February 10

It's life without parole for Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff for two murders in Queens. McGriff is "credited" with bringing crack to Baltimore from Queens in the 80's, and doing plenty of money laundering in our fair city.

Baltimoreans stole jewelry, CDs, sunglasses, a pool cue, a DVD player, a VCR, a bunch of TVs, a Mazda, tools, a sleeping bag, a Chevy Caprice, a chainsaw, watches, coins, computers, a handgun, a Cadillac and good old-fashioned cash to feed their starving families.*

The Long family settled a civil suit with the city for $100,000. Homer Long died of a heart attck whilst in police custody in 2003.

The precedent for finding abuse or neglect of a minor child in a custody case has just been upped by the CSA from "reasonable grounds to believe" to "preponderance of the evidence."

Another wig lady! Though two bitches are in jail, there's now word of a third scammer who pickpockets checks and ID's from middle-aged women, then dons the appropriate wig to impersonate them and withdraw money from the victim's account. So warn your moms!

Speaking of swindlers, Mark E. Phillips, alias Mark Le Roy Aaron, will spend 121 months in the can and has to pay restitution of $688k. Phillips bilked investors, including his own elderly parents, into "investing" cash money in his "company" which he then day-traded away or spent on himself, all the while sending out phony monthly statements and even fake tax forms. He also opened a credit card account in his dad's name and bought a hot tub, among other crap. No worries jerky, it'll be plenty hot where you're going (by which we mean the men's showers in the pen, then the flames of hell).

No Frednecks need apply: "In office barely a month, Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler has ousted the state's independent monitor of juvenile detention programs and replaced her with a politically connected lawyer from his home county of Montgomery."

"But Mommy, this necklace is really heavy!"
The health department issued notices to three city stores selling lead jewelry for kids.

* We're working on getting opinions from local "moral authorities" on this question. If you know (or are) a reasonably articulate priest, rabbi, ethicist, Mormon missionary, imam, etc. who would care to weigh in with a "professional opinion," please write care of the address at the bottom of your screen before next Friday.

February 9

Basketball coach Darnell Gaither, 34, was shot to death last night as he was leaving the Walter P. Carter Recreation Center on East 43rd Street [31].

Damned honor system! Convicted murderer Henry Bryant was working outside of the state Metropolitan Transition Center in East Baltimore when he walked away.

Abduction and a shootout in Salisbury.

In District Court, three PGC men, Lionel D. Gilliam, Sean A. Simpson and Norberto Quinones were convicted of all sorts of godawful crimes, including gunning down a man with an AK-47, killing a guy for not buying enough crack, carjacking and drug conspiracy.

MoCo police are looking for Kim Jones, a veteran with paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder who disappeared in Silver Spring.

Today's pervert is ... the zip code 21224!
Runner up #1: Alan Meade Beier, a 52-year-old chemistry and physics teacher at the Clarksville school accused of abusing three students, two boys and a girl, and photographing one of them nude in his classroom.
Runner up #2: Joseph Samuel Ellis, 25, "accused of exposing himself to one student, persuading a second to meet him at a park with the promise of alcohol and sending a third suggestive computer messages."
And Runner up #3: Ernie Hancock, 48, who will serve 14 years in prison for having more than 100 child-pornography images on his hard drive, and who admitted to molesting a 13-year-old boy.

February 8 nite

Word on the street is City Council members are using the transitional time between Dixon and Blake to "pass a lot of nonsense," including Keiffer Mitchell subverting long-established historic preservation laws to lax the one-year waiting-period rules for historic properties for the benefit of Mercy Hospital. Also on the agenda: a city-wide smoking ban.

...but CSA saved the Magnet Bar.

A new bill would require the state to oversee the training of the staff of residential programs for juvenile offenders.


Baltimore County police are looking for two suspects (above) in the attempted burglary of the Box and Save grocery store on Dundalk Avenue Jan. 28., the High's in the 6800 block of Broening Highway, the Blue Claw Crab House in the 3400 block of Dundalk Ave. and the B & K Carryout in the 7900 block of Dundalk Avenue.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore and the St. Agnes Parish will make a statement to address the "sexual allegations" of two adulteresses involving the local associate pastor, the formerly reverend Timothy Fell.

Jack Schroeder of Laurel, HoCo is charged with poisioning a noisy dog by placing a mix of "chicken bones, bacon grease and anti-freeze" on or near his side of the property line.

