Wednesday, February 25, 2009

No Mas

I don't want to read the news any more. The Griffin story has upset me too much.

Why read the news, anyway? What's the point?

For a list of quality Baltimore blogs, sites & news sources, check the sidebar at right.

Parents Guilty, Gym Bag Goes Free

A 15-year-old boy was shot in the leg in the SW

A deadbeat dad who owed more than $94k in child support was arrested

"An arresting officer was not justified in opening an automobile passenger’s gym bag during a traffic stop without first squeezing it to determine if it contained a weapon, the Court of Appeals has held"

Black-market parking passes lead to a bust outside the ESPN Zone

In the county, John and Susan Griffin were found guilty of second-degree murder and child abuse. More from the Sun

Griffin trial = postponement for court admin's drug trial
The Ink has names and details for some of last week's five murder victims

Federal charges for Trenell David Murphy, target of the city's third or fourth-largest bust ever

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

New Site Alert!

Our friends from the Examiner are back!
Crackheads at the DPW! A median-strip beatdown! A purse-stealing campus cop! There's some crazy shiznit at InvestigativeVoice.com

LOLZ! WBAL reporter fired after apparently pranking the Huffington Post with a video that involves the phrase "Eric Holder and his bright blue scrotum."

Monday, February 23, 2009

"determination, hard work, and being true to your dream"

Documents unsealed from last week's XXXL drug bust-- the CP's got them, and all the requisite ironic details.

What the?! Hopkins employee steals identity of kidney-transplant patient, buys hardwood floors, fancy underpants

Two domestic assaults in the blotter

"Prince" gets 25 (federal) years for importing cocaine and heroin from the tropics

One Sean Sterling got 22 years for "two counts of using a gun in a drug trafficking crime resulting in death" in a case that RJR says "reveals a lot about why there are so many murders in Baltimore"

Ronald Kevin Bowen got 30 months for running his own little Madoff-y scheme

ACORN member to be charged with 4th-degree burglary after staging a protest break-in. Meanwhile, city council members want to extend the time between foreclosure to eviction from 14 days to 365

Elsewhere:
Baltimore man arrested for '06 Centreville rape and carjacking
PGC: Road-rage murder over a U-turn
MoCo: 52-year-old woman shot to death while leaving church
AAC: Home invasion ends in hail of BBS ... Worker busted for selling pot at the McDonald's drive-thru

35, 36

Unidentified man, 20s, stabbed to death at Eastern Avenue and South Conkling Street yesterday

and a man was fatally shot in the chest in Greenspring.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

34

A 33-year-old man was the 34th murder this year, he was shot to death in the 2500 block of W. Baltimore St. early Saturday morning.

A man and a woman were shot in Woodlawn, police are looking for a silver Cadillac

"Officer challenges policy against naming police who kill
Charged in fatal shooting, he says rule fuels citizens' distrust"
More from hermann

A 16-year-old girl, Greshauna Rogers, is charged with murdering 20-year-old Petro Taylor.

"An inmate at the Metropolitan Transition Center in Baltimore and a former prison guard have been indicted on charges of extorting money from inmates' families."

What the?! From elsewhere:
An arrest is "imminent" in the case of Chandra Levy ... former crackhead/mayor of DC Marion Barry gets a new kidney ... some people hunt for sport/ others hunt for food/ the only thing he's hunting for is an outfit that looks gooood ....

Bolivian All-Stars

CP: It's like, so totally not the biggest drug bust ever.

Robert Simels, "Rolls Royce" of criminal-defense attorneys, is fighting to keep his fee arrangements secret.

Two County Two-Year-Olds

one story you can't get away from, and one you will probably never hear about again.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Nobody puts Baby in a chokehold!

More on the shooting death of sexagenarian Joseph Forrest. Sounds like Forrest put female officer Traci McKissick in a headlock, and then was shot by her partner (who shall remain nameless), a male sergeant and 15-year-veteran with incredible aim.

Police are looking for a man who fired at undercover officers and tried to run them down around Harford Road and Montebello Terrace.

Dayum. Police seize 91 pounds of cocaine (from whence & whom they're not saying)

Dundalk drunk hits police car on 695, puts trooper in the hospital

A city police officer was arrested and charged with shoplifting from Wal-Mart.

Two inmates stabbed each other at the Detention Center.

Lipscomb's lawyer: state prosecutors "blew us off"

Media Blabbler
The Tribune's bankruptcy hearing is scheduled for March 12 in Wilmington, DE.

Google gets into the journalism business

I love the Blotter, but there's a problem when shot humans get less ink than stolen tomatoes. Rather than the blotter being a "dying art," it's actually a skill fast replacing investigative journalism.

