Saturday, July 8, 2006

July 8

David Simon: Wire character Lt. Charles Marimow is not based on Sun editor Bill Marimow. Meanwhile the empire of the Sun is setting in Moscow and Johannesburg.

Tyrone Beane, now 21 and surely one of the most horrible citizens the city has ever endured, is again set to go on trial on Monday for killing Taharka McCoy.

Judge Glynn gave Robert Williams 50 days for knowingly giving his girlfriend HIV.

Damn, is Puerto Rico that bad?

On Thursday morning, a stalker broke into a 34-year-old woman's home in Roland Park and raped her.

Apparently misunderstanding the meaning of "Get In On It!", Joaquin Deshaun Leycock fell into a Howard County pond while running from police. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't know how to swim.

The family that preys together stays together. At least until two of them get released from jail.

Two homicide victims from May, Aaron Wilson and Steven Wallace, killed each other in a gun battle. (#136 and #137?)

Convicted felon Andre Mills was sentenced to 5 1/2 years for possessing ammunition. Apparently, the assualt rifle, two 9mm handguns, .357 handgun, or 12 gauge shotgun that cops found weren't relevant to sentencing.

Thanks to the anonymous comment yesterday regarding the sentencing of Itchy Man and Bam. (Sun and Examiner links.)

A Frostburg pharmacist was arrested for dispensing Oxycontin, Oxycodone, and Percocet in exchange for cash and/or sexual favors.

The principal of Govans Elementary was asked to retire after writing a letter in support of a teacher who was found with 5 pounds of cocaine in his trunk.

In the Blotter: two robberies (including two teens who robbed a 33-year-old woman near Baltimore St. and Charles), five thefts, and seven burglaries.

22 comments:

taotechuck said...

Sorry about missing Friday... amazing how hard it is to post when your Internet access disappears!

Maurice Bradbury said...

oh how tragic!

Maurice Bradbury said...

I'm back from the beach and am leaving for China Friday if you want me to do this week... or you can most certainly keep rocking it since you do a better job than I do anyway!

Anonymous said...

50 days for basically sentencing someone to death. What in the world is wrong with people?

Anonymous said...

It's a case of a bad headline. If you read the story, he had sex with his girlfriend for 6 months an didn't tell her he had HIV. But
"as of April 25, when the statement of charges was filed" the girlfriend "had not been diagnosed with HIV."

Anonymous said...

Aaron Wilson and Steven Wallace have been considered homicides since the get-go, so they are not #'s 136 and 137. The only thing that changed with them is that they figured out who shot them (answer: they did).

Anonymous said...

O.K., so, lock all your doors, board the windows, don't let the kids out of your sight for a second, and...

don't drive a car here, either.


http://wjz.com/topstories/local_story_190081107.html

Maurice Bradbury said...

Hey galt I found that article about the South African anti-carjacking Flame Blaster! Or this sounds like fun: anti-terrorist driving school. And there's always good old pepper spray.

Anonymous said...

... oh, and, having children doesn't appear to be such a good thing here, either. 'Course, it's about the one thing inner-city Baltimoreans are any good at.


http://wjz.com/topstories/local_story_190082152.html

InsiderOut said...

There was a robbery at Baltimore & Charles at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday?!?! That's right downtown nearby many offices. After the brawl in the Inner Harbor on July 4th, I am starting to get a little worried about the crime creeping into the "safe" parts of the City. Wow.

Anonymous said...

there were serveral shots (over 10) fired on the 500 block of s. charles st. Harbor court condominium has a blasted window on ground level and one of the condominiums had a bullet enter through the window , through two walls and metal studs to the back bathroom. Chips of concrete and brick were taken out along the front of the buildings.

Anonymous said...

Um,... safe parts of Baltimore?

That's in there along with unicorns and Santa Claus, right?

