it is...
Let me guess... You've got the "Guy that accidentally bought a house in a really shitty neighborhood" complex. Good for you my urban pioneer friend.
@walkervn
What are we going to do about it? Based on the direction the comments are taking, we're apparently going to call people names and lob insults at each other.
What are "we" going to do about it? Um, it isn't my kid riding the bus and terrorizing people. When did the behavior of other people's children become my problem? Or the problem of every other resident of Baltimore City? If you are going to have kids make sure they behave. If they don't then prepared to be sued for every single penny you are worth and then some. The sooner parents grab the concept the better off we will all be.
@ cham,
i understand where you are coming from, but to think that these kids' parents cared from the get go is more than idealistic. let's face it, today more and more people think and believe that they dont have to take care of certain responsibilities. Instead, they take this outrageous attitude that someone else can deal with it--that someone else is the government, the public schools, the police, the courts, etc. this pertains not only to the (probably) dead beat parents of nakita, but also to people who move out of the city and shrug off the problems as those of only the city's. both parties are at fault here.
As for being sued, for the majority of Baltimore, I believe the pertinent cliche is "you can't get blood from a stone."
w lexington and n fulton...good luck with your "urban pioneering" and your tight community base over there in hartford county! ill be the urban pioneer and you be the guy that drives by and locks his doors while trying to lend a hand with the "neigherhood pride"...one thing thats wrong with the city is people who sugar coat the TRUTH...
bmore,
Pardon my nitpicking, but the correct name is Harford.
I f you don’t like living in the city move. Guns and violence isn’t the way to go, sounds like fear to me. I’m not saying anyone has to be responsible for the behavior of any else’s children. I don’t have children, don’t want any. If all you can do is insult, criticize and threaten violence move to another city. You are part of the problem.
its not fear..its called logic..seems like you think things are just fine the way they are so good luck to you
wow so law abiding citizens with guns are the problem?? hmmm i thought it was the non-law abiding criminals with guns that were the problem...am i really the problem? or are you?
Although some community leaders and business owners in the surrounding blocks had been critical of Triplin's clubs in the past, only one, Garland Thomas of the Greater Baltimore Partnership, showed up to contest the renewal.
Well, that probably explains the Liquor Board decision to a large extent. Community input seems to be the tipping point in the renewal decisions recently--unfortunately the 'stop snitching' culture applies to Liquor Board testimony as well.
bmore,
Before you decide to take up arms against the young thugs in your neighborhood, I recommend that you look up the Nathaniel Hurt case. In 1994, Mr. Hurt shot and killed a 13-year-old boy who had been harassing him and several other neighbors along E. North Ave. If I recall correctly, Mr. Hurt gave this kid an old fashioned ass whooping when he caught him throwing rocks at his house. Later that night, Mr. Hurt shot the kid in self-defense- after the kid returned to the property with some of his thug friends looking to start another fight. Hurt was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and a handgun violation and received a five year prison sentence (he was pardoned a few years later by Gov. Glendening).
Just think... if an elderly African American man, with no prior criminal history, who kept his block clean and was well liked by his law-abiding neighbors, can get five years for killing a kid in self-defense imagine the world of trouble that you could find yourself in should you shoot someone. I'm not debating the pros & cons of gun ownership, but if you think that this is your only solution, you might want to ask yourself if West Baltimore is truly the right place for you.
bmore: w lexington and n fulton !!!
No wonder you're bitter! You put yourself in the center of a distressed neighborhood. Sucks to be you I guess. The only people that stay there are those that can't get out.
Many people have a nice house and good life in Baltimore. Not all of it is like your neighborhood.
Good luck.
What is a criminal? A law abiding citizen after they shoot somebody.
Y'know, I'm so VERY sick and tired of hearing people tout the community-oriented nature of Baltimore City.
What folks here mean by community is radically different from what the word means in mainstream America.
In America at large, order and social norms are maintained by the local government of jurisdiction, which in some rural cases may mean the State and in some urban cases may mean an independent municipality or subdivision thereof.
In B'more, that would mean the Mayor & City Council. But in places like Detroit, Camden, New Orleans, St. Louis and Baltimore, these local governments have thrown up there hands and denied services without acknowledging the de facto repudiation of their charters.
They basically engender a service deficit and then praise the voluntarism of the most local social structures which are emergent in the underserved neighborhoods. (Think Lord of the Flies here, people.)
