Thursday, September 21, 2006

September 21

A 26 year-old man was found murdered behind an elementary school on Gold Street in West Baltimore. Anne Linskey says this is the 198th murder this year, the same number as this time last year. That count doesn't agree with either of the numbers in the Ink, from the SA's office or counted here ... where do you think they're from?

Policarpio Espinoza and Adan Canela got two life sentences each.

Northern District Commander: McAbier can move home safely if she wants to.

Horrible: the tale of Howard County domestic violence victim Samira Salmassi.

Police are targeting underage drinking with a vengeance. Speaking of Power Plant Live, the City Paper's Best of Baltimore Party is tonight at the Ram's Head from 6:30-9:30, with free foods and drinks. I just know because someone told me, though-- for the second year in a row we didn't get invited.

Do the walk! You know it girl!
In the Senate race, the "race thing" drags on. Now the National Black Republican Association has aired a pro-Steele radio ad that Steele calls "insulting."

26 comments:

John Galt said...

Say, did you ever get a straight answer from the ME's office about public disclosure?

Maurice Bradbury said...

Nope.
Everyone should Dr. David Fowler of the Medical Examiner's office at 410-333-3063 10 times a day until we get an answer.

John Galt said...

Maj. Pristoop says McAbier can move back safely?

Pink or Red????

Malnurtured Snay said...

Didn't you win "Best Blog" and they didn't invite you? Dickheads!

Maurice Bradbury said...

Hey galt, check your e-mail, had a ? for you

Maurice Bradbury said...

Thank you for your outrage, Snay!
I get the feeling the party isn't what it once was anyway (Ram's Head, blech). And sounds like invites just got sent out yesterday for the party tonight, so I couldn't have made it anyway (and I doubt many other people could on such short notice either). Still... I wonder if I have some ex-boyfriend over there I don't know about...

Anonymous said...

For the Harwood Community issues, why doesn't the city have street cops to patrol the area?

It's not that large of an area. So it wouldn't take that many police off other beats. Two cops patroling the streets (maybe even with dogs) might help reduce the criminal activity in the neighborhood, and aid with intelligence to identify who the crooks are.

I think that would go a long way, especially with so many seemingly concerned residents that are willing to help the police, but fear the criminals.

Just a thought.

John Galt said...

There really aren't that many there willing to help much (other than anonymously). And not only they, but pretty much the patrol cops are also sorta uncomfortable about their safety there. You'd need a deployment with some backup.

One cop is an entire post. A post is actually a fairly big area. One post in Northern runs all the way from Keswick Road in Hampden all the way past Remington, Charles Village, and into Better Waverly over to Frisby Street (where the two gals were shot over the weekend). That whole area is supposed to be covered by two guys, ideally, who cannot really split up.

All part of why we need more cops hired. We haven't they been hired? Who read the link on policing as a dangerous profession? Look at the average national salary 0f $46,600. We offer about $35,ooo to start and you get shot at here. No surprise that few qualified applicants sign up.

Maurice Bradbury said...

I feel bad for people who bought in the 21218 when the Northern HQ was in Charles Village (or Hampden). Now it's miles away, and it seems like the fair thing to do would be to remap the police districts so that they have a station as close as possible to the actual geographical center. Also, all that cop money from the ♥Clinton aministration was cut by Bush. That's no excuse for the city not finding the funds elsewhere, though ... they found $16 million and pissed that away in no time.

John Galt said...

Cybes, have you seen that Scharfstein letter on trauma data?

Anonymous said...

Bush has really been doing a number on the country, d's c, crime prevention included. We can't just blame local, at least not completely.

Galt, I'd love to see you go after the current nat'l trends. Still, I know your concern is your own neighborhood. However, it's a trickle down problem on a problematic city. It seems crime is up nationally. It hurts more in B-more right now but it hurts more everywhere (or too many places to ignore), doesn't it?

John Galt said...

Warning: this is kinda long.

OK, I'll bite. I've been thinking about the effect of 9/11-related defense and homeland security spending in crowding-out federal support of domestic law-enforcement efforts.

So, I thought I'd examine homicide trends during the U.S. wars of the 20th Century.

During WWI, homicide basically increased during and after the war.

Homicide slid during peacetime from '35 to about '45 and then spiked upward after the War (I mean #II)was over.

It started sliding just before Korea and continued during that conflict, before turning up all through the Vietnamese action.

Now military spending as a percentage of GDP rose from 4% to about 37% and peaked there in 1945, falling thereafter to around <10% more or less. Just before Korea, it rose to maybe 13%, but slid over time to under 7% after the vietnam conflict, which only boosted it by maybe 3% anyhow.

The thing is, federal support of domestic law-enforcement is an historically recent undertaking. It's nearest precursor before Vietnam would be the creation and staffing of an FBI to deal with municipal corruption during the gangland era.

I'm wondering if crowding-out doesn't so much characterize fiscal policy as much as manpower on the street.

The (Selective Service) draft was newly implemented for WWI, with terms of 12 months for the most part. Domestic riminal careers suffered only brief interruptions.

