Saturday, September 7, 2013

So far this weekend

Two homicides in the past 24 hours- 6800 McClean Avenue and 3900 Chesterfield, and (at least) two shootings in the 5800 block of Edmonson Ave.* and at Queensbury and Spaulding Avenues (West side).

Rodricks feels a tickle of glee* at the come-uppance of former city police officer Meredith Cross, who married one Carlito Cabana (... seriously his name?). Cabana is a convicted murderer/robber/drug dealer/accused rapist cum alleged "Supreme Commander" of Dead Man Inc. Mrs. Cross-Cabana used a fake ID to visit him at North Branch, then lost her police job, then sued the city to get it back (with the police union's money, no doubt), lost that case, lost her appeal and is now unemployed and on the hook for court costs.* Good!
Cabana was sentenced to 30 years in 1998 for murder, yet is apparently no longer in custody in the state of MD or of the feds. Bad!
  ... FWIW, Dan Rodricks, it's not exactly correct to call DMI a BGF "subsidiary." BGF has a Black Panther/race separatist thing going on so melanin-deficient people can't be members. Dead Man Inc. is surely a jailhouse partner of the Black Guerrilla Family but DMI has always had its own code/leadership/symbols, etc.
    Bonus fun fact: in 2008 the Black Guerrilla Family kept an office in the city jail with desks, chairs and computers.

Ксения Teplicova
Look, gun-toting Belarussians! -- she looks considerably better on her Facebook page

Indycar driver Scott Dixon was fined $30,000 after making "disparaging" comments at the Grand Prix. In other GPrix news, the noise from the race itself was found to have violated the city' health department's own safety codes.*

One Michelle Varick has filed a lawsuit in Baltimore against the makers of the DaVinci robot for her really, really botched hysterectomy. Warning: contains mental images that may haunt your trips to the toilet.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Dentata

A fatal shooting in the 1200 block of W. North Avenue-- Nick Mosby's district has been a hotbed of nefarious activity* lately, on Monday a 52-year-old man was beaten to death in the 800 block of Lennox Street a mile to the west of last night's shooting. There was also a shooting in the 1500 block of West Pratt.

The Sun's got a shiteous story of thrice-acquitted accused rapist Nelson Bernard Clifford* on a Friday. Each time prosecutors brought juries DNA evidence, and each time juries chose to believe Clifford's story that the knifepoint sex was consentual. "At some points, jurors giggled as he went point-by-point describing his version of courtship and intercourse." And Clifford is not the only one, a Tyrone Miller, 45, also had three different accusers claiming he raped them in alleys but prosecutors dropped charges after losing a motion to have the cases tried together. Marilyn Mosby, I get your rage, but when you blame Bernstein for the work of fucktified juries and judges it kind of sounds like you don't understand how the system works. ... In other news, three years after it was given away in South Africa for the World Cup, the Rape-aXe dentata condom, right, is apparently still not available in the U.S.

The Brew covers the local/national epidemic of phone thefts. Probably needless to say, don't walk around talking or playing on a phone, keep it in your pocket and be alert instead. Also, ef ecoATMs and their BS excuses with an effing chainsaw, why are they still operating in our state?

But there's some good news, consumers!: Doug Gansler has sued a grifting Pasadena appliance repairman.

Crimercize

A group in town called The Transition Team is organizing "Walks of Hope" through different city neighborhoods every Monday night at 7, visiting crime scenes and churches in the area. Last Monday's started at Lafayette and Harford Road, left, next Monday 9/9 the group will start at 22nd and Barclay, right.
From the description: 
"Churches, community organizations and police continue to work together because 'Presence Brings Reduction' - join in by being present - it makes a difference!
Join us as we walk, pray, sing, engage the residents and inspire hope that will bring the change we are all believing for"
The Barclay neighborhood as actually been (seemingly) pretty quiet lately, with no shootings in the past month, and "only" five thefts and one assault. Still, it can't hurt anything to get out, socialize and get some exercise with your fellow citizens, right?
Prayer is mentioned but organizers assure me that atheists and people of all faiths are welcome.
Maps courtesy of SpotCrime.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Hand on the Pump, Per Say

Donte Bennett
Police fatally shot a man (who witnesses called a "kid" and Fenton says is 25near Douglass Homes and N. Caroline Street last night. Police say the man was armed, witnesses say he was only holding a cell phone. ("I didn't see no gun per say.") This is the 5th fatal police-involved shooting this year.
UPDATE: the man was ID'D as Donte A. Bennett, 5/1988, alias Donta Frye. He had an open warrant for assault and a long record, in February he was charged with spitting in public.

