Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Violent Avenue

Kevin Talley, 25, died after being shot in the 3700 block of Reisterstown Road last night near... Violent Avenue?

Trial started today for William Kern,* the police academy instructor who allegedly shot a recruit in the head.

After violating the First Amendment rights of Women in Black, the city is coughing up $100k for the ACLU.* And a jury awarded $250k to the family of Andrew Cornish, killed in a SWAT team raid in 2005. And the mother of a 16-year-old hit in the face by cops was awarded $75k.

Another attempted carjacking of Vi Ripken? What?

Oh, Doug Gansler. When you're in a hole, quit digging. Dude responded to allegations that he ordered his driver to break traffic laws-- allegations that probably would have blown over if he'd just shut up-- by saying "Nobody really believes I ordered some troopers to do these kinds of things because it’s silly." The seven state troopers who filed complaints and said trooper's supervisors, however, likely disagree.
    On a related note, I'm taking down the poll because other, more appealing candidates have emerged and I don't want to pretend like they don't exist. Results reveal crushing apathy among voters, with 63 percent undecided/don't care.
You know who's looking really great right now? Heather Mizeur. She's against fracking, looks like a thinner Edith Massey (at least in this picture), and isn't associated with the O'Malley cabal.

Police are on a serious roll when it comes to posting the "losers of the stop-and-frisk sweepstakes" ( as commenter so aptly deemed it):

























Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Wild dogs, eugenics and an isolation tank

Big news: the Supreme Court will not review Maryland's "may issue" handgun law. The 4th Circuit has already upheld Maryland's law that requires citizens to have a valid reason to carry a concealed weapon in public.

So much for that sweet 10-day murderless streak: Kennard Bess, age 20, was killed overnight in the 2600 block of Chase Street. (There's a Kennard Bess on Facebook, but he looks way older than 20).

Remember how the Brew revealed that the city was giving the Mayor's buddies at Dynis LLC a contract for Smart Meters that was $101 million more than the next-highest bidder? A contract that would give Dynis a $70 million profit for work to be completed by subcontractors? This just in, a lily-livered statement has been issued.

Neighbors in Fullerton (up by White Marsh) report being menaced by a pack of wild dogs.

DNA evidence closed a 2004 rape case, said evidence pointed to Deandre Eugene Wilson, age 28.

Speaking of evidence left behind and stuff that you just can't make up, who is behind the mysterious Baltimore News Journal? This is a site that popped up in January and began to sporadically "report" on a seemingly random assortment of crime stories around in the area. A whois search leads to an anonymous registration, but lists a phone number in the Scottsdale, Arizona area, and a reverse phone number lookup leads to the offices of K-TFRN, aka the Truth Freedom Radio Network, which appears to be a looney tunes media venture, with headlines like "Book of Revelations Unfolding in Pakistan" and "Extra Virgin Olive Oil Hoax Exposed" (from the "Health and Eugenics" section). The site is run by a couple, Chris and Sheree Geo, who "founded Truth Frequency Radio with the purpose of compiling an archive of information that can be used for many years to come. Not your typical radio show, Truth Frequency focuses more on the history of the occult and the deeper underlying conspiracy behind current events in an effort to predict the future by understanding the past." So there you go.

And speaking of things wackadoodle, apparently there's a place in town called T Hill where you can chew on salvia leaves and climb into one of those sensory-deprivation tanks.

Monday, October 14, 2013

So brave.


A fatal shooting of a 24-year-old man in the 3600 block of Bowers Avenue,* a few blocks away from where Reginald Hart, aged 58, became the city's 178th homicide victim last Thursday. Related incidents? Coincidence?

Do other areas have as many barricade situations as we do? This time a suicidal man in Dundalk locked himself in his house yesterday, and all ended peacefully.

An alleged armed robber was shot by police in Middle River and taken into custody.