I'm kind of pleased that readers are starting to get the message.... if someone gets killed/robbed/broken into a few blocks away, you should take that as an offense against you and your safety, because you cannot be safe if your neighbors are not. It doesn't really matter if their neighborhood has a different name than yours.

Guilford sits about 67 feet across the street from Waverly and Pen Lucy. Personally, I wouldn't take much comfort in the deterrent value of 67 feet.

Join with your neighbors, both inside and outside your community's boundaries, and demand police manpower which is everywhere commensurate with the resident criminality there.

Citywide, that would require about double the number of sworn officers. Demand of your councilmen that they mandate a BIG increases in manpower by the police administrtion. Without it, you will NOT be safe in the long run.

A government which does not attended to basic public safety has not discharged its most basic function and is without legitimacy. All other discretionary activities are therefore subject to suspension until public safety is assured to all habitable areas of the jurisdiction.

Baltimore can be safe, just not with this kind of municipal mismanagement.

Anonymous said...

Of course we could use more police, but will that solve the crime problem? No! because its not all about the police.

People like to talk about solutions where one "cracks down" or "gets tough" on crime. While that works in limited situations like fixing particular corners or problem bars, it does not work as a long term blanket strategy.

All of the horror stories you read about on this blog and in the papers are typically prepetrated by people who have been in and out of the correctional system many many times. They have been caught and released-- that's why they have a "rap sheet".

To make matters worse, anyone with a record is going to be effectively unemployable and go back to doing what they were doing as soon as they get released (especially addicts).

So, if you're going to "arrest your way out of the problem" with overwhelming police presence, you're also going to have to drastically increase the number of jail cells at an absurd and unacceptable public expense.

I'm not even going to try to suggest a solution, however, one thing that people can do is to get out and ENJOY their communities, MAKE your neighborhoods interesting. I'm going to have to say that waverly is a NICE place. I love the farmer's market on Saturday. It draws in lots of folks from all over the city, you have some shops, restarants and resources nearby like the Y, library and the university. It is a nice place to be.

You don't have to wait for the community to become "habitable" (whatever that means). Half of the battle is being out there and not being like frightened old blue-hairs who hardly venture outside.

Anonymous said...

But if you do not arrest your way out of the problem, incidentally filling just as many jail cells as you have people who cannot be let out on their own recognizance and regardless of what that cost may be, then those of us accustomed to civilized conduct cannot live here, so you get a city populated by a) the intensely antisocial and b) the desperately unproductive: a dead city. As to the poor dears having a rap sheet, yeah, that's why you don't want to hold up the liquor store. 'Course, it would help if they got the same sentence offenders in other counties get. Then they wouldn't be in a correctional revolving door. They'd be in for good and we'd have one less hood to have to keep an eye on. That, by the way, is the idea behind incapacitation. Remove them from the active population, so you can go about the business of living your life.

If it's prohibitively costly in the aggregate (because you have too many), then do what it takes to cut the costs of their per person maintenance. (There's a constitutional battle in there somewhere, of course.) We used to have concrete cells, bread and water, and forced labor. Perhaps it's time our charges stopped living (relatively) high on the hog.

The idea that functional residents can make life better by pretending it's not a godawful nightmare of a place to live is kind of like the Mayor's BELIEVE campaign. Say it enough times and it will be so.

There are shops. Many of them make money by selling drugs. One was recently busted for manufacturing them and storing automatic weapons. There are precious few restaurants; carryouts is the term of art, and I have twice been stabbed while patronizing them. The Uni is a resource, but is largely off-limits to us, and the Y is a real resource, particularly for those of our kids whom we expect to live past age 25. The library is almost always inhabited by local vagrants and by rugrats noisily playing computer games. I won't use it.

Transformation by belief can only work when the realities do no come crashing in on your parade. As to realities, I'm due to testify this week against a guy who has broken into endless numbers of houses & stores in this neighborhood. One of the blue-hairs you're referring to will be testifying as well. She was car-jacked at gunpoint at her home in not-so-NICE Waverly on multiple occasions by different assailants. The reality that outside is not ready to be ventured in has already crashed your version of Belief.