What is up with these domestics?! Police arrested a 68-year-old man for shooting a guy who I guess was either his boyfriend or his girlfriend's boyfriend.*

And what is up with the constant flow of people being mistakenly released from the city jail?! Today's butterfingers was the grandmother who allegedly killed her one-year-old grandson with methadone.* This time apparently it was the fault of a prosecutor who "mistakenly dropped charges." About six weeks ago the DA of PA publicly called MD corrections officials "utterly incompetent," "inept and completely uncooperative,""completely frickin irresponsible" and "sloppy" after they mistakenly released one Dale Wakefield, 21, who was being held after he allegedly stabbed a PA homeless man 70 times. There are so many mistaken-release stories I've given them their own tag, "butterfingers!"

Rodney Miller, 25 and charged with trespassing, was arrested for attempting to microwave a metal bike pump in the Circuit Courthouse on Calvert St.

Maj. Kimberly Burris placates the crime-victim residents of Lake Walker with flattery: " [burglars] come from outside your neighborhood. Your neighborhood is beautiful.*"

In Essex a man stabbed Balwinder Sandhu, the owner of 444 Liquors and Sports Bar on Eastern Boulevard.

Judge Emory Plitt refused to revoke bond for surf n turf menace Don Dwyer, noting that Dwyer hasn't been convicted on any charges related to his August DUI (yet).

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Dumbbells

Blaes & Jones
A man was shot in the chest* in the 600 block of Mount Holly Street in Edmondson Villageafter midnight, was sent to the hospital and treated and released. I'm thinking he did not have health insurance. No suspects, no motive, of course.

Marquis Queen, shot by an officer on August 13 who had just come back from leave after shooting a suspect in January, was revealed to be a carjacker. All's well that ends well.
 
Remember John Andrew Blaes, who pleaded guilty to producing BDSM pornography involving a 15-year-old North Carolina girl he lured into his van from the Internet? In February Blaes got 27 years, and now his accomplice, Margaret Ellen Jones, 38, has been sentenced to 15 years.

In other news of evil men, one Ryan Shallue shot his ex-girlfriend Kristin Loetz and her friend Charles Abbott then himself in a house near Salisbury Steak University. Loetz is alive, Abbott and Shallue are not. Oh, and an evil woman-- Helen Newsome, 26, is alleged to have broken into her (married) ex-boyfriend's house in PGC, waited in a closet for 12 hours-- and then attacked his 8-year-old son with a dumbbell. WTF?

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

DEA Has Acess to 26 years of Phone Records

Well, you knew more shoes would drop, and to the world of crime this is the big one: they call it the "Hemisphere Project."
    AT&T and the DEA, in a joint program (heh!) collected every phone record that passed through an AT&T switch -- so basically every cell phone call in North America and some land lines, too. The DEA paid for it, and AT&T has been quietly giving them what they ask for via High Intensity Drug Trafficking-designated employees, with no pesky judge in the way.
   Interestingly, this revelation is not from the Snowden files but from anti-war activist Drew Hendricks in Port Hadlock, WA, who obtained it as a series of PowerPoint slides after filing a public information request from an unnamed West Coast law-enforcement agency. 
“'All requestors are instructed to never refer to Hemisphere in any official document,' one slide says. A search of the Nexis database found no reference to the program in news reports or Congressional hearings."

Bloody home, party home, slummy home

Four men shot in separate incidents last night.*

The Spectator has more about the Whitelock shooting and photos, including one of the purported victim, Brandon Davis, left. He also notes that two brothers were stabbed on N. Streeper.

Here's an index to the Summer of the Gun series

The City Paper has more about Wall Hunters, in case you haven't heard enough already. But the national attention/shaming has apparently worked-- the city plans to spend $22 million to demolish vacants over the next 2 1/2 years,* in contrast to the $2.5 million a year it was reportedly spending previously.

A bust bust after ScapeScape at 2800 Sisson Street, the property owner was charged with disorderly conduct and keeping a disorderly house. The address is bordered by the 83 exit ramp, an abandoned office building and the city dump, so it's unlikely it was bothering the neighbors...







R.I.P. North Baltimore Patch- employees were laid off via a mass conference call.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Quicksand

"I love my city but it's quicksand." Justin & Justin eulogize a violent summer in the city* by interviewing the souls left behind. Jack Young says it's drugs, Cornelius Owens says the shootings are all about "respect."

Don McCraw
Keep an eye out for Don McCraw, 13, missing since Friday.  Update: he has been found.

Heh. A homeowner in Edgewood trapped a burglar in his garage.

Think you know this town? ... see how many Baltimore neighborhoods you can find. (via Fenton)