Eight Federal Years for Kendell Richburg

Kendell Richburg, via MySpace

KR via MySpace

Kendell Richburg deserves his own novella and HBO mini-series, but it's Sunday night so this will have to suffice: At 36 he's just been awarded eight years in prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin and possession of a firearm.
    Is that too little considering how he framed grandmas with planted drugs* to boost his own arrest numbers? or is it too much, given that he started out as a good cop by partnering with an informant, yet evidently succumbed to BPD pressure to juke the stats *? Explains Slate,

Richburg did these things not for personal gain, but to benefit a confidential informant who fed him information that helped him make arrests. In order to keep his confidential informant on the street, Richburg gave him drugs that he could sell. Richburg tipped off the informant to police activity, helping him avoid arrest. But eventually, their arrangement took a more sinister turn."

Notably, Richburg was assigned to the VCIS,* the notoriously 'maverick' BPD department that groomed such mavericky mavericks as Jemini Jones. Richburg's defense: he was one of many* who "misrepresented facts." No doubt.
   So then what has became then of all of Richburg's many cases? And how has the police department changed procedures to prevent perverse incentives leading to malfeasance so police quit planting pot on grandmas? While O'Malley cabal's PR machine can find a high-schooler's personal photos from four months ago it can't muster comment on this case, apparently.

.. and a flask-sized bottle of vodka

According to Fenton's Tweet feed, it was one crazy violent night last night all over the city, bringing our homicide total up to at least 56. A man was hit on the head with a beer bottle at a bar fight in the 1600 block of Cypress (which might be the county); later he died of his injuries and was identified as Cyrill Montel Holland, age 28. One 69-year-old Herman Cook was stabbed to death on Groveland Avenue in the NW. Baltimore Police Tweeted a shooting in the 6100 block of MacBeth Drive. And Kevin Rector Tweeted "Two shot in Poppleton, one critically injured the other serious but stable; and police also investigating Glen Oaks shooting."

Fallout continues from Kendell Richburg's case-cooking ways-- now four officers have been suspended* in the NW district in connection with the ongoing Federal investigation, though the BPD isn't saying who they are or what they did. Richburg's attorney, Warren Brown, blames the fake arrests on the pressure police feel. " if the curtain was pulled back, you would see that his M.O. was standard operating procedure. That's the way a lot of them work, because they're being judged by those numbers."

WTF?! A man and his four-year-old daughter were shot while sitting in their car in Overlea.

The Murder Ink covers murders 50-53, plus updates.

The NRA's president says the group plans to take Maryland's new gun law to court.* Meanwhile, both  the NYT and Bloomberg are painting rosy, backlit pictures of our gov as a progressive heartthrob.

Fenton talked to a neighbor* about the murder of Mark Dukes at 336 Payson St. on Monday: "After the first shot, I screamed and dropped to my knees and ran upstairs," said the woman, who identified herself as Cheryl Nancy, 25. Two of her four children stood on the front stoop, near a pack of cigarettes and a flask-sized bottle of vodka."

David Hunter, the first person charged by Bernstein for being a member of a criminal gang, was arraigned Monday and trials were scheduled for April 22 and June 27. Also, Subway-sandwich-shop robber Jamal Bailey is supposed to go on trial Friday.

Remember when the body of Christine Jarrett was found entombed in concrete under a shed on her husband's property in Elkridge? Police say she was killed in 1991, and her husband is finally going on trial, with jury selection due to wrap up today.

A guy was mugged for $200 and a cell phone in Hampden

Here's a feel-good story: a gun-toting robber tried to rob Mikie's restaurant on Crain Highway in Glen Burnie; bad-ass employee took the gun from him and beat him over the head with it. Unfortunately, though, the robber got away.