An indictment against alleged illegal gun seller Lovell Offer in Anne Arundel County was dropped because investigators violated wiretap laws. Noteworthy in lieu of the NSA revelations (the 4th amendment still matters?), the fact that it took seven months for the fact that the wiretap was illegal to come up, and for the City Paper's excellent choice to illustrate the story with a screen capture of John Goodman as Linda Tripp. Motion allowed!

Related: a judge decides the feds can't confiscate an alleged drug dealer's Mercedes. What is going on with all of this integrity this week?

Harbor East is where all the swells congregate-- a second corpse has bobbed up* next to the chichi Paterakis/Beatty consumertorium. Last Tuesday's floater was ID'd as Douglas Paige, 58, reportedly neither body showed signs of foul play. And the Brew features a picture of the sneaker of yesterday's unfortunate victim.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Secret Meetings

For the third time in six months the Open Meetings Compliance Board found that the city government has violated open meetings laws*-- the most recent ruling refers to a meeting in July regarding tax breaks for developers. Said BDC President Brenda McKenzie, "The ruling was helpful. We will use it as a guide for future meetings." .. unlike what happened after the last two rulings.

Whoa. Chris Van Hollen, our representative in the House from the 8th district, points out that October 1st the House Republicans changed the law so that instead of any House member being able to call up a bill for a vote, only the Republican leader of the House can do it.  Said Pete Sessions, R-Texas,
00:00:13WHAT WE'RE ATTEMPTING TO DO IS TO ACTUALLY GET OUR PEOPLE TOGETHER RATHER THAN TRYING TO MAKE A DECISION.
Default is going to happen, people, grab your ankles and survival kits.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

The streak

After an incredible 10 days with no murders, Reginald Hart, 58, was killed in the 5500 block of Gwynn Oak yesterday.* He's the 178th murder victim of the year.

A 17-year-old was shot in the neck on Arunah Avenue yesterday.






Thursday, October 10, 2013

There's some shirts

Jose Morales was found guilty of soliciting Robert Long's murder by a federal jury, a murder Demetrius Smith* was doing time for. ... But what happened to Stanley Needleman?

MTA Police are looking for three fashion-foward guys who committed armed robbery of a passenger on the number 40 bus.

Police Tweeted a shooting in the 2400 block of East Monument Street.

Anthony Towels/Towles has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of his 16-month-old granddaughter Sabryia, even though her death was ruled accidental-- he left her in his car last summer and she died.

Anthony Batts was on the Marc Steiner show yesterday evening, you can listen to the podcast if you're into that kind of thing.

Christopher Troy Goode aka Public Enemy #1 has been captured.

Dude's mellow was harshed in Glen Burnie when a bowl, weed and pot brownies were seized.
(What is the Baltimore News Journal? Who's behind it? Anyone know?)

Media blabber: local neurosurgeon Ben "Bestiality" Carson has debuted as a Fox News commentator.
Laugh so you don't cry dept: A company called Dynis LLC is poised to get a city contract for new "Smart Meters," even though their bid is $101 million more than a competitor's. Why, you ask? Is it the vast techincal superiority of their meters? Or is it perhaps because the CEO of Dynis was Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's top contributor in 2011? Strokes beard.

Housing inspectors have reportedly made a game of who can issue the most citations, with the "sharks" at the top and the "crabs" at the bottom.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Confidence level = zero

Down in Greenbelt the Jose Morales case has gone to the jury.* Last week prosecutors tied him to three murders and an attempted murder-for-hire -- Robert Long's, plus three men who were in the federal penitentiary, Clyde "Junior" Lucas, who was with Long when he died, Mark Bartlett, a thief, addict and drug dealer who was the "star witness" who originally helped put Demetrius Smith in jail for Long's murder, and Terry Sadler, who is alive and also the mother of one of Morales' children. (I guess Stanley Needleman never testified?)

