Friday, February 7, 2014

The Glamorous Fire

O'Malley and jail spokesflak Rick Binetti say that cell phone blockage at the detention center has been achieved.*

Ina Jenkins
The burnt body found in an alley behind Pinehurst Avenue has been identified as that of Ina Gail Jenkins, 35,* the ME says she died from blunt-force trauma. According to her LinkedIn page, she was a marketer for Far Above Rubies magazine in Bowie, a Daily Bread volunteer and graduate of Anne Arundel Community College, living on East End Drive in Curtis Bay, 25 miles from where she was found. Last August she noted on her Facebook page, "Oh and by the way, I have a Baltimore Italian man, stalking me, and maybe a few others."  and, curiously, "Can I say to all the Pasadena, Maryland residents whom may read my Facebook page, you have a psychotic, mentally ill, and immature, scary, mailman in your town." and later, "So, now I have Michael Lloyd stalking me. I know, a little or a lot retarded."

Batts met in Annapolis with the city's six senators,* and they are pissed. Batts' counterclaim: we're working on it, I need more people, and "Violent crimes are down by 34 percent over the previous year."  Huh? How does he figure? Homicides, nonfatal shootings, larcenies, car thefts and street robberies were all up last year,* so what's left? Is the BPD is not reporting rapes again?*
How timely--
it's the 110th anniversary of the Baltimore Fire!
  4.8 officers per 1,000 people*, the third-highest ratio in the country, surpassing even Chicago or Deteroit. According to the $280k consultant report that Batts commissioned, the problem isn't too few officers, it's officers in the wrong places-- posts being staffed unnecessarily, detectives doing the jobs of clerks, and 40 percent of posts on each shift being staffed with overtime. So it makes you wonder if he's even read his own $280k report.
   And does the BPD really need more people? As of 2011, Baltimore had about 4.8 officers per 1,000 people, more than double the national average and the 3rd-highest rate in the country.
   Said Batts to WMAR's Brian Kuebler, "It's more glamorous to say 'run for your lives the city is on fire' but the city continues to progress and go in the right direction and it is getting safer."

In the Baltimore Guide blotter of the southeast, a woman was robbed whilst clearing snow off of her car on N. Collington Avenue, a woman was robbed while pushing her daughter in a stroller, a boy robbed while playing on the playground behind Patterson Park High School, a girl was pushed by a man "into a rear alley, where she pleaded with him not to rape her. The report is cut off here."

Daniel T. Nicholson IV, the detective in the Phylicia Barnes case, was acquitted of two charges and the jury is deadlocked on a third.*

Ashley Roane
Ashley Roane, a 26-year-old officer, got five years for extortion and identity theft. She was the one who searched the BPD database to tell a drug dealer who was an informant, and she also stole people's identities for a tax scam.*

Two Yemenites, Abdullah Aljaradi, age 52, and Ahmed Ayedh Al-Jabrati, age 58, owners of the Second Obama Express and D&M Deli and Grocery, pleaded guilty to food stamp fraud.

:( Essay: "Baltimore, You're Breaking My Heart" ... "I'm looking at you Mayor Rawlings-Blake."

City Paper readers react to D. Watkins' story on Salon, "Too Poor for Pop Culture." Chill out, people, if he's desperate enough to take a job as an adjunct at the University of Baltimore he is plenty poor!

The EPA has sent Harbor Point developers back to the drawing board to improve the site's safety plan.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Foreign Crabs and Fentanyl

Thirty-two months* for Jasmine "JT" "Target Telephone 9" Thornton, Correctional Officer, BGF conspirator and alleged paramour of inmate and co-defendant Jamar "Hamma Head" Anderson. For what it's worth, Anderson was convicted in 2009 of murdering 17-year-old John Person while aiming for his cousin, who had the audacity to call the police on Anderson after he burgled her house.

Tsambikos Diakoloukas, shot during a robbery in 1982,* is the city's 28th homicide of 2014.

A man was shot during a robbery attempt in Woodbrook yesterday afternoon.

In the Southeast a 12-year-old girl was robbed while walking to Patterson Park Public Charter school.*

BGE scammers are at it again-- this time a fake BGE guy robbed a 70-year-old woman.

The City Paper answers a question: why add fentanyl to heroin? Short answer, dealers are under pressure from law enforcement, it's easy to make at home with handy ingredients and recipes online, has a similar effect to heroin and/but is 100 times stronger, which is why death happens. Bad timing dept: a vote scheduled today in the Senate to change the city's needle-exchange program to a "take all the needles you want" program.

Nikki DeMotto
Cham points out that you should think before you post about your 'licks' and 't-rolls' online, especially if you have a Facebook friend named Nikki DeMotto-- DeMotto is the director of the city police watch center and also its official "social media miner."

