A few more details about the child whose body was found in a suitcase in Philly.
A 15-year-old boy's mom took him to the police station and made him confess to shooting Jawan Keith Tasker in Annapolis.
The body that was found in a car in White Marsh has been ID'd as Jay Royden Alban, who has been missing since February.
Fred Mackler's pyrotechnics were behind the booms in Pikesville.
The alleged Edgewood kidnapper got caught.
More details on Agnes Welch's plan to give conflict resolution training to the city's youth. No word on whether the training will include target practice.
There's some danged fancy packaging for pot seeds.
Canton is taking a stand against the school board.
37 comments:
"Waaaaaaaah, I live in Canton. I pay too much in property taxes, so I should be able to decide what goes into my neighborhood, waaaaaaaah!"
Seriously, these people need to get a grip. The city is replacing a well-known thug factory (which also adversely impacts the Highlandtown and Patterson Park neigbhorhoods) with a science and tech school which is partially funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It's NIMBYism at its finest!
That HoCo pot story is annoying.
One upside to living in the city, law enforcement is too busy with actual crimes to get its collective knickers in a twist over some seeds.
weird from the Ink: "Catherine Palmer allegedly referred to Daniels as their landlord, although he is not listed as the owner of the property where the Palmers resided."
On the Canton school siting protest, let's be clear on what's being said:
NOT this is the wrong location put it down the street.
NOT the sidewalks are too narrow and kids will walk into traffic.
What's being said is that the police Commander confirms that Baltimore City's upper-school population is a real crime hazard and that (like other Districts) he really hasn't the necessary resources to handle them like any real City does, so
LET'S JUST NOT HAVE ANY PUBLIC SCHOOLS (locally).
Fine. Then shut them ALL down as hazards. NOT just for Canton.
Or, (total surprise that I would write this), hire enough cops to provide public safety in everyone's neighborhood.
Baltimore has one of the nation's lousiest populations. It therefore needs one of its largest police forces.
I think what a lot of people in Canton object to is the fact that students from other areas are being brought in to wreak havoc on their neighborhood.
Three strikes and we'll give you a meaningful sentence.
So, Canton could
a) secede from the City with its problem population,
b) insist that (all) City police departments have enough manpower to handle whatever the school brings their way,
or
c) outlaw childbearing.
But I don't want to hear that they love 'city living' just so long as the city lives in Waverly.
My area contains about 9% of the city's hoodlums. Canton's exposure level is wayyyy below mine. If they think they're getting too big a slice of the criminal pie, I'd gladly be willing to swap.
As Gomer Pyle used to say:
"Surprise, surprise, surprise!"
Who could have known that hiring at-risk youth could bankrupt your company?
I could. I've said it enough times.
But don't let a silly thing like that stop Sheila D. from hiring thousands of them.
I think what a lot of people in Canton object to is the fact that students from other areas are being brought in to wreak havoc on their neighborhood.
Perhaps, but I'm willing to bet that they wreak more havoc on Patterson Park and Highlandtown than they wreak on Canton. Many of these thugs like to hang out in the park after school and harass and/or attack anyone within sight- whether they're Latinos, yuppies, or even moms with strollers (this happened last Friday!).
Most of these thugs are not hanging around Canton after school- they walk north towards Pulaski Hwy and commit most of their crimes somewhere in-between.
Galt, did you read the article? Didn't sound like hiring at-risk kids was the problem:
"Rising prices on everything from gasoline to cleaning supplies are making it difficult to keep Living Legacy in the black, McCullough said.
The company uses environmentally friendly products, she said."
and
"But McCullough, who helps clean as well as run the company, acknowledged that she had no experience in running a business, and never took the time to develop a proper business plan."
AND
""Just strictly from a business perspective, they do a great job," said Kate Primm, the principal of the Green School, a charter school that hired Living Legacy in August."
The business model is to hire unskilled labor and use them to perfom basically unskilled work.
Your business is only as good as your product. Pretty clearly, the world is not beating a path to her door. So it's kinda gotta be the product.
But that's OK. If your product sucks in Baltimore, just become another nonprofit and suck on the teet of government.
And for those who like police car chase scenes, Grand Theft Auto's got nothing on this guy.
