Tuesday, July 10, 2007

July 10

A 14- or possibly 15-year-old girl named Christine was found dead in a house in the 300 block of S. Fulton Ave. in "hardscrabble" Southwest Baltimore, shortly after 2 a.m. this morning.

A Randallstown male counselor at a home for troubled boys was shot in the stomach and isn't doing too well. More details

Death penalty supporters are annoyed by the governor's "de facto moratorium" ass-draggage.

How flaccid is Team Dixon? She tried to have a felon released for his son's funeral, but wasn't able to use her Mayorial pull to get him out of the state-run Central Booking. Now she says she never should have tried in the first place, because the guy's got a scary criminal record (well he is in jail!). Someone teach that woman to use the "JIS"!

Olesker reports on that great Baltimore pastime, stoopin and watching the shit go down.

"Heroin County" is turning to coke.

Christopher Gary, accused of fatally shooting his mother in Prince George's County, committed suicide by cop in PGC.

I wonder how much the Annapolis Mast Thieves would charge to get rid of the blight in front of the train station?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Screw trying to get Mayor Dixon to use the JIS -- try getting her to use some freakin common sense.

ppatin said...

Yay, the Cybrarian is back.

I wonder if I can borrow the mayor's protective detail for a while. Oh wait, I haven't been convicted of carjacking. I guess only violent felons get special treatment.

DurhamSt said...

"City officials jumped into fix-it mode, meeting with patrons and creating an "action plan" within three days."

Why?

a) Because of 300+ shootings
b) Because of 160+ murders
c) Because some out-of-control youths had pushed a manager into the Patterson Park Pool

Anonymous said...

Cybrarian:

The link to Heroin county doesn't go to the correct article. Would you fix it?

thanks.

Maurice Bradbury said...

yes ma'am

quizmasters said...

Man, Sheila's selling her staff down the river already. It's all their fault - for being too vague.

John Galt said...

Dixon's just trying to appeal to her support base: families of criminals. They are a voting majority in this city.

Analytically, the problem is clear. She must go.

But further, I think that four more years of discretionary mayoralty by any other candidate also must go.

The voter base here is defective. If they are going to have the privilege of naming the new mayor, then residents should have standing to timely remove the mayor should he/she prove incapable or incompetent or self-interested. The mayoralty cannot be permitted to exist solely to pander to the preferences of an aberrant population, regardless of candidate.

What I propose is a citizens' Bill of Rights, which would afford them standing to have a court adjudicate the reasonableness of the conduct of this city's executive branch.

It would also establish a baseline as to what necessary and essential services are required to be provided, independed of political considerations and require that any budget submitted to Council provide for all the resources reasonably necessary to that undertaking.

Part of the informational resources to plaintiff citizens would be to move the Inspector General's office out from under the Mayor.. It should be quite independent and have unfettered access to all city records.

In the event a mayor was removed for failure to perform, I suppose an unelected interim administrator would be appointed for a period necessary to attain citywide performance standards. Probably a fairly long one.

Maurice Bradbury said...

so who are you voting for galt, Jill, Keiffer or Frank?

John Galt said...

Waiting to here something substantive and tangible from all of the above.

John Galt said...

That should have been 'hear'.

Understand where I am. My street, a major artery, has not had street lights for three weeks. I'm told "we don't have the resources to get aroud to it any sooner".

In the pitch black, criminal young males walk along said artery in packs of 6 or 7 wearing full bandit masks in Crip colors. I'm informed that the police district doesn't have enough personnel to respond to that, because it's not immediately violating a specific law. As for the surveillance function, they haven't nearly enough personnel for that. Of course, the Commissioner claims otherwise. And we're just supposed to take it and like it.

Last year a neighbor alerted me that someone was breaking into my house. I called the police, and we apprehended him inside red-handed.

They declined to arrest him not because of a lack of cause or evidence, but cause they felt he'd be let out on a medical (he was a junkie) and they didn't have time to do the paperwork if he was going to get only a light sentence.

They knew him as a problem and eventually arrested him for touching them too much. When I inquired of the law department what obligations the police have to me, they replied "None whatsoever, other than in respect of a court order."

If you have a criminal complaint against a known person, you can go downtown and swear out a warrant, for which they will then be responsible.