Four people arrested and three indicted on charges related to bribing postal workers at the Waverly and Pikesville post offices. Richard Wright, 37, and Kimberly Parnell, 43, are the respective post office managers, making Shane Anderson, 37, and Ladena Sketers-Anderson, 46, are the presumptive alleged bribers. Fenton says the managers are accused of taking kickbacks for no-show jobs from landscaping and janitorial companies.* Wright allegedly texted, "'Yo bra u need to text or call me because I need to get my loot!' ... referring to a $2,000 cut from $3,750 paid for contract work."

Kenneth Bernard Corporal was arrested for stabbing bouncers at the Comedy Factory.*

The Baltimore Police Department posted to Facebook,
"The Baltimore Police Department will make no changes to its policy regarding the information it currently disseminates on Twitter. We will continue to use Twitter to inform the community on all non fatal shootings, all homicides, crime prevention tips, public safety issues, noteworthy arrests and community events. Our goal has always been to provide the most accurate information possible. The community deserves nothing less. In order to meet that goal as crimes happen we will endeavor to add more context to events when they occur."
I gotta say, too little too late-- at this point I've completely lost confidence in Batts to lead. Homicides are up, transparency is down, dude seems completely clueless as to the law when it comes to Terry stops,* you had Gugliemi saying "we're pretty satisfied where the city is headed, violence-wise" after one of the most violent weekends in history, then the new guy saying they're not going to tweet "criminal on criminal crime." The spokesmen's words are their own, but apparently the Batts administration culture promotes that dismissive attitude: with Gugliemi's remarks, Batts never denounced them, he just "temporarily reassigned" Gugliemi to another post and remarked that the "messaging" and been "terrible."*
     And as a cynical Baltimorean, know how easy and tempting it is to slide into the "let the criminals kill each other off and have God sort 'em out" attitude. But there are problems with this line of thinking. First being collateral damage: kids and "actual citizens" literally getting caught in the crossfire. Second, people lose confidence that the police can protect them, and start taking care of threatening individuals themselves, already a huge problem in this city, the average homicide victim has 8.5 arrests.* When there's been a shooting on the block yet nothing is said, it reinforces this perception and conveys the message that shootings are so routine they aren't even noteworthy any more and the police don't care, reinforcing the cycle of violence. 
     Then there's the ethics of the "criminals aren't citizens" attitude. Just because you've bought some pot in the park doesn't mean you deserve the death penalty, or even a bullet in the knee. And finally, because America. Do we believe in the rule of law, or do we believe in the rule of the jungle?
     So yeah, no confidence. Time for this guy to go.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Drug dealers are citizens too

What. If being callous and utterly tone-deaf gets you fired from a BPD communications job, sounds like Jack Papp is about to join Anthony Guglieimi in the bread line-- dude emailed a reporter that the department "is not going to tweet out every time a drug dealer shoots another criminal in the leg* for nonpayment, i.e. criminal-on-criminal crime that we know... we will still tweet out instances where nonfatal shootings involve citizens, public safety issues, etc." So I guess this guy* and the other people shot over the weekend were confirmed criminals, duly noted, and that if you have an arrest on your record you lose your Baltimore citizenship ... you're walking around in your own personal airport transit zone or something.
   Papp now claims that due to outcry the policy has been reversed, but the BPD has still not Tweeted a shooting in eight days.

In Glen Burnie a school bus driver was charged with robbing banks.

A male body this morning in the water by Fells Point, cause of death unknown

Monday, October 7, 2013

Really out to get you

Spooky comment on the blog this morning--
Today's date of this posting is (October 7, 2013)... As I was driving down Interstate 95-S just past the 295 Baltimore/Washington Pkwy. at 12:45 a.m. this past mid April when I suddenly saw a large drone (about the size of a helicopter)hovering just off of the northbound side of 95-N with red lights flashing on and off underneath it, when all of a sudden, bright white lights touched down in front of my car, then on top of my car and then circled onto the northbound side on top of another car. That was probably the spookiest thing I've ever seen. I feel like we are now living in a twilight zone dictatorship called Obamba-land and no longer the good ole U.S.A. land of the free! We are living in scary times!!!
Yes they are, but spying is a bipartisan effort! And speaking of the federales, the New York Times has uncovered that the government shutdown has been planned for months, and guess which evil duo is behind it? That would be the Koch Brothers, founders of the Tea Party, who are no doubt pleased as punch that the government shutdown means less nosy gubmint poking into their activities, activities such as illegal sales to Iran, fracking and drilling for oil in national parks (which continue in spite of the "shutdown"). The shutdown is win-win for them, and we can expect it to go on for a long time.

