21-year-old Jessup resident Christen Hawkins was three months pregnant when she was murdered.
There was a double shooting (non-fatal, so far) yesterday in the Southwestern. Otherwise, news reports indicate that everyone in Baltimore got along smashingly well over the weekend.
Uh, yeah. Never mind about that last comment.
Okay, these guys are totally awesome for driving a boxful of pipe bombs to the police, but they're totally fucking crazy for driving a boxful of pipe bombs to the police.
Goddamned immigrant guns, stealing the job of killing from our native Maryland guns.
Keep using those stolen cell phones, criminals. Your community thanks you.
ReplyDeleteI wish the police would stop "proudly" announcing how they caught perpetrators to some of our recent crimes; eventually some of them will be sober enough to read about it in the paper or watch it on the TV. And I wish the papers would stop writing about it, and the news on TV stop talking about it.
ReplyDeleteApparently, in the stabbing and robbery of this poor kid who was learning a trade, they had few clues til the thugs started calling on the cell they stole.
I really like the museum spokeswoman that I read a while back: "We don't discuss our security for reasons of security".
I have a nitpick with the Examiner's Mark Castillo article.
ReplyDelete"Baltimore’s top prosecutor since 1995, Jessamy has unsuccessfully sought the death penalty in only two cases: in 1998, against a suspected serial killer, and, in 2004, against a man who fatally shot police Detective Thomas Newman."
Joseph Metheny (the "suspected serial killer") was convicted of at least three murders. I don't know why they felt the need to say "suspected."
IMO, when one dehumanizes people, even the worst of people, eg calling them a 'piece of crap,' it brings one down to the same level of extreme non-empathy and disconnection that allows murder and crime to exist in the first place.
ReplyDeleteMost days, I'd agree with you. Frankly, it's why I tend to avoid the comments here.
ReplyDeleteToday, however, I'm a bit angry at the people who think stabbing students and drowning children is an appropriate way to behave.
If my choice of words puts me on their level, then I guess I'm an alleged felon who stabs students and drowns my children.
IMO most murder and crime, at least in B'more, occur because hoodlums know that their actions will result in little or no punishment.
ReplyDeleteOh, sigh.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should just disclaim, the viewpoints expressed by Chuck do not necessarily reflect my point of view. I am and have always been a Quaker and I maintain those beliefs, though this blog certainly challenges them on a daily basis.
And come on, pp, if you knew you could get away with it, would you be a murderin' criminal?
On second hand, don't answer that...
Don't worry, I wouldn't choose a life of hoodlumery even if I knew I could get away with it.
ReplyDeleteBefore Blogger crapped out for a while I wanted to say that anger/digust/hatred towards people who commit horrible crimes is a normal human reaction. We should hate people like Mark Castillo, Treyvon Ramos or Brandon Grimes. Despising those who've done terrible things to others is IMO not comparable to non-empathy/disconnection towards those who've done northing to hurt us. Maybe I'll be able to express myself a little more coherently later on, since right now I probably sound like I'm just ranting/looking for an argument.
In all honesty, the statements written by Chuck (that'd be me) don't necessarily reflect my opinion, either.
ReplyDeleteI agree with MJB that empathy is important. In fact, if I had to pick a single thing wrong with this city, I'd say that our population as a whole has lost its ability to empathize. You probably won't kill someone if you can empathize with them.
But let's call it how it is: I write with empathy on my other blog, and I have 11 readers a day. There's not an abundance of empathy here, and we have 1,000 readers a day.
Is this blog successful because we give an easily digestible, highly focused look at local crime news? Or do we have 1,000 readers because we say the things that lots of people think but no one will say?
And for what it's worth, I find Rodricks to be one of the more empathetic writers in this town, and he is routinely blasted on this site.
So what do people out there want?
"I agree with MJB that empathy is important. In fact, if I had to pick a single thing wrong with this city, I'd say that our population as a whole has lost its ability to empathize. You probably won't kill someone if you can empathize with them."
ReplyDeleteTrue, but I think that at a certain point some people waive their right to be treated with any sort of respect or compassion. IMO when a criminal stomps another person to death for no reason other than his own amusement then he's reached the point of no return, and should simply be discarded onto a trash heap like the human garbage that he is.
Let's be clear:
ReplyDeleteIneffective penalties for offenses do not cause otherwise functional human beings to choose to be serial killers.
But they DO attract offenders here from other jurisdictions where the enforcement isn't as lax. I've been told by many offenders that they came here after accumulating a few stikes in othe jurisdictions where they didnt care to pay the piper.