Guess what? Volunteers should not provide necessary & essential public services and recipients of public services should not become beholden to volunteers or community groups because those services are ultimately received.
That's called a dysfunctional government. It should be dissolved involuntarily by the State and replaced with another (possibly with diffrent boundaries and other charter provisions) which does, in fact, provide those services.
Why is Baltimore so taken with its 'communty-orientation'? Because having downstreamed the burden of actual service provision, the local baby-kissers have nothing of substance to offer, so they endow local activists with the trappings of government, which is called delegation and is an unlawful abuse of elected office. Policy ceases to be uniform across a jurisdiction and instead becomes the plaything of mobs of narrowly self-interested community activists, sometimes known as differential enforcement. Its not at all uncommon that this mechanism serves to shield locally-friendly offenders from the statutes they've become accustomed to violating and which have been delegated to local government for implementation.
In truth, very little voluntarism in B'more is done to serve 'the Public' good. It's generally self-service in the guise of voluntarism. Question: would these activists agree to volunteer their services in another district on the other side of town ?? I thought not.
Stop asking citizens to paint the schoolrooms, monitor the hallways, clean the alleys, prune the streetside trees, and citizen-patrol the streets & alleys. Those are functions of a government.
What has your government done with the revenue from one of the highest tax rates in the nation??
$300,000,000 of handout grants made to.... the same community nonprofits and organizations to whom the City has handed de facto control of city services and upon whom the baby-kissers rely to get re-elected.
It's called shadow government. Basically a chartered government exercises its taxing authority for purportedly public purposes and then hands the cash to a private entity, such as a nonprofit or community group, which then is unconstrained by the restrictions on conduct which would ordinarily attach to the taxing government. (Think BDC here.)
Why is this inappropriate? Because taxes can only be collected for public purposes. When the $$$ is handed to a nonprofit which then expends it according to its preferences, it becomes rather questionable whether the true purpose is really the public weal.
Yeah, y'all in Baltimore are community-oriented, but then again, Boss Tweed used to say the same thing.
lol wo wo, im not even that bitter, this all started from my whole "protect yourself" shpeal
good point about the Hurt case...and actually my street isnt that bad....its not the best but its also not THAT bad...i was just saying that at the end of the day your life is all you have and its not fair that all these thugs are armed, and we cant be....ide rather protect myself and risk what i need to risk then get shot and robbed of my LIFE...its not only west baltimore..its ANYWHERE in the city....remember the man Zach who was beat to a coma (dies so beat to death) in front of his steps in his lovely street...cmon lets get real, its not about being tough, its about not being a sitting duck...
john galt:
great points!!!
Helix, if you're aware of how lousy the public safety is at N. Fulton & W. Lexington, then why are you so tolerant of that circumstance? Just because it's not proximate to you personally?
That strikes me kinda like making a ruckus if my kid's school has no books, but being supportive of the school administration when some other school in the system has none as long as my kid's provided for.
That's not what community means. Not in the rest of America. I call it lookin' out for #1, which basically makes Baltimore a big, steaming pile of #2.
Cham,
Q: What's a Liberal?
A: A Conservative who hasn't been robbed or assaulted yet.
galt:
well said, once more....
the funniest is when people talk about Baltimore City as some HUUGEE area with SOOO many nice places..what a joke...a rude awakening just waiting to happen
What is a proud, satisfied Baltimorean?
A future New Yorker who hasn't been there yet.
Mr. Galt:
I am originally from New York. Yet I live here. And I am still very much a liberal. Here is good.
Cham, I agree. I did ten years in NYC (and a few in LA before that), and I couldn't be happier to be in Baltimore. I deal with shit in this city every day, and I'm no less liberal than I ever was.
walkervn---I agree with something mjb said last night during a panel discussion at Goucher: you try to make your own little part of your world better--as much as you can, especially in your role as a parent.
Judge Young is horrified, but made a courageous decision and statement. The issues leading to the thugs he has to deal with are systemic and long-standing.
There has to be some leadership at the local, and national levels to approach these problems in a multi-faceted way. Judge Prevas last night made an important point: fiscal and budgetary policies are made by the executive branch, whether mayor, or governor. Usually, the legislature can only cut. So that is where change must start. But it will be a long process: nobody wants to pay for anything; most citizens don't care; the latest exploits of Paris Hilton, the Ravens, and American Idol are more important. So, the change must start with each person and parent and everybody needs to start making some better decisions.
