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. 
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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.

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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
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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Horse Gaslighted, Meek Slaughtered, Documents Uploaded, Nap Needed

This is Baltimore, so you've heard some crazy. You've seen some incompetence. You've been party to some stupid. But you've never heard stupid crazy like this:
   SRB claiming that she didn't keep secret the audit done for $287,000 by the engineering firm URS secret because of Xerox's non-disclosure agreement after all, but instead because the 90-page document was "incomplete," and because URS Corp.--  a $10.9 billion firm with offices in 50 countries in business since 1951-- was "not sufficiently qualified" to do the audit.
   Oh, and by the way, she added, she didn't even read the audit, completed in April, until last week. You know, the audit prepared by that unqualified firm that the city just hired again last month for $237,000 to monitor speed and red light cameras that aren't even operational any more.
  Tuesday she added for good measure that the media is  "beating a dead horse" by questioning such things, the media's interest is "for headlines and for ratings," and threw in some gaslighting for good measure: the City Council "can use a subpoena [to see all the speed camera data the mayor's office and DOT have refused to release for months], but all they have to do is ask." Gorsh, why didn't you think of that, Carl Stokes?!
  There's another speed camera hearing of some variety next Tuesday at the city council as well, so.. see you next Tuesday!
  Oh, and in other SRB news, she has to re-shoot all of the city's tourist videos because she's lost so much weight. As my mother might say, "I think that woman might be ON DRUGS." But seriously, even for a crazy town, this is a whole new level.

Now to the sad: a man and a woman found dead in a car on Cole St. in the southwest are probably the city's 23rd and 24th homicide victims.

Two women, Shameka Davis, 29, and Candice Newkirk, were arrested for kidnapping and sexually torturing a woman on Reservoir Hill.*

Sherrell Ferguson
Remember Eric Pendergrass, whose body was found in the Patapsco near the Hanover Street Bridge in 2009? Donta Vaughn and Darryl Nichols were convicted of his abduction and murder.* Both are already in jail* on other charges. The third conspirator, Sherell Ferguson, pleaded guilty last month.

Cham Green has obtained a full list of Baltimore City homicides from 2001-2006 and helpfully placed it online via Google Docs.

In the county, Anthony Paul Rutherford, 41, was charged with first-degree murder* and arson after allegedly killing his wife Kendra and then burning down their house last month.

And in Essex a man attacked his 72-year-old wife with a hammer.

In HarfCo at around 5 a.m. today police arrested Isaac Ojiabo Jr., 20,* who they suspect stabbed his own mother to death.

There was a police-involved shooting in Cockeysville today on Wellingborough Way. And in court yesterday, more details on a no-knock raid last August in the county that ended with the deaths of veteran officer Jason Schneider and 25-year-old Tevon Smith* on Roberts Avenue in Catonsville.
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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Settle Down, Towson Town

The Ink details last week's two murders and ID's the victim from Jan. 12 as Dalontae Harper.

Smith
King
Yet another armed robbery in Towson Town Center, this one with three guys and a knife in the parking garage behind the Cheesecake Factory. The most recent robbery was a man robbed by two guys with a knife in the mens' room near the food court, Malik Smith and Damon King were arrested and charged for that one.
Other TTC incidents: a guy shot in the hand at the Trader Joe's parking lot in 2012 after a riot at the Recher, teenage boys mugged next to Macy's, Rodney Pridget shot and killed in 2011, St. Paul's science teacher William Bassett shot and killed* in 2005 by a teenager named John Kennedy, a catfight caught on phone camera.

Police seized five guns and several dogs in the 1100 block of N. Carrollton, a 57-year-old man was arrested.

Carl Stokes blasted City Council members  who voted against a resolution that would have let his committee on the Council subpoena documents in the speed camera scandal (Kraft, Cole, Holton, Spector, Welsh and Reisinger, namely) calling the vote a "whitewash." Even Jack Young is mbarzd. Never heard City Council members so mad, actually. And OMG, SRB, NOT HELPING YOURSELF: she characterizes the scandal as "for ratings and for headlines" and adds, "they can use a subpoena, but all they have to do is ask to get the information." !!!