Former Randallstown High football star Melvin Alaeze was indicted by a Baltimore County grand jury on charges of attempted first-degree murder and related offenses Feb. 5 based on a Dec. 24 shooting and alleged robbery at the Brookhaven apartment complex in Randallstown.

Robert Scott Targan of MoCo (allegedy) treated Bell's palsy victims for 20 years without a license.

February 8

Acurtiss Grimes got off scot-free for allegedly shaking his two-month-old daughter to death.

Nelsene Hattie Burnette's alleged killer called the woman's family from jail and told them where to find the body.

Suspects were arrested in the murders of Stephanie Stevens and Joseph C. Simms.

David Helms pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the drunk-driving accident that killed a MoCo art teacher.

A convicted rapist's name was removed from the sex offender's registry, and the victim feels "like I'm being raped by the state all over again."

"Do these clear heels match my sheet?" KKK leader George Young is in big trouble for convincing an underage girl to strip, touch Grand Dragon Junior to join Klavern.

Chun-Hua Liu will be imprisoned separately from his co-defendants, all of whom he testified against. The four men pleaded guilty in a Timonium home-invasion in 2006.

Former BPD officer Frances Hamilton claims she was fired for reporting overtime fraud in her unit, but the police say it was due to falsified paperwork.

Apparently, the state of downtown Baltimore is "mostly upbeat."
Kirby "Get In On It" Fowler: "The prosperity is spreading from the heart of downtown outward."

Agg. assaults w/ gun

Jan. 28th - Feb. 3rd (plus one from Jan. 23rd that didn't make the last update)

Northwestern District:

None

Northern District:

None

Northeastern District:

1/28 - 2400 block Southern Ave, 21214
1/28 - 5700 block Perring Pky, 21239
1/29 - 2200 block Pinewood Ave, 21214
2/3 - 4200 block Nicholas Ave, 21206

Western District:

1/28 - 2300 block Druid Hill Ave, 21217

Central District:

None

Eastern District:

1/23 - 2800 block E Monument St, 21205
1/30 - 1600 block N Durham St, 21213 (three victims)

Southwestern District:

None

Southern District:

None

Southeastern District:

2/2 - 3300 block Noble St, 21224

February 7

At a hearing today, Judge Allen L. Schwait sentenced Hasan Howard, 22, of the 1900 block of Fayette Street, to 15 years in prison for the December 17, 2005 attack of a 22-year-old city woman. A Baltimore City jury convicted Howard of second-degree assault and possession of a regulated firearm December 7, 2006. Judge Schwait sentenced Howard to 10 years for the assault and five years without the possibility of parole for the handgun count with the sentences to run consecutively. The facts:

On December 17, 2005, Howard got into an argument with his girlfriend, the victim, at her Pennsylvania Avenue apartment and started choking her. She escaped Howard's grasp and ran into the kitchen to call 911. Howard came after her with a handgun tucked into his waistband. As Howard approached the victim, he started to reach for the gun. Instead of reaching for the telephone, she grabbed a knife and stabbed Howard in the arm. She then called 911 but Howard grabbed the phone from her and hung it up. The victim left the apartment, taking her seven year old daughter with her and when the police arrived, no one was home. Six days later, detectives executed a search and seizure warrant at Howard's grandmother's house and recovered a handgun. The victim had filed six prior complaints against Howard during the year of their relationship. Howard is currently serving two consecutive three year sentences for violating his probation from 2003 convictions of two counts of possessing regulated firearms. Today's 15-year prison term will run concurrently to this previous sentence.

Four murders this week: Sintia Mesa, Stephanie Stevens, an unidentified man (who the Sun reported was Ryan Holliman), and Desmond Tucker.

Jurors began deliberating the case against Acurtiss Grimes, 26, accused of shaking his two-month-old daughter Kaitlyn to death.

James E. Darnell was sentenced to 10 years for attempted robbery, or maybe attempted rape.

County police are looking for two men who robbed the owners of Wilkens Liquors in the parking lot of the Wilkens Avenue Provident Bank Jan. 23.

A hit-and-run suspect died after crashing into a tree while fleeing police in Howard County.

Two suspects in a Frederick home invasion were arrested in North Dakota while crossing the U.S./Canada border.

Karen Ann Malinowsky was charged with embezzling $250,000 from her dead employer's estate.

A suspect spent an hour browsing the Reisterstown Road Payless Shoe Source before robbing it.

Kevin Adams, 20, Jonathan Mathews, 20, and a 17-year-old boy, all from Arnold, face 55 counts of destruction of property after (allegedly) going on a roving BB-shooting-spree.