John Wesley Mosey was arrested for setting that house fire in Essex.

Portunus pelagicus,
aka a Phillips Crabcake.
Maryland Reporter rounds up the goings-on in the state house, which includes bills on truth in seafood labeling,* a marijuana work group, parents griping about Common Core and a resolution to ask the Redskins to change their team name. 

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

White Man ODs on Heroin

A burnt body was found in the alley behind 4013 Penhurst Avenue in the NW. It was so burnt investigators can't determine its gender.

Police shot and wounded a suspect who allegedly tried to run them down on Monday night.* And county police have ID'd officer Schupple* as the officer involved in the shooting on Wellingsborough way in Cockeysville last week. And over in Queen Anne's County an officer shot a 78-year-old man, or he might have shot himself.

Let's talk about heroin, children. From 2011 to 2012, heroin OD's in Maryland went from 245 to 378 -- a whopping 63 percent in one year-- in spite of supposedly more availability of bupe and naxolone. The 12-year-recovery rate for daily opiate users remains a sad 55 percent. And notably, our local heroin, most of which comes from South America, has gotten progressively cheaper and purer. But not a lot of fucks were given until last Sunday, because nothing matters until a rich white man does it! Meanwhile, Feds and the BPD are launching an investigation* to trace the source of deadly fentanyl-laced heroin that's killed at least 37 users so far.

Heroin is glamorous
In Anne Arundel County, two suspects were charged with heroin possession, assault, traffic charges* and other stuff after ramming two vehicles and dragging an officer, one of those suspects is at right. And scammers have been terrifying people by calling and claiming a family member is hurt and being held hostage.

Is legalization a solution? The New Yorker published (last November) an interesting take on Washington State's struggles with legalizing the pot.

The death of Kim Leto has Southeast Baltimore "reeling.*" Both teen suspects have been denied bail.*

Police are looking for leads in the death of Daniel Bennett.

The BPD is ISO a bank robber who wore a "Haters Gonna Hate" hat.* (I love the voice of the guy who did the voiceover there, so expressive! Somebody hire him!)

"Kenny," "E," "Cripple on a budget," Craig Judy and "Rachel" were indicted for sex trafficking conspiracy-- trafficking and taking explicit photos of a minor who was prostituted in motels in the Towson area.

How bad was January in Baltimore? Even the editor of the BBJ, Joanna Sullivan, is worried and mad. And Salon discusses the curious place that is East Baltimore, where people ask, "what the fuck is a selfie?" And Al-Jazeera explores the life of a part-time worker in Michael Beatty's Harbor East, where "low-wage work is a trap."

Gregg Bernstein went on the Marc Steiner show and talked about Tyrone West's death. Click there for a podcast.

Neighbors say a fire in Essex was set by an arsonist with a fire bomb.


In Laurel a naked kidnapping/home invasion victim was saved after he leaped from a moving car.

Don Dwyer has introduced a bill that will make sentences tougher for legislators convicted of what he was convicted of.

The FBI is offering a reward for the capture of the guys who held up the employees of Mother's Grille.

In torts, Under Armour is being sued by Adidas for patent infringement.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Cash, Bass or Ass

The employees of Mother's Grille were robbed at 6:30 a.m. early Sunday,* four employees were pistol-whipped.

Two teenagers, 15-year-old Alonzo Gorham-Ramos and a 14-year-old Allen Pinkney, were arrested for robbing and beating* to death 51-year-old Kim Leto in Highlandtown.

Allan Foster, a March of Dimes volunteer, was killed on Thursday.
The death of Ricky Bailey, shot in 1998, has been ruled a homicide, making 27 official murders for the month on January, compared to 14 last January.

One Kenneth Jackson got life + 20 for the robbery and murder of Andrew Davis.

Club Pussycat and the Circus Bar are in trouble with the liquor board after charges of prostitution on-premesis.

"There oughta be a law" dept: remember there was a bridge proposed by Harbor Point developers to link Harbor Point with their other development, Harbor East? Thanks to DOT director William Johnson, taxpayers will be paying as much as $3.4 million towards that bridge now in addition to the $29.8 million that has been diverted from other city roads projects. The total cost to taxpayers for the project is estimated at about $400 million.*

Oh, and the mayor wants $160,000 from the Board of Estimates for a speed camera consultant.

Three people were shot outside a hookah lounge in Randallstown.

What? CNN reports that in MoCo last week an off-duty officer shot his son as he stabbed his mother, both mother and son died.

In Anne Arundel county officers shot Vern, a family's Chesapeake Bay retriever.* At Arundel Mills Mall a man walked out of the Bass Pro Shop with a shotgun. And 18-year-old Elisha Ransome was arrested for stealing a man's wallet at knifepoint.

Police: Gold Car Led to Alleged HoCo Pimp