"Draft of legalized pot bill calls for taxes, potency ratings*"

Data collection on gang members, higher penalties for assaulting meter maids and for illegal dumping and withholding tax refunds from fugitives are part of SRB's legislative agenda.

Taylor Pepe and Desmick Lewis,
alleged Laurel shooters
Four men were arrested for their alleged roles in the death of Russell Rowe, a man who was shot multiple times then crashed his car into a tree and died in Laurel.

Legg Mason agreed to pay $21 million to settle claims of neglecting to report losses (without admitting to any culpability, natch).

The House Judiciary Committee held hearings about the "Revenge Porn" bill. Meanwhile "revenge porn" kingpin and "professional life ruiner" Hunter Moore was arrested in California, though for hacking, not for posting non-consensual nudes online.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Delegate Has Idea

A 19-year-old man was shot to death in Waverly last night in the 600 block of 38th Street.* A double shooting today killed a guy* in the 5200 block of Denmore Avenue, which runs parallel to Park Heights next to the racetrack. If Denmore Avenue sounds familiar, in April 2010 36-year-old Anthony Walker was killed in the 5300 block; in March 2009 Anthony Underwood was killed in the 5000 block by one Farron Tates, aged 16; in December 2008 another shooting at 5016, in 2007 Damon Smith, 40, was found killed in an alley behind the 5000 block.


View Larger Map 

Also notable: Fenton says that only two of the year's 22 murders so far have been solved.

Six life sentences plus 100 years for Robert G. Moore, whose greatest hits include threatening a pregnant prosecutor*, calling himself a sovereign citizen, murder conspiracy* and shooting people to avenge the murder of wrestler Darian Kress.

The city will pay $200,000 to the wife of Tyrone Brown, shot 12 times by off-duty officer Gahiji A. Tshamba behind the Red Maple. The Brew reports that the judge said that there was evidence of "deliberate indifference" by the police department.

Del. Frank M Conaway Jr. has sponsored a bill to put cameras on police. If it passed that would be so great I'd even quit bringing up Baptist Gnostic Christian Eubonic Kundalinion Spiritual Ki Do Hermeneutic Metaphysics: The Word: Hermeneutics every time his name comes up.

The City Council approved a speed-camera audit investigation last night, in spite of objections from Kraft, Cole, Holton, Spector, Welsh and Reisinger. You can also read the $278,000 audit yourself online.* And note the city will also pay another firm $237k going ahead to monitor "engineering services, documents and preparing of standard operating procedures and business rules" for a program that no longer exists. 
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Monday, January 27, 2014

Who's Zooming Who?

A 16-year-old, Lavar Crawford, was murdered in CHUM on Saturday* at 28th and Hugo, also where rapper Kevin 'Kev the President' Green was killed last September (that Kev link is muy NSFW, BTW).

There were supposedly two other murders this weekend if WBAL is to be believed, but WBAL might be confused: they're claiming an additional man was shot in the head Saturday (location not reported and nothing reported by the BPD) and Kendrick Andrew Martin, 41, was stabbed to death on Payson St* on Saturday.  ... Not to be confused with victim Arrington Michael Sydnor who was stabbed on Wheeler Street last Saturday. ... As someone asked on the Twitters, "If there was roof over #Balto and we called the entire city a mall, would the 19 homicides get more coverage?"
Kevea Muldrow

A girl named Kevea Muldrow has gone missing, call police if you see her.

 Today in speed-camera rants, the Sun editorial board blasts the SRB administration* for its sketchy-ass secretiveness and questions its very credibility (but are you tired of hearing/bitching about speed cameras? Not me!), and the City Paper's Ed Ericson Jr. proffers a hefty list of various attempts at auditing and transparency that the SRB admin has stonewalled. Rodricks beats the war drum* for the unseemly public-private partnerships that are fertile ground for this bullshit, and Fox45 reports that city council members are being taciturn about Carl Stokes' proposal to investigate said bullshit, which the council will reportedly take up at their meeting tonight.