The FBI couldn't figure out how to seize the Bitcoins of the founder of the Silk Road, so they seized users' funds instead. Fun fact: Silk Road operated on a TOR network, TOR being an acronym for "The Onion Router," so-called because of its encryption layers. The network was a creation of the U.S. government, which wanted to offer anonymity to users in repressive regimes. The FBI likely took down Ross "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ulbricht by using a backdoor in Firefox to insert malware that identified specific networking devices.

And court records were unsealed that reveal why Ladar Levison shut down Lavabit, the e-mail service provider to Edward Snowden and about 400,000 other people: the Feds demanded that Levison turn over SSL keys that would give them access to every single user's metadata and fined him $5,000 a day when he refused.

Don't think extralegal government activities are something you should worry about? Read this plz, and mull over the fact that Maryland State Police spied on Peace protestors-- not just here or there, but monitored their activities for more than a year.

Rather worse for the wear

Somebody's got mommy issues: "Public Enemy No. 1" Christopher Troy Goode is now wanted for questioning for the shooting of a woman that took place Saturday night.* Goode has a shiny forehead, a red goatee with the number 13 on it and should be considered armed and dangerous.

Power Plant Live = hot mess. Two bouncers were stabbed there at a Aries Spears show last night, and Spears has some n-words for the incident.


Business model: charge people $9.99 to see if their mug shot is on a site, if it is, charge them $40-$90 to take it down.*

History corner: 164 years ago today, Edgar Allan Poe died at Church Home and Hospital between East Fayette and East Baltimore Streets where he was taken after being found at 44 E. Lombard Street "rather worse for the wear" on October 3rd. Still to this day no one knows exactly what killed him; theories range from rabies to liver failure.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Depends on what is is

Busted! Batts justified the use of ye olde stop-and-frisk by citing the example of some BGF guy he patted down in the CHUM. Turns out that according to legal experts the pat-down was not legal, and as it turned out no guns were found;* rather stretches the credibility of his claim that the department only conducts lawful Terry stops when the commissioner is unaware of what a lawful stop is.

Two shootings yesterday, in the southern district and on E. 24th Street, respectively.

A shooting in Parkville in the 7100 block of Darlington Drive, a shooting in the 1400 block of Ingleside

Whodathunk it? States with stricter gun laws found to have fewer shooting deaths.

Friday, October 4, 2013

I just met a girl named Ikea

Le Deux's Joce Sterman reports on the craycray cost of police overtime - the city's highest-paid employee is one Detective Julie Pitochelli, who made $177,000 by working 80+ hour weeks every week. No one doubts she did? Really? ... You may remember than in 2007, Stephen Janis got then-Commissioner Leonard Hamm to admit that overtime fraud had been uncovered by internal investigations in the department, though of course we never found out how many officers were involved, what their consequences were or if they had ever reimbursed the city. In 2006, the fraud year, the highest-paid officer banked $167,421.
Judy Pal

Batt's chief of staff, Judy Pal, has quit after only a year on the job.* She owns a crisis-communications firm, and apparently that's her style-- according to her LinkedIn profile she's stayed in most of her jobs for only about a year, I guess because she's just that effective.

Stephen "Stevie" Loney, alleged #2 in the City Jail BGF set, pleaded guilty to drug-smuggling charges yesterday,* as did his guard girlfriend, Taryn "them dogs ain't shit" Kirkland, who allegedly kept his ledger under her bed in her Woodlawn home.

A former public defender in the County and her 20-year-old son were indicted on drug-possession and intent-to-distribute charges*

Also aberrant:

And are these names for real?





