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.