And in mall coverage, the shooter as ID'd as Darion Aguilar, 19, described by all as a pleasant and quiet kid. The 'love triangle' angle Tweeted by WBAL's @JohnVPatti hasn't held up-- the shooter and his victims weren't even Facebook friends and HoCo police have so far turned up no connections between them. WBAL reports that Saturday Aguilar's mom had reported him missing and police tracked his cell phone to the mall.

 Two brothers are in custody after vandalizing a Presbyterian church in Perry Hall.

Here, have a collection of city police mug shots.






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Saturday, January 25, 2014

Call of the Maul

A man was stabbed to death in the 200 block of N. Payson Street* after getting into an argument with some people, his death was homicide #20.

Three people are dead after a shooting at the Columbia Mall in HoCo,* one of the dead is believed to be the shooter. Predictably the story is immediately national news and a Wall Street Journal news alert, even. The victims have been ID'd* as Brianna Benlolo, 21 and Tyler Johnson, 25. The gunman has been tentatively ID'd by police but not publicly identified, and police say that in addition to a shotgun and bullets he was toting crude explosives.*

The lead detective in the Phylicia Barnes case is facing trial next week for assault and burglary.*

Remember the sad story of Myra Casom, a retired Glen Burnie school teacher shot in a parking lot? Police now say the shooting was not random and was likely someone who knew her.
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Friday, January 24, 2014

Men Behaving Badly

The man shot to death in the alley on Ilchester near Guilford Ave. was ID'd as Tavon Antonio Young-- nephew of City Council President Jack Young.
Mustafa Eraibi

The alleged brick-wielding attacker of Jon Fogg was arrested-- one Mustafa Eraibi, and Batts held a press conference to announce it. Fenton says he's been arrested for similar crimes before, with cases dropped/nol pross'd by prosecutors; he's on his way to the "cthouse" to find out. According to Eraibi's Facebook profile he's from Iraq, belongs to a FB group called ISLAM = PEACE, went to Patterson High, works at ESPN and follows the Big Bootie Freaks feed. Favorite books include the Twilight series and In Cold Blood.

There were three rapes reported in three weeks in the Southwest, and police think it's the same guy, a fair-skinned black man who speaks with a Jamaican accent.

There are bad childhoods, and then there's the victim of 49-year-old Michael Griffin, a foster child who was raped repeatedly and forced to have multiple abortions. Griffin was sentenced to 100 years.




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Thursday, January 23, 2014

Unreliable Witnesses

Tyrone West
Calvert Street is bringing it today-- Justin Fenton has put the Tyrone West documents on The Cloud, and uploaded audio* of a female witness's description of the "scuffle" to the Sun site. She was apparently the passenger in West's car and describes police and West (who she calls James?) somehow starting to fight, police and West punching each other on the ground, then on the police car, police hitting West in the face, more fighting on the ground, police Tasing West on the ground, more scuffling, West yelling "Travon Martin," more beating of West on Kitmore, West saying "you got me, stop beating me," then West getting away and running across the street followed by more beating, police cars running into each other at the crime scene, CPR. Other witnesses have described West being sprayed with pepper spray, but this witness doesn't.

Somehow, some way, intrepid reporters Luke Broadwater and Scott Calvert got their mitts on that secret speed camera audit that taxpayers paid $278,000 for but weren't supposed to see,* and hoo boy is it a doozy! Xerox's cameras had a whopping 10 percent error rate and 26 percent of the tickets were "questionable," costing Baltimoreans at minimum an estimated $2.8 million in erroneous tickets. The camera at Loch Raven Blvd. had an error rate of 58 percent (!!!) and the one at 6500 Eastern Avenue, 45 percent. Xerox is still the camera operator in the County and HoCo. Could class action lawsuits (a la New Jersey) be far behind?

In the Eastern district an 18-year-old guy was shot in the leg* there last night.

Lamin Manneh
Speaking of the Eastern, former Eastern District officer Lamin Manneh, 32, accused of pimping out his 19-year-old wife and her friend down by BWI? He's pleaded guilty* to operating a prostitution business. "In a federal indictment filed against Manneh in August, prosecutors said his wife had entered into a 'contract of slavery' with him and agreed to be subservient to him as her 'master.'"