Thursday, October 3, 2013

Transparancies

A body was found on a popular wooded trail* near Falls Road and Old Pimlico north of Lake Roland and Robert E. Lee Park. Nefarious activity is not unknown to the park area, given its convenient location-- in August 2008 one Sirlilar Jewelle Stokes, 19, member of the Bloods* and a female patron of the 2 O'Clock strip club, lured 18-year-old dancer Ashley Davis into her car, took her to the park at dawn, shot her in the head, then returned to the same club later that afternoon, where she was arrested.

Just in time for Domestic Violence Prevention Month, a new Baltimore's Most Wanted: Christopher Troy Goode, who stabbed his babies' mom in the neck and then gutted her like a fish. This happened September 12, but I guess the BPD sat on an APB to make this special month extra special.


The shutdown of popular online drug marketplace The Silk Road and the arrest of its founder/operator Dread Pirate Roberts has a local angle,* the agent who busted him is from MD. And a Hopkins Prof answers some FAQ about the Deep Web and Bitcoins.*

File under Steel, Gonads of: a theft from the Northeastern District police station.

Good for Fox Baltimore, still beating the drum about the lack of transparency in our local government.

Bad for citizens: complaints about too much transparency when it comes to the defecating homeless.





Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Calling on the Corpse Phone

"I just picked it up off a dead guy." Murder victim Robert Long's missing cellphone is one of many mysteries in the bizarre and chilling case against Jose Morales, drug dealer, arsonist, scaffolding thief, accused witness-murderer, and probable confidential police informant, who was shielded from prosecution either intentionally or via mind-boggling police incompetence.

Katrell Smith
Murder suspect Robert G. Moore is extra special: he's accused of threatening the lives of two female prosecutors,* telling one he was going to send an associate after her while she was in the hospital delivering her baby.

The Ink has last week's four murders, since then the toll has climbed to 178.

BPD arrested Katrell Smith, jug-eared assailant, now they need help linking him to other violent crimes, so call Metro Crime Stoppers if you saw him being criminally violent with someone, I guess. Wonder if this is the same guy, he sounds about articulate enough.

Dennis Freeman
Monday's murder in Violetville was reportedly allegedly committed by one Dennis Freeman, who killed his estranged wife's girlfriend's new boyfriend, husband, Stephan Burley.* Freeman had previously faced drug-distribution charges, Burley had domestic-violence charges of his own (which were dropped). Cham informs me that Freeman is wearing a Tyvek® suit given to arrestees whose clothes are soiled with, say, the blood of someone they'd stabbed to death, and not a hoodie from Rei Kawakubo for Comme Des Garcons' 2012 spring collection.
Three rough-looking women, Alexis Chandler, 19, Ashley Fitz, 22 and Czekiah Fludd, 24, were arrested in the county and charged with robbing a bank in Essex.

Because of the Republican government shutdown, the fates of countless perverts, scam artists and gun-toting drug dealers will go unknown and unmocked by me. Sigh! According to the Department of Justice contingency plan, federal criminal cases are business as usual, federal civil cases are to be postponed until the fudgetards in the House pass a budget, unless the cases involve "the safety of human life or the protection of property." Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests are also not being processed as usual. Oh, and thanks to the sequester, the FBI can't pay informants or put gas in investigator's cars.

Federal judge to gun lovers: delay denied





Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Braxton Family Values

Two murders yesterday*: one in the 3600 block of Benson Avenue, one in the 3000 block of Tivoly Avenue. FBHIII teaches a class at Stevenson University, maybe Batts should take it.

What? Remember the guy who was hit by a car fleeing gunfire Sunday on Ashland Avenue? Well, they found a bullet in his head after all.*
Des'Marie Braxton

Former aspiring male model Sharmell Gregory Thomas, 23, got 26 years in prison for killing his girlfriend's 14-month-old daughter, Des'Marie Braxton, who had reportedly been left with Thomas for several days; at the time of Braxton's death Thomas was wanted on charges of assaulting her mother. He must have gotten out on bail while awaiting murder charges, because he was the subject of a peace order in July of last year, charged with assault in September and was sued for child custody by a woman in June.

