Domestic abuse

Melody Smith, who was strangled to death in April was hit with a protection order by her alleged assailant a few days before she died

Guerilla Family Portraits

"Hardworking mom" Deitra Davenport and "workaday bureaucrat" Calvin Renard Robinson

Taking on "take-home" cars

IV editor Regina Holmes weighs in on BPD's penchant for driving "take home" cars to PA

Escape-Proof Habitat

Four shootings and a carjacking that ended with an SUV going through the front of a house on Exeter st. last night
Watch out for people who approach your car with a "hard-luck story"

Mark Kenneth Floyd was arrested for killing the women on Biddison Lane. According to the JIS, Floyd has had two nol-prossed assaults on his record and is due in court Friday after next to answer charges that he was a felon in possession of a stolen shotgun.

Conviction for the murders of Vanessa Price, 36, and her 16-year-old daughter Bianca may be thrown out in lieu of allegations of judge's bias

FHB III on "media blitz"

Judge Nance taking heat for jailing mom who said "I love you"

Rashid Hall arrested for "a carime that is hard for anyone to believe."

"Prairie dogs immediately escape from $500k escape-proof habitat"

Busting stereotypes...

Tricia Bishop on how voir dire is a bunch of hoodoo

... hey, I just put two and two together, the Sirlilar Stokes who Jacques Kelly reported about a few weeks ago is the same one accused of shooting dancer Ashley Davis in Robert E. Lee park, then going back to the strip club. (Pic at right)
Not all lesbians are innocent and cuddly, Mel!
(See also Newton, Sharone, accused of killing Sctario Edwards outside of Coconuts)

WTF? "A 30-year-old woman was seriously injured Sunday evening when her brother pushed her out of a moving vehicle and into the southbound lanes of Interstate 695 near Security Boulevard"

RJR dwarfed by megalithic pile of applications

Undetermined, unrelenting

Prosecutors want audio copies of the second degree assault trial of Baltimore homicide detective Terry Love and Baltimore County deputy sherriff Michael Herring to turn over to their respective agenices to aid in an internal investigations of the pair. The duo was found not guilty of assaulting a man outside a North Baltimore barbershop in September of 2007.

Meanwhile, the city council is planning to weigh in on the topic of undetermined deaths.

The Wives of Biddison Lane

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Who would want to kill two poodle-owning lesbians in Walterson?
UPDATE: The women were ID'D as 31-year-old Lydia Steed and 23-year-old Allisha Royster.

Judge Trouble

The Maryland Court of Appeals has issued a reprimand accusing city judge Charles Bernstein of showing bias towards prosecutors during a drug trial

100, 101

According to WBAL, the women in the 4000 block of Biddison Lane were murdered, and a couple

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"Western District police responding to shots fired about 7:30 p.m. [last night] found Darnell Johns, 21, lying in the 1700 block of N. Payson St. and another man in the nearby 1800 block of N. Pulaski St."

Bodies of two women found in Waltherson in the in the 4000 block of Biddison Lane, so far no word on how they died

Murder charges dropped for 15-year-old Christopher Briggs due to a "serious proof problem," according to Briggs' atty Jack Rubin. Briggs turned himself in for the murder of 18-year-old Keon Cameron

Kids detained for curfew violations, and parents won't come get them

CSA: No mas for former Commish Kevin Clark
y nada for retired Raven Michael McCrary

Lawyer/stalker's license suspended by the Court of Appeals

Crime drives venture capital firm to Timonium

"Burned dog may be linked to dogfighting, police say"

Illegal turtle vendors arrested; the little cuties spread salmonella

It's a great place to work, but I wouldn't want to live here

Apparently, a very notable BPD employee finds Alexandria, VA. a more appealing place to call home.

Gilbert, Dinkins and Goods

Wonder how that jury's doing today...

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"Police were called about 11 a.m. Sunday to a residence in the 900 block of Brooks Lane to check on the well-being of Dana Richardson, 44, who had not been answering his door"

Juveniles charged

in death of Phoenix. Though they're juveniles, WBAL is releasing their names: twin 17-year-old brothers Travis and Jermaine Johnson.
QTD: "it's hard to see children get shot, but to see a dog actually on fire is worse."
For reals?

Pharmacy thief nabbed

The mastermind behind six robberies of a Brooklyn pharmacy has been nabbed by police with a nice stash of 'scrips.

Baltimore PoliceDept SHOOTING: reported @ 1214 McCulloh St-Adult male shot

Jury duty!

Jury duty yesterday wasn't bad at all. There is WiFi at the courthouse for $5.95, and one table that you can put your laptop on and pull a chair up to, and vending machines that take credit cards. If you don't have your summons then you go to the desk and show ID and they make you a new one. Then they call ranges of summons numbers for you to line up and check in and get three five-dollar bills. Then you sit down again. Then they start calling ranges of numbers and courtrooms and if your number is up you and the rest of the range shuffle off in a little herd.

I got lucky and I was picked on the first go-see (in my biz suit, hose and heels, BTW, BUZ) for a personal injury one-day thing. If you don't get picked, then you go back to the jury room and wait for your number to come up again and keep repeating the whole process until 4:30.

In the courtroom they take roll call-- you stand up when your number is called and say present and the lawyers eyeball you. then voir dire, you were to stand up if you'd been involved in a personal-injury suit, then those people (about 6 out of 25) all had to line up and approach the bench with the two lawyers for a chat.

After that was done then the judge's little friend called out the numbers of who they'd picked, and I, #209, was now #5, with five others and an alternate. There was one guy and I was the only white person (besides the plaintiff and the lawyers).

The plaintiff was one David Brown, age 24, an unemployed electrician, doodled on my Steno pad at right, whose Cadillac was hit at Patapsco & Hanover by the defendant's car. The defendant admitted he was at fault for the accident and the case was about how much Brown should get for his injuries. Brown had gone to five different doctors or hospitals in three weeks after the accident, demanding (and getting) Oxycodone prescriptions from all of them and discovering new injuries as he went along. Once we got to the jury room at around 3 it took us about 5 minutes for all of us to agree that he was full of it and about 10 minutes to bitch about what a liar he was. I was the only one who thought he should get anything-- I thought one trip to the emergency room on the day of the accident was reasonable to ask for-- but everyone else was adamant that he get nothing, so nothing was what he got.

So we were done by 3:30. or almost done, we had to wait for the very slow old elevator standing next to the plaintiff and his dad! Awkward! Fortunately they did not pack into the elevator with us, and I caught a cab quickly on Calvert Street and that was that.

Baltimore PoliceDept UPDATE: SHOOTING REPORTED @ 1700 N PULASKI ST HAS 2 VICTIMS.

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Anthony Benitez, 21, was shot to death Wednesday near O'Donnell Heights.

"Decomposed body found in St. Paul Street garage"

City may lose out on Justice Department funds because no one can figure out how previous federal grants were spent (Didn't that happen in the school system, too?).

Detroit and Baltimore-- who's #1?

Rent and wreck

Smashing up rental cars is costing the BCP lots of dough