But... gangs!

Craig Ray Jr.

The family of the MTA bus driver Craig Ray Jr. says he was shot to death in the back because he asked his neighbor to turn down loud music.

And for two recent homicides there is a person in custody,* victims Terry Davis, the 48-year-old nurse on the Alameda, and Ina Jenkins. Police are terming both of these as "domestic," whatever that exactly means (I think it now just means "not about drugs."). The person arrested for Davis' death, Donathan Booth, claimed to have been in a long-term relationship with him before killing him for his BMW. But Jenkins lived in Curtis Bay, quite far from where she was found, and police aren't saying what the connection is between her and her suspected killer Robert Lee Copes Jr., who has a criminal record that includes burglary and assault.

A 27-year-old man was shot to death last night* in the 700 block of N. Augusta Avenue.

June Stansbury was convicted of two counts of attempted murder, three counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, five counts of use of a handgun in the commission of a felony or crime of violence, burglary, and related conspiracy charges. He shot two people during the course of an armed robbery, one victim was 19 and one stabbed June in the neck while it was all going down. The case was covered by Charles Village courtwatcher Steve Gewirtz.

oo boy, Anne Arundel Chief of Police Mike Pristoop will never live down repeating information* from satyrical web site the Daily Current ("Ann Coulter Refuses to Board Plane With Black Pilot," "Obamacare Death Panel Orders First Execution") as part of his anti-pot-legalization testimony in Annapolis. The story has gone from 45 to 100+ reports in a few hours and has been picked up by sites such as BuzzFeed, Forbes and the Huffington Post.

SRB doesn't want to be like Schmoke, but just like Schmoke her administration's been busted playing it fast and loose with HUD money and will have to pay back $3.7 million.*

Facts to store for future reference: GBMC is the only hospital in Baltimore County certified to administer rape kits, and Mercy hospital is the only hospital in the city.

"You have no rights." A county officer was put on administrative leave after getting lippy and using double negatives with a student who was legally recording an arrest in Towson outside of the Greene Turtle.

Chronicle of Rogues

An MTA bus driver, Craig Ray Jr., was shot to death* in South Baltimore, killed on the block where he lived.

A homeless man with a pellet gun is in critical condition after being shot by police* outside of the city homeless shelter on Fallsway.

Two parents were arrested for child abuse after their teenage boys were rescued from their filthy, unheated boat.

On the heels of the state being given a D- for integrity, Jill Carter and friends have sponsored a bill that would create a state Public Information Act Compliance Board. There's already an Open Meetings Compliance Board,* FWIW, though the most they can apparently do is fine $100-$1000.

Bernstein has filed for re-election and his campaign manager is Chad Kinney, former CitiStat director. And he shares a PR/media relations specialist with the Rusty Scupper and the Prime Rib.

Sabein C. Burgess was cleared on murder charges, 19 years after he went to jail.*

Have you seen an unknown black man in a black hoodie with an unknown handgun in black shorts? You could be eligible for $$!

So they're all grandstanding about pot legalization and taxation in Annapolis. Two-thirds of gubernatorial candidates and 53 percent of MDers support it, but if you think it has a prayer of passing you haven't hung around long enough. Maryland arrests 23,000 pot users a year at the cost of more than $100 million to taxpayers, not to mention fines, fees and lost wages for the arrested. That's a lot of fingers in the .. pot. Still, it's Mizeur's time to shine!
And oh lawd, the AAC police chief's testimony against the pot has spread like wildfire and made national news! If you didn't hear, Chief Michael Pristoop cited a story from the Daily Currant, a satyrical web site (another headline: "Obama Appoints Oprah As Ambassador to Russia"). "Everyone in the room dropped their laptops," Sen. Raskin told the WaPo (wait, literally?) Later Tuesday afternoon Pristoop apologized* for repeating an "urban legend."