Thirty years for Todd Marrow, who stabbed one Orville Chamblee to death over a football wager.

A feel-good story turns into a feel-rage story when a guy whose bikes were stolen tracks down one of his bikes, only to have the officers in the Eastern District (shown right) allegedly let the thief go with no charges. Why are the citizens of the southeast victimized over and over and over again? Gee whiz!

"The state's recidivism rate — the percentage of inmates who are returned to prison or put on probation for new crimes within three years of release — has plunged from more than 51.4 percent in 2000 to about 40.5 percent* nearly a decade later, data released Monday show."

New gun law now in effect, y'all. Gun clubs, firearms dealers and three unnamed gun owners and some guy named Shawn J. Tardy are suing, of course, and there'll be a hearing in federal district court to address the plaintiffs' request to halt enforcement of the law until their appeal is heard. Related: New York Times study finds that because of reporting idiosyncrasies, accidental shootings are about twice as common as official numbers show.



Monday, September 30, 2013

Squeezers for geezers

A man on Ashland Avenue in East Baltimore was hit by a car while running from gunfire.*

A man was shot in the 3900 block of Oakford Avenue in the Northwest

Two shootings in the county, including a 50-year-old pizza deliveryman in Landsdowne and a 27-year-old man in Woodlawn.*

Experts to SRB, O'Malley: both yalls crime charts are wrong*
Di Zhang

The University of Baltimore teaches skills you can practically apply to real business! I hope they're asking for donations from Di Zhang, awarded an MBA in 2001,* owner of investment properties, part-owner of a publicly traded energy company, and alleged human trafficker and owner of a happy-ending massage parlor.




Friday, September 27, 2013

Brawl in the hall

A man was shot and killed yesterday in the 3900 block of Penhurst Avenue

A stabbing in the 3300 block of Piedmont Avenue
Via Fox

At least two brawls at Patterson High on Monday (filmed by students, of course) led to students getting pepper-sprayed, arrested.

In Odenton a 19-month-old girl was hit with bullet fragments, her parents say it's because they called police on drug dealers, and some neighbors are saying the family is racist.

Wait, what? Ed Ericson Jr., City Paper reporter, testified yesterday in the Jose Morales case.*

Life +15 for Phillip Herrell, who killed a guy for wearing a red shirt in the blue shirt part of town.

"My heart is broken." Batts held an impromptu press conference about the Northern Parkway crash and some other stuff while some guy in a black shirt makes monkey faces.

Batts reaffirmed police use of stop-and-frisks* the practice of interloping and groping. Notable:
"The department's record-keeping has been questioned in the past. Police reported only 11 such stops in 12 months in 2005, as internal figures showed the number was in the thousands. One estimate indicated there had been as many as 130,000 over the course of nine months. In 2010, city police statistics show officers conducted 234 stop-and-frisk stops, 207 in 2011, and 249 in 2012 through August 2012."
For Liz: Cecil County teenage suspects. Their mothers must be ever so proud.

Gun rights advocates file federal lawsuit zzzzzz*

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Fact deficient

OoOo BURN! "The facts could not be clearer that more arrests do not lead to less crime. Everyone seems to be clear on that except the governor ... Honest minds can differ, but this honest mind is also fact-dependent.*" ~ SRB. And candidate/lieutenant gov Anthony Brown is distancing himself from his boss, in a vague and nosistic way. "We don't judge our safety record on the number of arrests but rather on the reduction in crime."

Speaking of facts, a Department of Justice survey of multiple studies has concluded that license plate readers have no appreciable impact on crime rates. Not only that, "the routes with the [license plate readers] had a slightly higher number of vehicle thefts compared to the routes with the manual plate checks or control group routes."

Two men were shot on Chinquapin Parkway last night.