What the?! Iranian woman wants eye for an eye and is probably going to get it. & Not Baltimore, but should be: woman's life saved by bullet-stopping hair weave.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The douchebag is I.

Park SmartDoes anyone else ever get the suspicion that the mayor wants to drive every taxpaying resident out of the city? It was bad enough to have my car broken into over and over again (even while rental-clean, the doors visibly unlocked and the factory radio already stolen). It was worse to hear that the only way to catch someone is for them to be caught in the act, and even then, the perp will serve no time. But then to be blamed for it ... after years of shrugging off the city's sociopaths, pervs, taxes, potholes ("that's Baltimore! Whatta a crazy town!") this is the first time I've felt like a prize a-hole for living here. Like a total chump. Because someone is going to break into my house, steal my stuff, and the cop is going to say, "if someone looks in your window, could they see your TV? Da, well, it's not that we want somebody to steal everything in your house, but if you leave anything downstairs when you go to bed, you're asking someone to come and steal everything that's not bolted down on the first floor. Common sense. Hey, is your dog OK?"
  "Oh my God! Tippy!"
  "Did you leave a water dish outside for your dog? Did you bring it back in, but it left a ring? Uh huh. There you go. It's not that we want somebody to sodomize your dog, but if you leave a dish outside like that, you could go to any area in the state, go to Towson, go to Frederick, it doesn't matter where, zoophiles are prowling around. We just need people to be responsible. Common sense."

A bearded brown man robbed the Pikesville Susquehanna Bank.

The Sporting Life

A man was shot inside the Sportsmen's Lounge in the 4700 block of Gwynn Oak Ave, he survived.

Allegations: man charged with firing a gun into the air beaten by a flashlight, forced to sit in barf

Murder Ink has last week's five homicides. #27 was ID'd as Faruq Barakaat.

fatal hit-and-run at 36th and Falls this morning

Search warrants executed by the US Defense Dept.'s inspectors at Berg Recycling. Whatever were they looking for?

DP: "Swing Vote" Senator Alex Mooney not changing his mind

TVs, license plates, frozen foods, cars, construction equiptment and cash stolen and gun- and knife-point in the Messenger crime log

Murder-suicide in Randallstown

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

33 Years for Fratricide

The State's Attorney's office reports that Eric Jerome Little, 29, was sentenced to 33 years for stabbing his 16-year-old brother to death with a knife. Details:
On July 12, 2008 at approximately 3:30AM police responded to the 3700 block of Liberty Heights Ave. for a stabbing. Upon arrival, police discovered Calvin Ray, 16, suffering from a single stab wound to the heart. Medics transported Ray to Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead. During the course of the investigation, police learn that Little and his brother, Calvin Ray, got into an argument inside the house over personal living space and that argument escalated and led to a fight outside and that Little retrieved a knife from the house and stabbed Ray.

The sister of both the defendant and the victim delivered an emotional victim impact statement to the court, telling Judge Rasin that their mother lost two sons that day. The defendant issued a tearful apology to his family before being led from the courtroom.
Two arrested for Monday night's murder of James Flanary/ Flannery

Reports WBAL's Kate Amara, "Currently, the murder rate is on the rise again, but the overall crime rate is down, statistics showed." (Really? What statistics?)
UPDATE, a reader writes,
"to answer your question about the statistics Kate Amara cited: Homicides up 44%, but shootings down 48%, robbery down 19%, aggravated assaults down 19%, larceny down 18%, auto theft down 30%, total vio,ent crime down 18 percent, property crime down 15 percent, and total crime overall down 17 percent. Only thing besides homicide that is up are burglaries, up 5%. According to police stats as of 2/7."
Maybe it's time for another trip to Six Flags!

Hermann has more on Dixon's "day on crime"

The federal agents who arrested 24 Latinos during a 2007 raid at a Southeast Baltimore 7-Eleven felt pressure from supervisors to round up possible illegal immigrants to 'produce statistics.'"

Dixon granted an exclusive interview to JZ hottie Adam May.

A female officer who shall remain nameless shot a man to death after he allegedly attacked her.

Teens going apestuff on a bus led to a juvenile stabbed onboard at 38th and Ellerslie.

Shiteously depressing trial continues in Towson for the couple accused of starving their toddler son to death. The Sun's Nick Madigan reports that the "dad" "acted belligerently," called police officers "a bunch of gorillas"

Also in the county, a man was arrested after he "allegedly stabbed a woman with a steak knife and injured two other people following an argument."

David Anthony Johnson faces 30 years in federal prison and a fine of $1 million after pleading guilty to stealing his dead neighbor's identity

What the?! North Daktoa legislators decree that a fertilized egg = a person

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

New Blog Alerts

Fraud With Peril: former federal prosecutors blogging about white-collar crime in MD, DC & VA ... saucy headline writers who probably know more secrets than Mata Hari!