Twenty years for gun-toting coke-slinging felon Antoin Lamont Garrison, 46.

The owners of Sam's NY grocery store on North Milton Street were arrested for allegedly stealing $1.5 million of food stamp money.

Remember Katz Insurance and Hal Katz? Apparently his son Geary is the operator of Senate Insurance, the "Kiss my Bumper" one, and now he's facing legal troubles of his own.



Weds February 5th the restaurants of Canton will hold a benefit night with proceeds going to the recovery fund of Jon Fogg, the Sun editor who had his skull fractured in six places, possibly by the guy below.
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Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night

Police have released a photo of a person of interest in the Jon Fogg brick-beating case.

Police have released some files in the Tyrone West case,* based on the Sun's FOIA request. West's passenger claims police kept beating him even after he gave up.

In the 3300 block of Baltimore St. in the Southwest a man was shot in the fucking face.*

Two guys tried to pull a guy out of his car at gunpoint on Moores Run Drive, then shot him in the leg.*

A man was shot in the torso on S. Caton Avenue after willingly leaving his car.

A man on S. Eutaw street was shot in the back of the head and lived.

It's a snowy day, so kindly uncle Fenton Tweets us a yarn to read by the fire: in January 2009 a woman named Jasmine Harris, 23, was shot in the head, and one Sgt. Steve Olson found her killer by following his footprints in the snow,* one Kenneth Warren, 24. But evidence against him soon "melted away,*" in the words of his intrepid defense attorney Jack Rubin (who, BTW, in classic Smore fashion, is father of judge Julie). So

Twelve Loyola students were busted with fake IDs at Favorites Pub, the one on York Road with the sign that advertises it as a venue where one can eat one's Good Friend's Good Food. Thanks to reader/reporter Adam Bednar for this story from 2011, in which officials from Towson U and Loyola express concern about the number of underage patrons transported to hospitals for alcohol poisoning and pub owner Jeffrey Evans finds that notion "preposterous."

In AAC, Checkers, KFC, 7-11 robbed. Also a woman's body was found "near the 15th hole tee box" at the Bay Hills Golf Club.*

In HarfCo a guy was stabbed and his brother assaulted by "a black man."

In MoCo a woman was groped by a bus driver.

The BPD is having a Tweet-up.

Media Blabber:
After his brush with the glamor and glory that is Nancy Grace, Scott Wycoff is exploring the art and science of filling potholes.

CP's Baynard Woods: Mayor High on False Hope, Lacks Courage of Schmoke. Burn!

Baltimore makes national news for a drunk man ISO Taco Bell on Craigslist and Kate Amara video-bombed by a guy in a horse head.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

White, white everywhere



Robert Hopkins
Police are pinning the murder of Jose Abreu on murderous dead carjacker Robert Hopkins, but brother-in-law and witness Jose Melo says police have the wrong guy.* And indeed the dead suspect* looks like he has a much thicker build than the guy on the creepy video.

Almost 20 pounds of white drugs* found in Lochearn (I reject your metric system!).

Chair-in-parking-spot-level snow did not stop someone from shooting someone at Caroline and Gough today.

Ew, Scott Wykoff of WBAL was on Nancy Grace and he's really happy and proud about that.

Batts is due to be on the Marc Steiner show (88.9) at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

A weird-looking gun-toting drunk guy was arrested for threatening a woman in Glen Burnie

In prison news, a British company has sold 344,000 copies of a game called "Prison Architect." And NYT reports on state's various approaches to offering kosher meals in prison.
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Friday, January 17, 2014

Dutchy Passed To Left-Hand Side


View Larger MapA man was shot and killed in Harwood* in the alley behind the 300 block of Ilchester Ave, making 17 murders in 17 days.

Prez Jack gets on the pro-pot bandwagon, using Kurt Schmoke's "health issue" verbiage, even.

A victim with a flowerpot smashed over his head and a crapton of burglaries in the SE blotter.

No sentence modification for Nicholas Browning; the motion was heard by Judge Bollinger, the one who sentenced Browning the first time.



Via Ian Duncan, the feds have seized $25 million worth of Dread Pirate Roberts' bitcoins.