A Glen Burnie man arrested for a parking-lot stabbing has a really weird beard.*

Our favorite Criminal Justice Lawyer Page Croyder is running against Judge Alfred Nance, on account of his well-known inappropriateness. But does she have a full platform, or is she just a protest candidate? Meanwhile the gov has appointed 23 judges.*

Short, Rich and Gone

El Chapo

Didja read this one? Didja hear about it? Sinaloa Cartel capo "El Chapo" (which translates to "corn pudding" or "shorty") aka Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, was arrested at a Mexican beach resort. At some point the cartel had/has tendrils that stretched to Baltimore, with eight locals (one of whom had a tie to city comptroller Joan Pratt ) arrested on assorted drug charges during "Operation Xcellerator" from 2006-2008. In addition to his shortness, Chapo is famous for escaping prison in the laundry like Little Orphan Annie, being named Chicago's Most Wanted in spite of never setting foot in Chicago, looking kind of like a cross-eyed John Ritter at a young age and for his decades-younger mistress boldly birthing their little twin chapos at an L.A. hospital.

Speaking of cash crops, marijuana bills are on the Senate's agenda this week.

Overnight Shooting: 2400 Block of Wilgrey Ct. Adult male shot in the back. Homicide Detectives investigating. Dispatched time: 12:06 AM
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 24, 2014

Shooting: 5100 Block of Cordelia Ave. A male is reported to be shot in the head. Homicide Detectives responding. Dispatched time: 8:11 PM
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 24, 2014

Shooting: 2100 block of Koko Lane. Adult male reported to be shot in the leg.  District Detectives investigating. Dispatched time: 5:51 PM
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 23, 2014

In what may be the last Van Smith story for the City Paper, coverage about the beating death of inmate Kenneth Davis in state custody.

May be second-to-last: how drug dealer Richard Anthony "Richie Rich" Wolford played himself by pissing off his own lawyer. .
.. Q for anyone: Is there any way to download the City Paper archives before the Sun assumes ownership? Also, how is the Tribune Co. able to buy anything just a year after getting out of bankruptcy?

And another dumb Raven, this time Deonte Thompson, got his dumb self arrested for poking smot in a car on public roads. Meanwhile police say they have video of Ray Rice knocking his fiancee out in a NJ elevator. And O'Malley himself was on TMZ, expressing his "tremendous amount of disappointment." Disappointment, really? I guess after having drug dealers burn a family to death it takes a lot to achieve "horrifying." 

The Waste of Your Pants

Sixteen months ago Tammy Brown, director of O'Malley's office of Crime Control and Prevention, told me there was no DNA backlog.* Now apparently the backlog is a year long.

Jason Bulmer, one of a pair who allegedly killed HoCo blogger Dennis Lane, has pleaded guilty.*

The Daily Mail of the UK explored Baltimore's "people of the woods."

Ugh, these twits. Starve-a-me Galling-Flake is "appalled" by the "disproportionate high" arrest rates for black pot possessors, but refuses to offer an explanation for why police are arresting so many people, a plan or support for decriminalization or lower penalties.
     Meanwhile Anthony Brown has clawed back his announced support for decriminalization.  "He said he is advocating a 'slow-as-we-go" approach.' 'I'm at the red light checking the intersection.'" Could that man have any less personality or backbone?
   And Bernstein has been focusing on diversion,* so good on him for that. But how do we arrest fewer people?
    Can you imagine how much we'd make if it was a $100 ticket? Well, you don't have to, 1,800 people arrested a year = $18,000. Hellz, make it a $1,000 ticket. But it would still pale in how much we'd get from the feds for treatment centers, for the extra inmates at the jail ($40,000 an inmate), not to mention all the lobbying $ the house and senate get from defense attorneys and the like, I guess.

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/02/21/3490655/brown-discusses-measures-on-marijuana.html#storylink=cpy

disproportionate high

Read More at: http://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/baltimore-mayor-appalled-at-disproportionate-marijuana-arrest-rates-african-americans-25690.shtml#.Uwf0BV7UVAJ arrest rate   

No good, very bad and horrible: The Tribune Company vis a vis the Baltimore Sun Media Group has bought the City Paper, the city's last non-niche independent newspaper and the last indie to be unloaded by Times-Shamrock of Scranton, PA. Everyone will be fired and the re-hires will be decamped to Calvert Street, and if they don't rehire Van Smith I will cut a bitch. Forecast calls for layoffs, shrinkage and lame attempts as being BuzzFeed.