Until that all happens, we can only lock up dangerous people. Until these real dangerous people are placed under control, social programs don't stand much of chance.
I don't know jack about fiscal and budgetary policies, Buz, but I always wonder if throwing money at the problem does anything except pay salaries to a handful of people who run non-profit or gov't agencies.
What exactly do you mean when you talk about spending money? In Baltimore, what's the difference between spending and smart spending?
Well thank you Buz.
This is what I wish I'd said:
People need to understand what government can and can't do.
It can lock up criminals, which is no small thing, but it can't parent every kid with lousy parents. Local government can de-prioritize enforcement of certain laws, but it can't, say, decide to legalize hair-ron and give it out at a clinic like Switzerland.
It takes a village, but if 8/10 villagers is a Dorito-eating drug addict, you can't blame the last two standing for not doing enough.
So what are WE going to do about it? I can't civilize the Nakitas of the world. If I spent 24 hours a day with her for a year I probably couldn't. And assuming Nakita had crappy parents, maybe it would have helped her to be taken away from them as a baby, but is that what we want government to do? or maybe she had the best parents in the world and was chemically fucktified in the head. Should WE (as in the government) pre-emptively lock her up because it was in her DNA?
I feel judge Young's sentiments and all, but who's to blame there is whoever was involved in letting her have SIX priors, including stabbing someone and putting her in a coma, before protecting society by finally getting her off the street.
Baltimore City is blessed to have Judge David Young on the Circuit Court bench presiding over juvenile cases. He's a wise, compassionate, thoughtful man. He's also an exceptionally gifted jurist.
As many of you know, I represented one of the male respondents in the MTA bus case.
It is unfortunate that Kreager and Ennis were not prosecuted for their role in this.
I'm not excusing clear unlawful conduct by some of the kids (except for the one I had acquitted), but there was plenty of evidence that Kreager and Ennis acted unlawfully as well.
It seems to me a conflict of interest for the State's Attorney's Office, charged with prosecuting Kreager's case against the kids, to also get to make the call to dismiss McDaniel's assault charges against Kreager.
So now it is unlawful for whitey to want to sit down on the bus? Please, clue us in Mr. Wright, exactly what did Ms. Kreager and Mr. Ennis do that was not revealed at the trial that was so unlawful? You must know a secret.
So it pretty much comes down to separating this population into two groups:
a) those who are dedicated to maximally leveraging their benefit from public education, healthcare, etc. through diligent effort, and
b) those who intend predation on those around them.
Strategy: Provide services only to those identified early as Group A, which incentivizes their pursuing excellence. Then dedicate all residual resources to incapacitating Group B (however numerous it may be), probably through incarceration rather than community corrections, irrespective of how much they whine about the unfairness and discriminatory character of it all.
Those who wonder why Baltimore (and state) politicians do little to stem the drug violence and thug culture need to understand this: the pols are in it. The same "tight knit" community, neighborhood, and family culture that fuels assault and murder also drives the city's--and much of the county's--politics. The drug money that buoys the local economy also buoys many a campaign fund. The latest revelations on that score can be found in City Paper ( http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=15631#comments ). The connections are well understood by the local gentry, constabulary and political class, though they are not much talked about. Change will come only after everyone who votes understands these connections fully, imho.
Who is John Galt?
"Who is John Galt?"
Ed Norris?
The who is John Galt comment was a joke. Dagny Taggert is a character in an Ayn Rand novel as is John Galt. Throughout the book, when people are feeling "why bother" they utter the question "who is John Galt?"
Read the book, trust me :)
It's sorta amazing how many copies of the 50 year-old novel are sold annually.
At 1,000 pages it contains about as many words as Baltimore has people. Well,... ok..., as many as Baltimore has bipeds.
Helix, if you're aware of how lousy the public safety is at N. Fulton & W. Lexington, then why are you so tolerant of that circumstance? Just because it's not proximate to you personally?
Galt and bmore,
You just have to accept that in a city there will be nice places, dangerous places, and everything inbetween. Sorry, but the only "cities" that have a uniform and high level of public safety are not really cities at all-- they are gated developments where every household is part of one narrow distribution of high incomes. That might just be fine for some people, but Baltimore is not for them.