Further, the absence of effective sanctions ratchets up the level of offenses by criminal but not necessarily irredeemable members of society.
As for those who, like Grimes, were raised as if by a pack of wolves to be irredeemably antisocial, I see little difference between a) imposing society's harshest sanction upon them upon finding them guilty and b) putting a rabid animal out of our misery.
"True, but I think that at a certain point some people waive their right to be treated with any sort of respect or compassion."
ReplyDeleteAnd that is one of the key differences between you (and many others here) and me. I think at a certain point some people waive their right to participate in society, but I don't believe anyone ever waives their right to be treated with respect or compassion.
Oddly, I support the death penalty. I believe it can be done in a respectful and compassionate manner.
i guess name calling is one thing, but is it not possible to empathize with someone but still denounce his actions as troublesome or, in many cases, downright subhuman?
ReplyDeleteon a side note: is empathizing with a criminal the same thing as treating him with compassion and respect? does every person, no matter what the circumstances, deserve our respect and compassion? does eliot spitzer deserve our respect? does grimes deserve our respect? do people who cheat our their spouses deserve our respect?
i would argue that there is no social contract akin to the one we inherently agree to become part of a society. but compassion and respect are offered not by the society but by individuals--i alone decide who is deserving of my respect and compassion.
My compassion is always for the victims of crime--of whom I have talked to many, and read about even more. I am not talking about the folks engaged in organized crime, but plain, "little" people who are just going about their lives who are brutally and sometimes for no reason assaulted,robbed, and injured-sometimes for life physcially and/or psychically.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the nonprofits and businesses who don't have the resources that big companies do are often victimized and sometimes are almost put out of business by thieves.
Please, Chuck, alleged pieces of crap.
ReplyDeletenot dehumanizing someone in no way means that you respect them, or even that you have compassion for them. It just means that you acknowledge that they're human beings, not inanimate objects or some alien species. If we're going to solve the crime problem (which we're not), it'll begin with a point of commonality and tracing where that commonality diverges.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure guys like Mark Castillo will be a problem we can ever solve. Lots of people in B'more turn out screwed up because of the horrendous environment they grew up in, and that's something we could at least theoretically deal with or improve. Some people are just irredeemably evil or batshit insane though despite coming from relatively non-screwed up lives. When a person reaches the point where he can hold his three children under water as they thrash & struggle for life then he almost is a member of an alien species.
ReplyDeleteYeah, seriously, calling someone a piece of crap is almost as bad as calling him a douche - MJB doesn't stand for that kinda talk - no way she'll let you get away with calling someone a douche. She doesn't want us to dehumanize people or equate them with inanimate objects or... oh... wait... Um... well, to be fair, it's not like those accused attempted murderers didn't like someone's blog or anything, which is a good reason to call someone names, they just tried to stab a student to death. So I guess Chuck shoulda just called them douches.So yeah... ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm confused. I thought Pat Jessamy refused to ask for the death penalty in the case of the man who shot Officer Newman.
ReplyDeleteLong sentence, I know...sorry.
And as for the "piece of crap" issue. Any person who intentionally harms a child (or God forbid, kills a child) is nothing but a piece of crap. I don't give a damn what adults do to each other, but someone who preys on children is now and will always be less than human in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteStill love ya, MJB. :)
I'm rather touched you've been following all of my douche-calling!
ReplyDeleteIf I ever have to shoot someone, like they threaten one of my kids, I'm going to imagine they're a giant box of Massengill, aim right for the not-so-freshness.
I think there were actually more douche incidents, but I didn't wanna go overboard, don't ya know.
ReplyDelete"I'm confused. I thought Pat Jessamy refused to ask for the death penalty in the case of the man who shot Officer Newman."
ReplyDeleteI think you may be confusing Detective Newman with another murdered cop. When Newman was killed the State's Attorney's office filed notices of intent to seek the death penalty against two men, Jovan House & Raymond Saunders. House went to trial first and was convicted, however the jury didn't return a death sentence so he got life w/o parole instead. After that the SA's office allowed Saunders to plead guilty in exchange for a life w/o parole sentence.
Ppatin, what was the case I'm thinking of? Mayor O'Malley was caught calling Pat Jessamy a bitch on TV because she refused to ask for the death penalty for a cop killer.
ReplyDeleteCarol:
ReplyDeleteI thought the bitch comment was in response to her not prosecuting a police corruption case. O'Malley isn't exactly an advocate for capital punishment.