But if you don't know the exact identity of the criminal (either because you don't hang out with them or maybe because they're wearing masks), then you won't have any recourse. Sorry.

So, I'm pretty much waiting to hear what kind of declaration of emergency each candidate has in mind. I certainly am not impressed by Dixon's "I don't see it as a major problem."

Maybe we'll hear more outrage now that the people who matter, residents of Guilford/Homeland and Johns Hopkins grad students, are being subjected to violent crime. Apparently, it's O.K. when those crimes happen to the rest of us.

All part of why we need a Public Safety Bill of Rights which places all of us on an even playing field. Why should Hopkins people get far better policing than those a few blocks to the south or east ?

Y'know, if anyone ever figured out about how many crimes really occur in these neighborhoods and compared them with national averages, this city would empty out at a far faster rate. Part of the platform should address a citizen's right to truthful crime reporting.

The CitiStat/CompStat mechanism doesn't modify deployment according to crime incidence. It responds to incident reports filed in the discretion of the officer who becomes therefore responsible to his superiors. The best way to get around that responsibiity is... to eliminate the report, not the crime.

So they do. They strongly discouage reporting victims, even by falsely arresting them, when their stats are too high. So,... we don't report anymore. But don't imagine that the official stats mean anything anymore.

A crime audit is needed as in 1999, but this time all falsifying officials need to be prosecuted. But first, they need to obligated by law to be truthful. They are not at this time. Hello? Jill Carter ?

This town is just designed for crime. It needs structual change, not ministers joining hands.

John Galt said...

Oh, and the Mayor's blooper in the case of Murel is instructive:

'Yeah, I knew he was on trial for possession of a 9mm Glock, but I didn't think he was a real, like, criminal.'

This is the municipal thinking in Baltimore. It's not really a crime this side of the county line unless you've killed at least ten people. Everything else is just... teenager mischief.

This town has severely diminished moral sense.

What's needed is an anti-crime candidate. Anti-murder. Anti-kidnap. Anti-assault. Anti-break&enter. Anti-vandalism. Anti-theft. Anti-loitering.

But our officials are not talking that way. They're talking about which and how many crimes to allow.

Newsflash: that's for the legislative branch, not the executive. And it's categorical, not case-by-case.

It's called equal protection under law, and it's how life works in America.

But not in Baltimore City.

Anonymous said...

Who's worried?? As long as I can get my Whole Foods trip and Yoga session in by nightfall, it's all good.

John Galt said...

And while Mayor Dixon is trying to invent a kinder, gentler, less-effective form of law enforcement, see how Boston has rediscovered plain ol' policing.


And the Sheriff's office is going after the warrant list's 'dirty thirty'. Too bad there are tens of thousands with open warrants in Baltimore City.

John Galt said...

Another young male in Waverly arrested for murder.


'...but we don't have any crime here..'

Apparently, no neighborhood ever does, which makes you wonder how we could possibly lead the nation in violence when all the neighorhoods are so very safe ?

John Galt said...

Christ, Sheila Dixon is absolutely useless. Every time she talks about 'not pointing fingers', she then proceeds to... point her bony little appendages.

She claims to be seeking solutions. Holding meetings. Private ones, the input from which she's considering implementing.

Yeah, you just keep pondering the PR pluses and minuses while the bloodstains seep in further.

One small sign of progress. An admission: “Crime is out of control,” she said.

So,... declare a state of emergency. It's the responsible thing to do when you haven't a clue.

John Galt said...

FYI, double-shooting on the 2600 block, Dulaney in W. Balto. around 1:30 p.m.

Maurice Bradbury said...

53,800-something open warrants, says Janis! I read that article while I was out of the blogosphere and about lost my mind! That's 8.4 percent of the whole population of the city wanted on a warrant!!

Where you and I diverge, galt: I think the city should de facto legalize possession of all of the drugs under a certain amount. You want to kill yourself, go right ahead. Heron's a $6 billion industry in the city, we're never getting rid of it and the city is wasting efforts, beds and resources scooping up random junkies.

Maurice Bradbury said...

"Mickey Mouse wouldn't be so loveable if you saw the claws under the gloves."

Anonymous said...

(What the Sun story doesn't say: Richardson appears to have been multiracial ... How will the City's binary racial classification system deal with that?).


^^^^ the victim's race matters - why?