I think that if someone wants to live here, they should evaluate what they can afford, what they value, and then learn about the neighborhoods. It appears that you and bmore have gotten yourselves into miserable situations that you can't handle. I would urge you to move out and find someplace else where the center of your life does not revolve around crime avoidance.
Helix's words:
No wonder you're bitter! You put yourself in the center of a distressed neighborhood. Sucks to be you I guess. The only people that stay there are those that can't get out.
Many people have a nice house and good life in Baltimore. Not all of it is like your neighborhood.
Why do you think it is that one neighborhood is 'distressed' or 'dangerous' and another is 'nice'??? Do you think a latitude and longitude are criminogenic ??
Criminals have appendages known as legs which permit them to vary their location. When a cop chases them out of a 'nice' neighborhood such as yours, they head for one which doesn't receive an equal level of public service, also known as a 'distressed' area to which police relocate the city's problems.
The way your neighborhood got 'nice' was by distressing mine, thank you.
I have an idea. When the 4,000-odd returnees from prison each year arrive, we specify that they are not to come near and cetainly not live near any of the criminal-overloaded distressed places. When the Crips become your new neighbors, we'll see how you deal with 'situations you can't handle'.
And then I'll remind you of your words:
Sucks to be you I guess.
"Read the book, trust me :)"
Ugh, I'd advise against that. I tried to read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and I thought they were both awful. A thousand pages of mediocre fiction with fifty pages of libertarian ideology mixed in.
"Baltimore City is blessed to have Judge David Young on the Circuit Court bench presiding over juvenile cases. He's a wise, compassionate, thoughtful man."
Screw compassion. We need heartless, unforgiving judges who'll use every opportunity they get to throw the book at criminals.
Compassion cuts both ways Patin. In this case, Judge Young's compassion was directed toward the victim.
And compassion will be necessary to rehabilitate a 15 year old girl who seems to have immense talents along with serious anger issues.
Its current ineffectiveness notwithstanding, I hope we can all agree that rehabilitation is still the goal when dealing with children offenders.
"Rehabilitate?" Let's get real, she's going to turn into a lifelong thug & criminal who bounces in & out of the justice system until she ends up murdered, or serving a multi-decade prison sentence.
Immense talents?
Did I miss something?
What immense talents (other than pugilism), pray tell?
Interesting statement from the judge, although I could do without the reference to God. It's not any God's fault that racism exists in the city, and it doesn't help the girl or the victim if we look to the sky for answers.
From the information presented at trial, Ms. McDaniels' (recorded)history of violence in school began in March 1999.
She is said to be 15 now.
Now, maybe I didn't learn to subtract in Baltimore City schools, but the way I was taught, that means she started her criminal conduct by the age of 6 !!!
Apparently, she participated in beatdowns in collaboration with her sisters.
We should just incarcerate these maggots at the larval stage.
Next question: the guidance counselor said McDaniels' probation is from before arriving at Robert Poole two years ago.
So, how does a child on criminal probation become eligible for elected office in student council ?? Are there no qualifications ??
Perhaps the school ought to look into a broad proscription against criminals assuming positions in which they represent the school.
"We should just incarcerate these maggots at the larval stage. "
Either that or stop the morons in our society from reproducing! Darwinism can no longer weed out the truly stupid/worthless, so their genes are spreading like the plague.
What is your problem with the Liquor Board? They closed down Top Shelf, Cameo's, Chuck's Place, Linden Lounge and Club Mate. Suspended a dozen others. Give it time. They've only been at it a year. Why are you ALWAYS SO NEGATIVE ABOUT EVERYTHING IN BALTMORE CITY? It ruins your credibility.
@Michael -
Last time I checked, the blog was called Baltimore Crime, not Baltimore Cuddly Puppies and Kitties.
Speaking for myself only -- not any of the people who regularly piss me off with their negative comments ;) -- I actually like this city. It's the first place I've lived where I could see myself living for the rest of my life.
With that said, all of the bullshit that goes on here pisses me off, and I want to see people behaving better than they do.
Your points about the liquor board are valid, and I did not know all of that info. I appreciate you bringing it to our attention. However, given the facts as I understand them, there's no reason why Club Choices should still be open. If a club continually has problem violence, and the club owners cannot resolve that situation in a responsible way, then they have proven themselves unable to run a club.
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