@CTAssaaf

Wow, we haven't had a shooting in a week! Oh wait, here's a police-involved shooting. And, wait,

Shooting: 400 block E. Patterson Park Avenue. Man reported to be shot. Homicide Detectives called to the scene. PIO responding.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 21, 2014

Bystanders say victim is a homeless man known as "CJ." (The shelter is right here) They say 4-6 shots were fired
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) February 21, 2014

Another update; Victim from N Patterson Park Ave shooting has died; no name, age provided yet
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) February 21, 2014

A Digital Harbor nee Southern High School student was pistol-whipped, robbed by classmates.

Anthony Hopkins convicted in August 2012 Light Rail shooting of an unidentified "target." A witness said: "it appeared Hopkins had a handgun tucked into the waste of his pants"

Rats and Men

So is this why robberies are down? A 16-year-old was robbed, and police refused to take a report unless his mother let him be taken to the station.* Notes the head of a social enterprise, "Often the neighborhoods that you live in determine the style of policing that you will get. If their house was broken into in Roland Park, they wouldn't have to go to the closest precinct. They're not going to prolong the trauma, make them stop what they're doing. It would be filed right then and there."

Two people were stabbed at a 7-11 in the 1300 block of Taylor Avenue in Towson (which is the 7-11 attached to a Subway that's in the parking lot of the Lowes at Taylor and Hillsway).

A 70-year-old woman was robbed in South Baltimore, police have released a video.*

And TMZ released a video that shows Ray Race dragging his finacee's unconscious body in Atlantic City.

"A key witness in a case against two Baltimore City police officers is the target of an incident involving a dead rat left on the windshield of his car." The rat recipient was Officer Crystal, who testified against the now-convicted officers who beat a burglary suspect.

Former Sun columnist Gregory Kane has died at 62.* Pointed and loath to suffer fools, he was a piquant counterpoint to Dan Rodricks' lugubrious laments back in the days where newspapers were mostly perused on pulp. The Sun proffers a hollow lament to their laid-off columnist's passing, but his columns in the Sun archives* are slim pickings-- where is the one where he imagined what Michael Phelps' bong might say? or the one about Dante Parrish (freed by the Innocence Project, went on to murder fey little teen Jason Mattison) or the one about That One Lady on The Jury Who Won't Convict a Black Man, or the one where he uses the term "brobdingnagian"? I suppose we'll have to make do with the one where he pronounces then-mayor  O'Malley unsmart yet not a racist for his "potty-mouth invective"* aimed at Pat Jessamy.
     After his move to the Examiner he seems happier and mellower, writing about movies and Christmas even as cancer put him in "excruciating and agonizing pain." You can see his conservatism taking a modern turn, adopting the name-calling so favored by the right ("Libthink,") calling BS on Amiri Baraka, Oprah and A&E, but still not willing to be totally co-opted by the right's talking points and remaining "soured" on the "War on Drugs."
   Anyway, we've lost a great mind today-- probably no one always agreed with him, but he always made his points with panache, a love of language and a deep and no doubt hard-won understanding of Baltimore life. He won a Pulitzer, too, for his articles about Sudan.*

There is justice, MD says Julius Henson's state senate campaign violates his probation.*

But not for poor defendants: Doug Gansler has asked the court to throw out their ruling that they're entitled to an attorney* at bail hearings.

From Wilmslow Road in Evergreen (aka the slums of Roland Park)--

At approximately 4:00 pm I arrived home and went upstairs briefly in preparation to run some errands.  I heard a strange noise and heavy footsteps downstairs only to find a man in a black coat in our kitchen attempting to steal one of our cats.  (I learned this evening that cats are target for thieves who use them to train pit bulls for dogfighting).  Fortunately, the man grabbed the larger cat who, although completely sweet natured, is armed with a good set of claws.  The man yelled out and the cat escaped out the door.  I ran after the man who pleaded total innocence but decided to chase after my pet rather than detain him.  He swiftly turned the corner heading west on Cold Spring and from a distance I could here him bizarrely saying out loud, "Here kitty, kitty..."  About 30 minutes later I was able to retrieve my terrified cat and bring him back in after a frantic search.  There are two lessons here for us: first, ALWAYS lock your door behind you, even if you're only going to be home a few minutes and second, be mindful of your cats.  They are targets.