Two women were robbed at gunpoint at the West Baltimore MARC station.

The woman in the Jeep killed in that crash early Tuesday morning was identified as Angel Chiwengo, 45.  Chiwengo immigrated from The Congo last year (formerly Zaire); her daughter gave birth to her first grandchild hours after the accident.

The Court of Appeals has restored the right of defendants to have representation at bail hearings.*

Norma Jean's Gentleman's Club back in the news: they're being sued by a dancer who claims managers cheated her out of tips.

Bank-robbery suspects creepy, awkward

A fatal home invasion in Cecil County, five skeevy suspects.


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Floating solids

Ronn Williams, 52, was shot and killed last night* in the 1500 block of Upshire Road, near the intersection of Loch Raven Boulevard and The Alameda.


State police are unable to keep up with processing applications for 1,000 gun purchases a day, and so are now going to solve the problem by waiving the requirement for a handgun qualification license, people who applied before September 1 now won't have to show proficiency with the weapon.

The city has approved a $50,000 settlement for a girl molested by employee Charles Douglass Shelly* at Northeast Middle School.

Lakim Faust, who attempted murder here in Baltimore at age 14, was indicted in Greenville, North Carolina yesterday on 14 charges -- he allegedly went on shooting rampage with the intention of killing white people in a Walmart parking lot.

Renita Franklin-Thrower, former employee of the mayor's office who was hired in spite of having an open warrant, is now going to federal prison for 9 months on fraud charges.

Poop? Motor oil? Whatever it is, "reeking clumps of floating black solids" have bobbed up in the Inner Harbor next to the Marriott.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Too many Tavons

Three people are dead*-- a Jeep-driving unidentified woman and also Devell Cess Johns, 26, and Terrell Young, 28 (alias Tavon Brown) after a police pursuit that started near Harford Road and 25th Street and ended on York Road near Northern Parkway in a ball of fire at around 12:30 this morning. No word on why police were pursuing Johns and Young, but Johns-- if it is indeed the same 26-year-old-- has a prodigious criminal and civil record from the past eight years that includes charges for drugs, identity theft, illegal gun possession, driving without a license and failure to pay child support. Jayne Miller reports that Young's record was similarly impressive. Also impressive is the name "Tavon Brown"-- the JIS lists more than 30 offenders by that name, including seven who are 30.
Joey High

County police are ISO a guy named Joey High who shot someone in the thigh* in Randallstown in July. Call 911 if u see.

Sooo the governor has an Op-Ed in the Sun today entitled "less enforcement means more homicides."*
   For you teenagers, transplants and the Googletarded, Martin Joseph O'Malley was mayor of Baltimore from 1999-2007. The murder number never dipped below 250 during his tenure, and in 2005, 2006 and 2007 the city had 269, 274 and 291 murders, respectively. In 2005, police made 108,447 arrests* -- a rate of one arrest for every in 6 residents -- pretty much as mass-arresty as any arrests could massively amass.
    But things got better! O'Malley moved to Annapolis, team Dixon/Bealefeld took over, and in 2008 we had 234 homicides -- an unprecedented 20-something percent drop-- and only 83,439 arrests. In 2009 police made 77,595 arrests and there were 238 murders. Less O'Malley, less homicides. Hurray!
   So why is he stirring this turd? He could be goosing Rick Perry, or taking crab cakes to the latest mass shooting survivors, massaging bay oysters, posing in Under Armour on the pages of Men's Fitness.. why is he on this peculiar disinformation campaign, and who is giving him such crap political advice?

This is more pleasant to contemplate: $50,000 worth of men's shoes. Who the fuck would buy them? Some drug trafficker named Jerome Castle,* apparently, and some federal auction goer's husband is going to be a lucky lucky man.

