Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Teenager Convicted for Shooting at Officers

A Baltimore jury convicted Ronnie Lester, 19, of the 1300 block of Glyndon Avenue, yesterday of two counts of first-degree assault, use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence, minor in possession of a controlled dangerous substance, and fleeing and eluding. Judge Wanda K. Heard scheduled sentencing for April 3, 2008. Details from the SA's office:
At approximately 8:50 p.m. on May 24, 2007 officers observed three individuals on dirt bikes traveling south in the 1300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. As the officers drove up to the individuals, one of the bikes stalled. The officers exited their vehicle and approached the individual on the stalled bike. As they did this, Lester returned on his bike, allowed the other individual on to the back of bike, and fired two shots at the officers before speeding off. The officers gave chase with assistance from Foxtrot. The chase exceeded speeds of 40mph, often going the wrong way down city streets, before the Lester was apprehended when he had to stop his bike due to a gathering of people in the street around a deadly house fire at 1903 Cecil Ave. Officers recovered a .32 caliber pistol that Lester threw off the Maryland Avenue Bridge.

Assistant State’s Attorney Brandis Marsh prosecuted this case.

5 comments:

graham said...

Has anyone considered creating a "Good" vs. "Bad" count of homicide victims? There would need to be some degree of subjectivity (based on prior criminal records/activity and/or inference based on the circumstances) but it seems like it could be a valuable metric.

Maurice Bradbury said...

Subjective indeed-- does being a drug addict make someone "bad," or just drug dealers? How many DUIs would count as bad? What about white-collar crimes? If someone stayed out of trouble for a while, could they become "good"?

Last year police said that 91 percent of murder victims had criminal records. Sounds shocking, but then remember that from 2002-2004 during the whole zero-tolerance episode prosecutors declined 60 percent of arrests, leaving people with crimes on their records that were "abated by arrest" though they were never convicted.

ppatin said...

I'd consider people with convictions for murder, attempted murder, rape & agg. assault to be official "bad" victims. The problem is murder affects the entire city, even if the victim is a dirtbag who got what he had coming. Also, remember what the people who run this city are like. They would try to increase the number of victims in the "bad" column in order to make it seem like fewer decent people were getting killed.

Caederus said...

I would say the good/bad murder rate would be a bad metric. Even ignoring the where you draw the line issue, a drive by that kills a drug dealer with multiple violent convictions, still has the potential for a large number of good victums who were not killed. How many times has there been a story about some kid either playing in the street or sleeping in bed who gets hit by a stray round.

Carol Ott said...

Damn. That guy lived in my neighborhood. Good riddance.