(1/2) Bernard Burton was arrested by #BPDWATF in the 2000 Block of E. Baltimore St. for a sexual Assault & Robbery... pic.twitter.com/do9LzmiVs7
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 17, 2014

Billion with a B

Oh crap, one Terry Davis, 48, was found dead and beaten in a house in the 3900 block of The Alameda.

And two men were shot last night in the 500 block of E. 35th street, one died.

"City Police Search Patterson Park for a Rapist." A sketch was released but it's extremely... sketchy. There's a crime meeting tonight at 7 at the Breath of God Lutheran Church at 141 South Clinton Street.

Jayne Miller did math, discovered Baltimore's crime costs taxpayers one billion dollars a year. That's gif-worthy, baby!

Ricky "if you're not Blood you die" Horton was convicted of killing Sean Rhodes and shooting his own girlfriend and Rudy Hyman* outside the Ras-a-Ter club on North Avenue Jan 13 of last year.

WJZ has uploaded Tyrone West's full autopsy report.

The mayor talked to Dan Roderickzzzzz yesterday and Batts talked to him at noon.

.@tothepeople Police confirm that a man was found dead in the 900 block of Wolfe St at Thames this morning - inside of a portable toilet
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) February 12, 2014

Batts says he's going to fight crime with a focus on 17 'enforcement zones.'* What are those? 'Ultra-concentrated' 'micro-spaces,' of course. But don't ask where they are! "Batts declined to identify the new enforcement zones, saying that 'criminals read the newspaper.'" And the Sun's Yvonne Wenger says the city will spend $305,000 on ShotSpotter technology, which uses a computer program to detect the source of gunshots within a few yards.

Meanwhile, the BPD held a Twitter tweetup in honor of Women in Policing Week, with an actual lady police making answers come out of a computer machine using her brain parts and lady fingers.

Super nice friends posted a GoFundMe request for their pal Eric who was robbed.

Twenty-five federal years for gun-brandishing customer-shooting serial robber Hatratico Smith

HarfCo police shot one Brian Ogle, who was armed with a machete.

In D.C. one Steven Slaughter was arrested after approaching women on the metro, claiming he was collecting money for a charity and then showing them a cell phone photo of his dangly bits.

Via Ian Duncan, one Dellando Campbell was arrested in Lemoore, California for the 2009 murder of Serika Holness in Kent County. Ian Duncan also got an early Valentine from a person in Orlando who owns some very special stamps.

What I love about this weird letter is that the person has the stamps to express his or her feelings. pic.twitter.com/0PDzhbTr0U
— Ian Duncan (@iduncan) February 11, 2014

Hot Violent Repeat Zone Spots

Last night a man was shot in the 1500 block of Pennsylvania Ave and died,* a teenager was shot in the face on East Eager street and lived.

Thomas McKnight Marshall

Keep an eye out for Thomas McKnight Marshall, 76, a missing adult in early-stage dementia.

Hazing investigated at Dunbar High.*

Police email to residents: 3 armed robberies reported w/in 30 min last night in N Balt: 3600 Old York, 2600 N Howard, 1000 St Dunstan's
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) February 8, 2014

The City Council wants hundreds of pages* of speed camera documents.

The Sun endorses SafeCeaseStreetsFire&tm;* This latest iteration will supposedly focus on "violence zones" and "hot spots." Readers are skeptical.*
Related media: The Interrupters, a documentary about a year in Chicago's CeaseFire progam.

At #BPDNED Commissioner Batts addresses community / media on Zone Enforcement strategy #ASaferBaltimore pic.twitter.com/3wYPfad0An
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 11, 2014

Gaithersburg police have a person of interest identified in the kidnapping of two sisters, Shiela and Katherine Lyon, in 1975.

Look at Me! Look at Me!