A more universal draft was applied during the Second War, with conscription terms through two years after the close of the war, however long that might be. Hardcores largely went overseas to do their killing. So did everyone else.

The Korean and Vietnamese conflicts were somewhat more limited drafts, with a good deal of selection bias correlated with income, which at the lowest end is correlated with violent crime. I'm not quite sure why crime would have soared during and after Vietnam, unless we consider levels and breadth of hard substance abuse. That's a kinda easy explanation, though, especially without good data.

Our current arrangement is more a poverty draft, which probably doesn't extract the most violent at the low end of the income spectrum from our streets, because money is no longer their deficiency once they take the leap into organized narcotics trafficking.

On the fiscal end, the COPS grants during the crack epidemic were intended to phase out over time, which they have. That just happens to nest well with the need for federal funding of a war and homeland security. I'm not convinced Bush is really driving anything happening on the street.

O'Malley has been bashing Bush for not handing out lotsa dollars to cities for securing the port and the rails, but I see that as an excuse. I don't think municipalities really secured critical facilities during WWII; the army did it. If O'Malley needs cops, he needs to fund them from his municipal budget, probably by cutting discretionary outlays, such as grants and economic development handouts. I see the problem as being local, even after considering national trends. If we go into the kind of recession which sinks cities, crime could reverse its decline over recent years. this is part of why I don't take too much comfort in the successes proclaimed by NO'Malley. They could disappear pretty quickly.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, very little in the National Black Republican Association ad is actually true and it's almost entirely misleading. King was not a Republican. His family and friends have always maintained that he was non-partisan. The founding members of the KKK were most likely Democrats, but the Democratic party wanted nothing to do with them. Dixiecrats are not the same party as Democrats. They were very conservative white Southerners who broke off from the Democrats. The reason the 1964 Civil Rights Act was opposed by Democrats was because a majority of the Democrats were in the South. Both Republicans and Democrats in the Northern states overwhelmingly voted for it. Democrats blocked the minimum wage bill because it was pinned to the rollback of the Estate Tax. The ad fails to mention that many Senior Republican Senators have fought minimum wage increases throughout the 90s and recent years. At this point, people should realize that the Republicans haven't been the "Party of Lincoln" in a great while, and the Democrats DO pay too much lip service to causes and issues they do nothing about. Presently, I'm fed up with both the Republicans and the Democrats, but this ad is just a pure distortion of history.

Anonymous said...

BPD counts its homicide numbers by incident not victim amount. The double homicide from Lanvale St is counted as one incident even though there are two dead bodies.

Councilman O'Malley made a big fuss when the PD was caught doing this during the Frazier regime...something about 'underreporting'.

John Galt said...

Something about... lying politicians.

John Galt said...

Query: how can Maj. Pristoop of the Northern District claim that Edna McAbier "can return if she wants to" when the Bloods are rubbing out Urban Gorillas a coupla blocks away? Get real.

Maurice Bradbury said...

1. yes I have the Scharf. letter (thanks for sending it CN). It says pretty much what you said a few days ago: the "real" number is somewhere in the middle.
What's interesting to me is how Scharfstein freaked out-- it's actually kind of refreshing to see someone who hasn't had pr training getting genuinely flustered.

But why did O'Malley's office make a statement? The admin. has just been completely silent on crime-related issues pretty much all year, and if I was going to issue one crime-related statement it wouldn't be on that, knowhatimean? A few percentage points, who cares?

2. Thanks for the correction/clarification anon.

3. Sho, are you sho about that?

Maurice Bradbury said...

and galt what gals on Frisby street? Did I miss something?

Unknown said...

Maybe u didn't get an invite because you won the Reader's Poll not the actual Best of which is decided by CP staff. I think the reader's poll is more accurate as we should decide best of Baltimore.

Like, I won for best blog and didn't know a damn thing about it until 11pm that night when i stumbled into the Rendezvous do work my shift and people were telling me. And I didn't get an invite either.

IGuess we have to have our own celebration D's C. You. Me Galt Chuck and a lotta beer!

Anonymous said...

Two women were shot at 3033 Frisby Street on Sunday morning around 8:30. Andy heard it himself and posted the incident in just-about realtime.

Maurice Bradbury said...

shot to death? how have I not heard of this?

Anonymous said...

Not fatal, but very distressing nonetheless.

Anonymous said...

As a Black man living in Baltimore City,
I'm happy everytime the police crack down on drinking; ie bar raids, Preakness arrests. Finally, some white people getting treated the same as Blacks on the streets everyday. Hip hop hurray for any Felss Point, Canton bar raids!

Maurice Bradbury said...

heh heh.
That's a good point, black.
Hold a pinch of herb or crack or heroin, go to jail.
Drink and drive and kill someone, go home.

Alcohol has probably brought more misery to more people for longer than all the other drugs combined. A drunk frat boy driving around is more of a menace to public safety than a crackhead.

John Galt said...

Oh, to have put some blackface on Mel Gibson that fateful night in Beverly Hills....

Maurice Bradbury said...

Yeah people were all upset about the "Jew" thing... but no one seemed to care that we was driving 90 MPH shitfaced drunk.