Sounds like the family of the 22-year-old furniture deliveryman shot by a PCG Homeland Security official will be a-suing.

A stolen cell phone, drunken shopping-cart driving and a fake ID in the Greyhound Blotter.

David Simon's speech last night at Loyola was incredibly interesting. One recurring theme was that we can't change the institutional malaise that has taken over the city (and the country). As for the people who suffer the worst due to the system and their lack of response: "they're not rioting anymore; they're high." I'm cynical, but I felt like an optimist in comparison to Simon.

February 6

The last of the "Jugs," aka the Lexington Terrace Boys, Gregory Parker (at age 27 a boy no more) was sentenced to 20 years for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine.

Six Baltimore police officers from the Eastern District were suspended as part of an internal affairs investigation into possible 'irregularities' with their overtime pay.

Tanea Bullock, 22, was sentenced today to 30 years in prison, all but 20 years suspended, to be served at the Patuxent Institution. A co-defendant, Lawrence Watson, 26, pled guilty to reckless endangerment and was sentenced to time served.

A man was shot on South Street and is in critical condition.
Friday's murder victim, shot to death at the Sugar Hill Tavern, was ID'd as Desmond G. Tucker, 52.

The Rachels wrote poems, killed themselves with carbon monoxide.

Former Senator Thomas Bromwell's lawyers get scrappy, invoke Juvenal/ classic graphic novel in attempt to save the boss's severance package.

Dixon: "We have to get back to the days when officers knew the people who lived in the communities they patrolled, and the people in the community knew and trusted the officers that worked in their neighborhood."
Said Hamm, "at an unusual, impromptu press conference held in the mayor's office after [Dixon's] speech: 'I believe, and the mayor believes, that you cannot just enforce, enforce, enforce without providing some hope for the community.'"

Bethesda, MoCo: A bummer year for the "Whitman Five," a quint of numnuts charged with robbing a Smoothie King for the fun of it, among other crimes.

Me fail English? That non-possible Dept: "Disciplining students is no about setting rules and consequences."

Registered sex offender Allen Spencer attacked two female paramedics who were taking him to the hospital.

Five men in Aberdeen were snagged after trying to provide the world some good lovin' at a reasonable price.

It's now illegal to post campaign signs more than 45 days before a primary election in Baltimore County, and the ACLU isn't very happy.

Don't ever, ever give Morgan State coach Todd Bozeman the wrong sandwiches.

February 5

Arkia L. Douglas of Glen Burnie got 12 years for beating her 13-day-old daughter to death. Reports Andrea Siegel, "Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital stopped cataloguing her injuries because there were too many."

And, a sentencing hearing for Tanea Bullock, 22, of the 4800 block of Liberty Heights Avenue is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. tomorrow before Judge Schwait. Bullock pled guilty November 28, 2006 to manslaughter and child abuse resulting in death.  Under terms of the plea agreement announced in open court she faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison suspend all but 20 years. A co-defendant, Lawrence Watson, 26, pled guilty to reckless endangerment and was sentenced to time served. The heinous facts:

On January 5, 2005 at their residence in the 4800 block of Liberty Heights Avenue, Bullock and Watson awakened at 5 a.m. and found their son, Joshua Watson, one month old, cold and not breathing. They went back to bed. Several hours later they awakened and found Joshua cold and unresponsive.  Watson called 911. Emergency operators performed CPR and transported Joshua to Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead. The medical examiner found loop shaped scars and signs of blunt force trauma to the right side of Joshua’s body, skull fractures, hemorrhaging and contusions of the brain and 27 healing fractures to his torso.

Is it really possible that we had no murders over the weekend?

A robbery in Canton and a couple of stabbings over the weekend.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler wants to take on violent street gangs.

The Harford County Sheriff is tightening security after Terrance Washington's fourth successful escape.

A ewe was decapitated in Frederick County.

A truckload of TVs was stolen and recovered in Anne Arundel County.

Oh, goody. Sheila's going to talk about the State of the City.

Perv du Jour: Parris James McGhee-Bey, 57, former teacher at Woodlawn High School, was arrested for assaulting a 14-year-old student.

February 4

How did Garnell Moore, age 7, simply vanish?

Rozza Alston (accused of robbing and stabbing an 80-year-old-woman at the Norf Abenue KFC) was tracked down by a signal from the woman's cell phone.

What does that mean? "Federal prosecutors said the circumstances of Mesa's death and the demeaning way in which her body was found suggest a link to drugs."

Kim Barnes, 50, was arrested for pretending to work at the MVA.