Club 2 O'Clock on The Block is known for its refinement and its classy, quality entertainment, yet somehow three people --including two teenagers-- were stabbed there this weekend. One, Jesse Clark-Nugent, age 19, died, the other victims were aged 17 and 30. I guess 21 and up is just kind of a suggestion?

Also at around 2 a.m. Sunday morning there was a fight and a man shot in the shoulder at Club YOLO at 4502 Erdman Ave.

And two people were stabbed at the Hot Skates Roller Skating Center in Woodlawn Saturday night.

Gun Arrest: 900 block Armistead Way. Officers arrested William Morris and recovered a handgun at the scene. pic.twitter.com/eU7dJDuyVh
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 9, 2014

Maryland Reporter Len Lazarik reports that the cell phone blocking at the jail is also blocking calls outside of the jail a block away. He also notes that Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker is working on a longer piece about the city jail's woes.

David Paschall,
via MySpace

Father and son team Chad and David Paschall, 28 and 54, pleaded guilty to selling heroin, Oxycodone and cocaine out of their auto body shop on Desoto Road, and to commercial burglaries in four states. They were apparently allegedly part of a larger 16-person crime ring, and one Carl Paschall was also involved, relation unknown. Their indictment also alleged that they sold drugs inside Lexington Market, and in Jessup prison. Said David during his most recent arrest, "Yeah, I sell Percocets, but it isn't a big deal.*"

The mayor is giving a "state of the city" speech today,* focusing on violent crime. She plans to implement a full-scale Operation Ceasefire, aka Operation Safe Streets. The city launched the program, devised by criminologist David M. Kennedy in 2007 with federal money, but in 2009 a worker was one of 12 people wounded* at the notorious Blackwell Brothers cookout, and SRB herself yanked the funding in 2010 after a DEA indictment tied Safe Streets to multiple members of the BGF. The city re-launched Safe Streets in 2012* after the DOJ proffered $2.2 million to continue the efforts, but the program came into question again last December when Nathan Barksdale, an outreach worker, was indicted for dealing heroin at the behest of the BGF.* Or is this a totally different thing? Explained Fenton,

"Our current Safe Streets program with gang members mediating violence is based off of Chicago’s Ceasefire Program. Kennedy has a program called Ceasefire that involves “call-ins” where dangerous guys are provided services and told to reform or face federal prosecution. When he brought it here in the 1990s, they called it… “Safe Streets.”
So we have Chicago’s Ceasefire and call it Safe Streets, and now we’re bringing in Kennedy’s Ceasefire, which we called Safe Streets before but will presumably now be referring to Ceasefire. "

Michael Campbell

So, ew, Michael Campbell, a man arrested on January 20 for rape and sexual assault of his fiancee's 23-year-old daughter on Hunter Street, is also the athletic director of Whitley County High School in New Jersey Kentucky. Dude is now on unpaid leave,  reports the local Times-Tribune.

Jury selection starts today in the trial of the last two officers charged in the 2008 death of inmate Kenneth Davis at Roxbury in Hagerstown.

Baltimore-themed rowhouse dollhouse includes Utz chips and a bag of weed.

Tracy Halvorsen's essay "Baltimore, You're Breaking My Heart" has inspired rebuttals: "Baltimore, You're Not Breaking My Heart," "Whose Heart is Baltimore Breaking, Really?" an assortment from the City Paper, "Baltimore, You're Breaking My Car," and my personal favorite from the That Guy's On Heroin guy, "Baltimore City, Stop Your Bitching." ("Can we stop fucking whining and learn to sack up already?... The title of the blog post should have just been 'Look at me! Look at me!'")

A Glen Burnie drug raid turned up a pretty amazing pen gun.

In AAC guns were stolen from an unmarked, unlocked police car.

Delta flight 1199 from Salt Lake City to BWI was diverted to Minneapolis after a drunk woman freaked the fuck out. Her helpful fellow passengers naturally shot and uploaded video to YouTube.