Linger and finger

After O'Malley dropped by the CJCC to throw shade* on the city's current crime fighting strategies, Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodridguez made the rather extraordinary choice to tell Justin Fenton that the BPD is still stopping and frisking but just not calling it that* (the new term is "investigative stop"). A stop-and-frisk (aka the "Terry stop") is constitutional if the police have reason to believe they are dealing with someone has been engaged in criminal activity or criminal activity is afoot; if the stop is based on racial profiling, "furtive movements" or bulges, not so much. So is Rodriguez trying to get the department sued, New York City style?

 

Monday, September 23, 2013

Open minded

Jose Morales, via the CP
Trial is scheduled to begin tomorrow for Jose Morales for the murder of Robert Long.* Morales is accused of hiring a Dead Man Inc. hit man to kill Long after allegedly finding out from his and Long's lawyer, Stanley Needleman, that Long planned to testify against him in a stolen-scaffolding case. Morales is currently serving a 262-month sentence in federal prison on charges that he tried to bring cocaine to Baltimore on a chartered jet. Demetrius Smith was previously charged for Long's murder, charges were dropped, but Smith is still in jail serving time for a different murder. Needleman is disbarred, serving a year for tax evasion and may testify against his former client.

The death of a five-month-old baby girl, Ilzaryah Morrison, in the 1600 block of N. Broadway September 2, was determined on Friday to have been a homicide.* No suspects, no details yet.

Willie Mayes, 59, charged with beating 52-year-old Donald Robinson,* said he pulverized Robinson after his daughter accused Robinson of rape. The daughter, Latiqwa Mayes, 19, is also charged, as are two of her teenaged friends. Mayes' story checks out: Robinson had been charged with a sex offense in 2003.

So apparently David's on Falls Road, formerly a crappy luncheon, is now a crappy sports bar, one where a gun was allegedly drawn on one employee by another.* One David Morgan, Jr., on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Get used to armed a-holes-- Marylanders have reportedly been "flocking" to buy guns at the rate of 1,000 a day over the past two weeks.*

Ida Mae Snipe, bathroom pickpocket, identity thief and bank fraudster whose accomplice begged stall neighbors* to spare a square while she pinched their purses was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison.*

Professional football player Jacoby Jones was reportedly hit in the head with a $600 magnum bottle of Ace of Spades champagne by a professional escort named Sweet Pea, who has a "38 waste" and is "open minded," which apparently means pay up or I will open your mind and waste it with a 38-pound bottle. No charges were filed.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Tender moments

Robert Jackson, 34, was shot and killed last night* on Crismer Avenue in the NW.

A 44-year-old man is dead from multiple gunshot wounds in Rosedale.*

Fenton interviews Batts for he occasion of his one-year work anniversary, and here's a detail that doesn't bode well: "Department statistics show that the number of officers leaving the force since Batts took over is 33 percent higher than in the same period before his arrival....In 2013, an average of 22 officers have left per month.*"

Feud alert: the governor says SRB's crime strategy is "falling back into the pathology that led to Baltimore being the most violent and addicted city in America" because arrests have fallen. Under SRB the city arrests about half as many people as it did under O'Malley-- and the homicide rate is about 1/3 lower, too. So way to remind everyone what an epic fail your strategies were, guvnah!

Former city firefighter Jamar "Mar" Williams pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a minor, as did his partner in pimping Roosevelt "Nitty" Coit. You'll recall Williams was a firefighter based in the Roland Park station who moonlighted as a "madam" at a brothel on Madison Avenue, where hookering tips were written up on a chalkboard. The city had hired Williams as a firefighter even though he was on probation for similar sex-trafficking charges in the county.

In other pimping news, 36 years for Jeremy "Jerms Black" Naughton of Brooklyn, NY, who kidnapped women and forced them to engage in prostitution in New York, Maryland and other states. He also strangled a dog.

West African colon heroin is a thing.

LOL, Van Smith on wiretaps of Tavon White's BGF harem: "But tender moments were also captured, like when [Jennifer] Owens told White: 'You know what makes me stay with [you]? SEX! ... no one's going to give me sex like that.'"Say what you will about the guy, there's no doubt he must have had some crazy mad lady sexing skills.