Batts showed up to a vigil last night at the store where Jose Abreu was killed. Abreu was shot once in the chest and died, his wife, sister of the store owner, was shot four times and is still alive.

Men arrested after transporting heroin in their underpants from here to Altoona.

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Thursday, January 16, 2014

Another day, another ____

A 59-year-old man is in critical condition after being shot in the head last night in the 2400 block of Pickering Drive

Two robbery victims shot in two separate incidents in the SE.

"The state could be forced by next week to let suspected criminals in Baltimore go free* until trial if it does not provide them with lawyers at the time their bail is set." .. but they mostly go free on bail anyway, so whatever.

Another day, another PR boner for SRB. The Schmoke of the North touted a Twitter chat, then ignored citizen questions in favor of astroturf questions from out-of-town political consultants.

Another day, more top brass fleeing the BPD--





Another day, more scumbag behavior at Arundel Mills Mall: four men made off with $15k+ worth of necklaces.

Oh, look, novelty. A Baltimore man went to Texas, stole $200k worth of Hermes purses* (so in other words, eight bags).

Rock climber from VA David DiPaolo, 31, was arrested and charged with killing 69-year-old Geoffrey Farrar with a claw hammer* at the C&O Canal park in Bethesda.

Remember Nicholas Browning, who at the tender age of 15 and mad about being sent to Boy Scout camp and not being allowed to use the family car, killed his parents and younger brothers in Cockeysville then went to a sleepover and came home and pretended to find them? He's 21 now, and wants a modification to the two life sentences he's serving at Patuxent. A hearing is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9:30, presumably at the Towson courthouse. In 2012 Browning posted a prisoner personal ad, revealing that his favorite band is Blink 182, his favorite movie is "The Departed" and his favorite position is doggie style.

And in HarfCo, Robert Richardson III, 18, has pleaded guilty to killing his father, Robert Jr. and was sentenced to 18 years. Like Browning he'll likely serve his sentence at Patuxent; unlike Browning, multiple witnesses agree Richardson was abused by his father.


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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Schmokin

SRB just says no to legal pot. "I'm not going to be waving the Schmoke flag."
   Funny, Schmoke presided over all kinds of steaming hot messes as mayor: privatizing public schools with shiteous results and 90 city schools taken over by the state due to excessive crapulence, all while simultaneously emblazoning the "City that Reads" slogan on bus benches, misusing and losing federal housing funds, crony hires with plush salaries ... but all of his epic missteps have been long forgotten in favor of mocking his one brave, bold, good idea. But it was an idea before its time, and the vituperative knee-jerk backlash from conservatives has obvz spooked mayors for decades to come, including ours, and probably set the NORML cause back 20+ years. History will vindicate Kurt Schmoke on the pot issue, but in the present the spanking continues.

And vindication for Jason Weinstein, former assistant U.S. Attorney in Baltimore responsible for high-profile busts like Itchy Man, Ed Norris and the guy who burned the Dawson family to death. In 2012 he "resigned" from the DOJ to take the fall for Operation Fast and Furious* after Republicans blamed him for the Bush-era program. Now it's come to light that the DEA had been working with the Sinaloa drug cartel since the late 1990s, a decade before Weinstein came on the scene. But a "happy" ending, since the WaPo story was published, Weinstein landed a job with Steptoe & Johnson LLP, sacrificing his populist morals for big $$ white-collar criminal defen$$$e.

In other potlitical news, Van Smith interviewed rising gubernatorial candidate Heather Mizeur.

Corrections officer Taryn "Mrs. Loney" Kirkland got 3 1/2 years for her part in jailhouse drug-smuggling,* her inmate lover Steven Loney got 9 years.

Gregg Bernstein has raised $340k for the State's Attorney's race,* 20 times more than his closest competitor. His contributors include the Orioles and Harbor Point's Michael Beatty.

Six middle-schoolers-- three boys and three girls between the ages of 13 and 14-- were arrested for assaulting a woman on the light rail near the Westport stop.

A man was beaten with a brick, robbed and carjacked in Canton.


