A Towson family is jubilant after a state court ruled that all pit-bulls, regardless of prior violence, should be considered dangerous, and that their owners can be held responsible for any terror they cause. I'll leave my personal opinions well out of this, but what do you, great readers, think of the ruling?
Ronald Johnson was sentenced to 30 years for murdering Sgt. Chase Love outside the "Hookah Lounge" back in July 2010.
Two suspicious deaths from this weekend have been announced, including that of Tenneseean Karen Huskey, found dead after raving it up. It seems the number of announced suspicious deaths have been severely reduced hes past couple years, at least based on the number of ones I add to the homicide tally.
That... is not going to help the prosecution. At the Werdesheim trial a woman passed out suddenly, and who was the first person to jump up and help? Avi Werdesheim.
It seems we can't go a week in Baltimore without a viral video sparking controversy. This time it's a video of the police's handling of a group of activists that's caused more then a few people to be up in arms.
A gleeful, shirtless man jumped the field at the Orioles game Friday, before eventually getting tackle by the home plate ump. I went to the game Friday, and sat almost next to, and cheered with, the very, very drunk and enthusiastic man. While I can't recommend that sort of behavior, his actions were the only interesting point in that dud of a game...
A fella in Essex got popped in "A Line Barbers" on South Marlyn Ave.
Four people will be spending a long time behind bars for kidnapping and attempting to murder a woman. 27-year-old Torrence White was sentenced to 40 years, 24-year-old Morris James got 30 years, 23-year-old Keonay Hill got 30 years, and 29-year-old Adesha Richardson is awaiting sentencing.
The firing of Salvatore "Don't Call Me Dude" Rivieri has been upheld by a MD court.
Students are doing all they can to keep pedo John Merzbacher in a prison cell for the rest of his life.
Two out of three of the corrections officers accused of violently beating a woman at Central Booking have been convicted. Larry Morris and Shannon Rivies face serious time when sentenced. Terrance Taylor was acquitted of all charges.
A new robocall trial for former Ehrlich aid Julius Henson has begun. Henson is accused of concocting a scheme to dupe hundreds of thousands of democrats into not voting during the 2010 Gubernatorial election.
The City police department was recently audited, and shockingly enough, the results weren't so great.
County residents aren't looking very open minded this past week. In the first incident, County resident Billy Ray Pratt, 24, plead guilty to hanging a raccoon on the porch of a home belonging to a family of African immigrants. In the second incident, a rock found it's way through the window of a Muslim community center.
That's... really gross. Folks at CCBC Essex are on the lookout for a creeper who put his head under several active use stalls in the woman's restroom.
A few crimes of note in and around Towson, including the robbery of a couple in the Towson Mall parking garage.
Police are ISO the Dundalk driver who hit and nearly killed a 15-year-old riding his bicycle.
18th Street gang member Joel Ventura "Clon" Quintanilla was sentenced to Life in the Federal pen for murdering a 15-year-old and a 24-year-old in separate incidents. Quintanilla was an El Salvadorean immigrant already serving Life in state prison due to his gang shenanigans. He was arrested for the murders thanks to the fact that he had his own nickname tattooed on his stomach.
9 comments:
That Avi Weidersheim seems like a good soul, his downfall is that he has a nasty schmuck of an older brother. He'd do himself a favor to keep his distance except for the high holidays.
Poor Tricia Bishop, is she ok? That must have been one wacky Baltimore moment.
Re: the Court of Appeals ruling on pit bulls, ones again the judges on our state's highest court show what morons they are.
To paraphrase PP here, the Court of Appeals once again shows its tendency to let the personal opinions and emotions of the judges on it outweigh scientific evidence, as we saw with Deane & Polyk v. Conaway. That ruling was 5-4, I don't know about this one, but it makes you wonder which judges on the bench are the emotion-driven ones. There is also no practical way to definitively distinguish between breeds-- are we going to use citizens' money to DNA test dogs now, or use the one-drop rule to figure out who is a pit bull and who is a Staffordshire terrier?
Every dog is a potential liability. If was an insurance company I'd make every property owner with any kind of dog pay more. A baby in CA was killed by a 7-pound Pomeranian. But probably no insurance company wants to be the 'first Indian out of the woods' to piss off dog owners en masse.
Speaking off pissing off dog owners, Dan Rodericks sure stepped in it big-time, so spectacularly it certainly seems as if he is actively trying to get himself fired (and tarred and feathered). Surely if anyone this town would know he would: you can get caught driving drunk three times and smoking a blunt with a sex offender. You can own hundreds of rat-infested crackhouses. You can have sex with a 15-year-old boy in this town and get your own radio show (see McCarthy, Anthony). But if you piss of the dog owners your reputation will never recover.
And TAB your post is insanely, spectacularly thorough. Thank you for blogging!
.. I realize, all I care about Baltimore news-wise is crime stories, the weather, and stuff within a five-block radius of my house (eg. Ciclovia noon to 4 tomorrow!). If there is the crime blog and I have the Weather Channel app on my phone, I need never pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV for news. It's very liberating.
mb:
As always you put it much more eloquently than I do :)
Re: pit bulls, I wouldn't be surprised if they're a little more inclined to be aggressive than other dogs. If you look at the statistics though actual deaths by pit bull are extremely rare, and I would strongly suspect (although I can't prove) that most of those dogs were owned by low-lifes. Serious attacks by pit bulls who are owned by responsible owners are probably about as big a danger as shark bites.
Small nitpick but it was a 4-3 ruling. There are seven judges on the Court of Appeals.
While it's great to see people pissed off at Dan Rodricks it would be nice if there'd be a little more outrage when he craps all over crime victims and their loved ones.
Deane v. Conaway was 4-3? my bad.
Yeah no doubt people who like to project an aggressive image go for breeds used for fighting/protection. In the 80s it was Dobermans and German Shepherds. There was a run on presa canarios after two killed a woman in SF. If you're going to be a big, bad criminal you can't carry a chihuahua in your purse, even though a chihuahua is more likely to nip at a person than a pit bull (tho of course a chihuahua nip is probably not going to send you to the hospital, though, unless it goes for your face). If you look at statistics it is actually Cocker Spaniels most likely to bite a person. There is actually a phenomenon called "Cocker rage," attributed to overbreeding. Look out, Oprah!
There has to be a way to keep dog owners accountable for their animals, but banning a breed doesn't make any practical sense.
how are they even going to define the breed? Physical characteristics? There are a lot of dogs that look like pit bulls but aren't-- Staffordshire terriers, American bulldogs, etc.
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