Waverly can be a very nice place to visit (especially by daylight surrounded by other Farmers Market yuppies), but in reality, you wouldn't want to live there. It's appeal is greatest among jailbirds, of whom it garners an outrageous 10% of the citywide population.

Anonymous said...

Well, obviously, you must like it enough to continue to live there after having been stabbed twice at carry-outs-- or so you say.

If you describe it as such a "nightmare", then why do you stay?

Anonymous said...

Because I'm not the one who's supposed to be obligated to leave.

Civilized folk are to coexist in a civilized fashion. Those who insist on behaving antisocially are to be culled.

Query: are you always an apologist for hoodlums, or am I understanding you improperly?

Also, is your life so arranged that you are victimized by them, or is the idea to let them loose because in all likelihood, they will more likely victimize me than you?

I don't mean to be nasty, I just find that apologists in theory change their minds after they become the probable victim.

InsiderOut said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
InsiderOut said...

Anon,
More police does not necessarily mean more arrests. More police can prevent crime with more patrols. Think Bigger!

Anonymous said...

Sometimes, irresponsible children behave more compliantly because there's a babysitter present.

If they're really quite incorrigible, as in the case of our friend home-invader/armed robber Keith Ray, then yeah,.. into the corner with you, rascal. And stay there.

Anon, suppose you and I are neighbors and I have a positively rabid pitbull loose in my back yard. You can keep your toddler safe by keeping him inside or sending him away. Is it proper for you to have to a) leave or b) barricade yourselves in just because I'm ill-behaved? It's about the right to be left alone. I believe strongly in that right, regardless of the tribulations of the offender population.

Anonymous said...

I am in no way an apologist for hoodlums. I don't know what to tell you if you see it that way, as I have not done anything other than disagree with some of your reasoning.

As for locking people up, of course I am in favor of that to some extent. I am simply saying that it alone won't solve the problem. That miscreant you speak about had been in jail for 14 years and got out this spring. He HAD a long sentence, and much contact with the criminal justice system but he STILL re-offended.

Yeah, sure, if we locked up everyone who committed a crime for life, then of course there would be less crime-- but you can't do that, Mister Galt. We can talk about being more like the surrounding counties, of course, and that might help but it would only be an incremental improvement

Other countries (england, france, spain, italy, germany) have far fewer people in jail than we do and they generally have MUCH LESS crime. Why is that? What is it that they are doing right? Could it be that "lock-em-up and throw away the key" is not the answer to crime?

Anonymous said...

Well, tell you what,... when you find the magical cure no one will be happier than me.

In the meantime, I'm sick and tired of Baltimore City allowing thousands of absolute hoodlums to ply their trade, mostly with impunity.

I want these goddamn animals locked up so that I can enjoy some decent kind of life. I do not have that at this time. I feel very much wronged by this second-worst of American cities.

I suspect that the reason other nations have lower prison populations is that sentences are stiffer, deterring all but the most hardcore criminals.

Anonymous said...

Regarding international comparisons,

England has about 6% more total crime per capita than the U.S. Denmark also has more.

The Netherlands, Canada, and Germany are about the same as us. Norway's about 11% less and France is 20-something percent lower.

Australia, Canada, the U.K., Denmark, and Switzerland all have more burglaries per capita, while we just about exceed France on that score by 16%. Japan's way down on the list.

Spain, portugal, and the U.K. exceed us at armed robbery, while Australia, the Netherlands, Cnada, and Germany all trail us.

We seem to top the list of assaults per capita among western nations.

As for convictions per capita, the U.K. has about 23, France has 18, Canada has 9, Russia shows 8.25, and most of the other europeans come in around 7 per capita.

Meanwhile, Maryland is the 4th most violent state per capita in the union.


http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_vio_cri_percap-crime-violent-per-capita