Chad Kinney, head of the CitiStat program, was fired after a mere 17 months on the job for reasons undisclosed. And the city has agreed to pay a New York company $286,000 to redesign the city's web site,* because there are no web companies in Baltimore.

"What if I smack the shit out of you?" "What if I pull this pistol out?," a dog owner lured onto the baseball fields and robbed in Patterson Park and a rape thwarted per the victim's request in the Baltimore Guide east side crime blotter.

A man threatening to shoot his mother, a guy robbed for his coat and lots of American cars stolen in the North Baltimore blotter.*

12 years for crack dealer Donte Cox

A 13-year-old boy was awarded a $50k settlement* in a wrongful-arrest case.

Statistics corner: there were 761 drug overdose deaths in Maryland in 2012, of those 378 were from hairron. H ODs in 2011 = 245.
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Tuesday, January 14, 2014

BPD Shutting out the Sun?

A guy is dead after a police-involved shooting in the 1800 block of E. Lanvale, the guy and someone else were reportedly sitting in a white car being "suspicious," were approached by two plainclothes officers. The suspect didn't fire a shot, though did have a gun.

A man was shot multiple times on the west side, condition unknown.

Police are looking for a robbery/stabbing suspect from an incident on Jan. 2 and have released a video and sketch.

Police and the FBI are searching for a suspected serial road-rager who killed a man near Hagerstown.

The mayor and Batts walked through CHUM. And apparently the administration is giving the Sun the cold shoulder: Justin George Tweeted that Batts refused an interview at the end of the year, even though he spoke with TV stations, and didn't tell Sun reporters about the CHUM press conference.

The Ink identifies some recent victims: Keon Carter, Johnathan Terry, Bobby Jones, Marvin Lee McGowan, Jose Abreu, Spencer Falcon, Dejuan Willis and Ricky Mellorson, and identifies the man holed up in the Family Tree as Spencer Falcon's carjacker, Robert Hopkins, 28. And the victim in the 3900 block of Edgewood Road was ID'd as Jermain Terrell Johns.

Former army specialist Craig Benedict Baxam, 26, got 7 years for destroying his hard drive before he allegedly fled to join the Somali terrorist/ivory poaching organization Ø­Ø±ÙƒØ© الشباب المجاهدين.

Did you know? Five states still allow conjugal visits for inmates, and in early-1900s Mississippi, a conjugal visit could be with a hooker. [NYT link]

A Baltimore man was arrested in PA driving an unrestrained 3-year-old and hauling 408 illegal prescription pills







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Monday, January 13, 2014

Ladies, This is Happening

Anthony Lontae Harper
and daughter, via Twitter
A triple stabbing outside of the Isis Nightclub in the 200 block of Park Avenue, a block away from where Eli Barber-El was shot in the head last month.

Three shootings last night* made for two homicides. If Twitter is reliable, the victim in the 3600 block of Reistertown Road was Anthony Lontae Harper. The weekend's deaths brought us to a total of 16 murders in the first 12 days of this year. A stabbing victim from Friday morning in the 2500 block of Fredrick Road was ID'd as Dejuan Willis, 17.


#14: Ricky Mellerson, found shot to death* in an overturned car Mt. Vernon.
Dejuan Willis, via Twitter

Police released a creepy video of  the killer of Jose Abreu pacing around the Latino American Deli on Smallwood St.

There's something new: arrests in Charles Village robberies.* ("Ladies, this is happening.")

Legalized marijuana has a new champion, senate president Mike Miller.  And a MoCo Democrat and a HoCo "civil libertarian" Republican are introducing a bill of their own.

Magical boots in Arundel Mills mall* forced a woman to pepper-spray 20 people in order to possess them. Also at the mall: two guys arrested for robbing a guy in the parking lot while he was sleeping in his car.

Why did the city discharge Brekford from its speed camera contract? A camera ticketing a parked truck* likely had something to do with it.

Whoops, in spite of the new law expanding background checks, somehow 200 people barred from owning guns got them, including a guy who used his in a carjacking.*

Police are looking for this guy who robbed the White Marsh McDonald's.

Another day, another church youth group leader charged with possession of child porn. Today's winner, Robert David Wright of Clynmalria Methodist church in Phoenix.
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