Mobtown Media Beat, a photojournalist delivers the lowdown

No Sugar No Sweet, a TU student on the realities of Baltimore living
... new to me anyway, "The Baltimore Brew". Joan Jacobson brilliance deboned by a first-person mom feature and infrequent updating, but potential abounds.

32, 33

James Flannery, 23, was stabbed to death in the 3900 block of S. Hanover St., and a young man was shot to death in the 5600 block of Sagra Road.

"Narrow majority of Md. senators oppose repeal of death penalty, survey reveals"
... reader support for the big D appears to have eroded over time, most recently only 40% of BCrime's readers agreed it should hang around. In 2006, readers seemed to be more conflicted (or maybe our readership has shifted). Poll results from October and December of '06.

A 54-year-old school therapist was arrested for the sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy after a police officer saw the pair in a parked car together.

Van Smith on the darkening days of the Baltimore enterprising news story.

Meister visits the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, muses, "It would literally take about ten determined intelligent people to bring down the current regime that controls Baltimore City."
... the Examiner is gone, with the Baltimore site redirecting to DC, but the Examiners remain. Examiner.com is apparently a separate business entity, with quite a different business model.

Web finds: the Newseum has today's front pages from around the U.S. and the world. Fascinating to see what makes it above the fold from town to town!
(thanks, Mom!)

need a job? The Feds are hiring.

Monday, February 16, 2009

The man stabbed to death in the Westfield neighborhood was ID'd as 62-year-old Daniel Lee Hoeck, a former Marine and engineer who had no criminal history and seems to have been beloved by his neighbors.

31

Michael Davis, 30, was shot to death near the intersection of Erdman Avenue and East Federal Street.

Three additional nonfatal shootings on Saturday in the blotter: the 2400 block of Belair Road, the 400 block of E. 32nd St., in the stairway of a parking garage in the 1000 block of N. Charles St.

JHU junior drops retainer, gets expelled for .45 in waistband.
(thanks TM)
A different student-with-a-gun story at Steon Hill in PA this weekend; a trooper shot and killed a student after a three-hour standoff (thanks Buz)

RIP Examiner! We'll miss you!
Before Greg Kane was cut loose, free to roam Baltimore's streets, he filed one final scrappy column of unfinished business.

Seriously?! Hermann says that notes left to Baby Blevins on his death Dumpster were a high school art project, and Uncle Ben's billboards are next.

Elsewhere
In Towson, Daniel Ho Coverston, a TU student who was recovering from eye surgery was shot to death in his apartment.

"Anne Arundel County police said they've charged a Brooklyn Park man with attacking another man with a machete."

Int'l: Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico have all recently moved to decriminalize small-scale drug possession for personal use

Saturday, February 14, 2009

30

A man in his 60's known as "Mr. Dan" was found stabbed to death in the 6100 block of Glenoak Avenue.

A man was shot in the head at Erdman Avenue and East Federal Street after midnight this morning, the Deuce says he's still alive

More details on the circumstances of Eric Pendergrass' death; he "is believed to be connected to a violent drug gang whose feuding with rivals may have been responsible for at least five homicides last summer"

An officer allegedly involved in a bar fight has been suspended

And those are the good schools! Nine students from City and Mervo were arrested last week for fighting

What the?! In PA, "Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit"

Media Blabber: "Pay For News Online? Really? Yes, Says U.S. News."

Friday, February 13, 2009

Douchebags Aplenty

... but no actual violence today. (Is that because there hasn't been any, or is this the news void?)

"State senators weigh domestic violence vs. right to guns...
"One bill would give judges the discretion to confiscate guns from the subjects of temporary protective orders ... The other bill would require judges to take guns after a final protective order is granted."

Orchard Mews resident to city officials: "Clean it up. You know what the problems are. You know who the people are who are causing the problems. Clean it up!"

A lot of kvetching but not much substance at the City Council meeting.
A.F. James MacArthur has video and some D2 & Fiona Apple at the Baltimore Spectator blog.

Lava Lounge of Canton was fined & had their liquor permit suspended after third underage-booze violation

D'oh! Drunk driver rear-ends police car in Rogers Forge

Teens furious at proposed new driving & curfew laws: "from what I've seen, teenagers are far more mature than some adults when it comes to driving" (see above)

"Baltimore Sun To Close Bureaus, Cut Staff"

DLA Piper laying off 5 lawyers, 12 other staff members in Baltimore

Lots of drama at the civil litigation firm Lord & Whip!

This just in: the terms "doucebag" and "skank" are not defamatory.
Other fun links at the TDR law blog round-up