The Glamorous Fire

O'Malley and jail spokesflak Rick Binetti say that cell phone blockage at the detention center has been achieved.*

Ina Jenkins

The burnt body found in an alley behind Pinehurst Avenue has been identified as that of Ina Gail Jenkins, 35,* the ME says she died from blunt-force trauma. According to her LinkedIn page, she was a marketer for Far Above Rubies magazine in Bowie, a Daily Bread volunteer and graduate of Anne Arundel Community College, living on East End Drive in Curtis Bay, 25 miles from where she was found. Last August she noted on her Facebook page, "Oh and by the way, I have a Baltimore Italian man, stalking me, and maybe a few others."  and, curiously, "Can I say to all the Pasadena, Maryland residents whom may read my Facebook page, you have a psychotic, mentally ill, and immature, scary, mailman in your town." and later, "So, now I have Michael Lloyd stalking me. I know, a little or a lot retarded."

Batts met in Annapolis with the city's six senators,* and they are pissed. Batts' counterclaim: we're working on it, I need more people, and "Violent crimes are down by 34 percent over the previous year."  Huh? How does he figure? Homicides, nonfatal shootings, larcenies, car thefts and street robberies were all up last year,* so what's left? Is the BPD is not reporting rapes again?*

How timely--
it's the 110th anniversary of the Baltimore Fire!

  4.8 officers per 1,000 people*, the third-highest ratio in the country, surpassing even Chicago or Deteroit. According to the $280k consultant report that Batts commissioned, the problem isn't too few officers, it's officers in the wrong places-- posts being staffed unnecessarily, detectives doing the jobs of clerks, and 40 percent of posts on each shift being staffed with overtime. So it makes you wonder if he's even read his own $280k report.
   And does the BPD really need more people? As of 2011, Baltimore had about 4.8 officers per 1,000 people, more than double the national average and the 3rd-highest rate in the country.
   Said Batts to WMAR's Brian Kuebler, "It's more glamorous to say 'run for your lives the city is on fire' but the city continues to progress and go in the right direction and it is getting safer."

In the Baltimore Guide blotter of the southeast, a woman was robbed whilst clearing snow off of her car on N. Collington Avenue, a woman was robbed while pushing her daughter in a stroller, a boy robbed while playing on the playground behind Patterson Park High School, a girl was pushed by a man "into a rear alley, where she pleaded with him not to rape her. The report is cut off here."

Daniel T. Nicholson IV, the detective in the Phylicia Barnes case, was acquitted of two charges and the jury is deadlocked on a third.*

Ashley Roane

Ashley Roane, a 26-year-old officer, got five years for extortion and identity theft. She was the one who searched the BPD database to tell a drug dealer who was an informant, and she also stole people's identities for a tax scam.*

Two Yemenites, Abdullah Aljaradi, age 52, and Ahmed Ayedh Al-Jabrati, age 58, owners of the Second Obama Express and D&M Deli and Grocery, pleaded guilty to food stamp fraud.

:( Essay: "Baltimore, You're Breaking My Heart" ... "I'm looking at you Mayor Rawlings-Blake."

City Paper readers react to D. Watkins' story on Salon, "Too Poor for Pop Culture." Chill out, people, if he's desperate enough to take a job as an adjunct at the University of Baltimore he is plenty poor!

The EPA has sent Harbor Point developers back to the drawing board to improve the site's safety plan.

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.

Gun Arrest: Feb 5th. 600 block Ashburton Street. Officers arrest Anthony Williams & recover a loaded handgun. pic.twitter.com/oMmD4BOOqA
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 5, 2014

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. 

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.

Shooting: Woodbrook/Lynnbrook. Man reported to be shot in the side. Western District Detectives investigating. Dispatch time 1:06pm.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 5, 2014

Neighbors say a fire in Essex was set by an arsonist with a fire bomb.

@justin_fenton pic.twitter.com/wFloZNy0f5
— candy ✌️ (@prettiblaq88) February 5, 2014

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.

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.

Shooting: E. Oliver & N. Collington St. Adult male reported to be shot. Homicide Detectives notified. Dispatched time: 11:21PM
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) February 1, 2014

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

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.

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.

Overnight Shooting: 2800 Block of W. Baltimore St. Adult male shot in the hand. District Detectives Investigating. Dispatched time: 12:43AM
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) January 29, 2014

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.