"The business model is to hire unskilled labor and use them to perfom basically unskilled work." So what's a better business model? Hire skilled labor for unskilled work?
What the fuck, Galt? You bitch incessantly about the worthless population of the city. Then an article runs about a small part of the population who apparently want to improve their "worthlessness," and you bitch about that.
Nowhere in the story did it say that these kids are incompetent, dishonest, or anything else. On the contrary, it says they do an excellent job at their assigned tasks.
Bonding is SOP for cleaning services, and doesn't seem like a reflection on the company's staff.
So someone with no clue about business started a business, and is getting her ass kicked by her own success. That's not a crime, and that doesn't make her employees criminals.
You often make good points, but knee-jerk arguments like this seriously discredit everything else you say.
mr meph
what happened with the women and the baby stroller?
'xcuse me ??
Nowhere in the story did it say that these kids are incompetent, dishonest, or anything else.
Didn't you read the part that refers to "at-risk youth" ??
FYI, that's Baltimore doublespeak for arrested, charged, and convicted but not incarcerated, usually because of minority. At least, that what it means at Dixon's favorite problem organization Living Classrooms.
Now, it's possible that these are 100% law-abiding, disadvantaged teens, in which case I'd owe an apology.
But I doubt it. The purpose was to keep kids off the mean streets in the wake of several violent tragedies.
I speculate that she's working with problem kids, but I'll investigate and let you know what I find out.
bmore,
According to our listserv, the woman with the stroller was OK- a gang of teenage girls were throwing sticks at her and verbally threatening her. Another person, a man in his 40s was punched in the head and beaten with a large stick. He's OK now, but his head was bleeding profusely after the assault.
mr meph
wowsers....did something prompt these girls to throw sticks? was it a racial issue? or do these guys just pick on random people for no reason??!!?
Hey chuck i replaced your toddler-body-in-suitcase story with the original Philadelphia Daily News story.
Note to writers-- a baby or an infant is less than one year of age, a toddler is 12-24 months. Child is any age.
The following is from the website of Living Classrooms, several of whose clients have committed criminal offenses against me while engaged in the program:
Project SERVE, in partnership with the Respect Outreach Center, is implementing an ex-offender reentry initiative. Through this partnership, Living Classrooms is helping individuals to transition from incarceration into Project SERVE and then into employment. The initiative will track participants and provide case management for three years after leaving Project SERVE.
So, no, I don't want to see anyone bringing offenders anywhere near me, especialy on public money, unless and until they are already permanently ex-offenders.
mjb,
A couple a seeds? Here in HoCO the police have enough manpower to send plain clothes vice cops to steak out 14 year olds dealing to their friends. (Just look at the accidental shooting in Jessup)
wow, like 21 Jump Street!
hey, what accidental shooting in Jessup?
Perhaps, but I'm willing to bet that they wreak more havoc on Patterson Park and Highlandtown than they wreak on Canton. ...
Most of these thugs are not hanging around Canton after school- they walk north towards Pulaski Hwy and commit most of their crimes somewhere in-between.
Unfortunately "in-between" begins the second they step off of school property (well, I'm sure there's plenty of on school crime as well.) By the time they pass through Canton the ranks have thinned and they are probably less likely to cause problems then when traveling as a large group, which is the real issue near the Canton school. So your argument may make sense for individuals, but not groups of students.
Oh, and this new beacon of academic excellence will give priority admission to current Canton Middle students, so essentially it will be the same problematic kids. The school will just have a new name.
And it's ironic that some people are taking the NIMBY attitude towards Canton...if the city had promised, say Paterson Park neighborhood for example, that they would shut down a troublesome school at the end of the year and then did a last-minute covert decision and announced they were going to keep the school open, I'm sure that neighborhood would be equally pissed off. After "community outrage", someone in Sheila Dixon's inner circle would step in and get the decision reversed. There would be no cries of "NIMBYism", just a 30 second video clip on the local teevee "news" about how a local community pulled together and made a difference.
There would be no cries of "NIMBYism", just a 30 second video clip on the local teevee "news" about how a local community pulled together and made a difference.
I guess you didn't hear all the bellyaching from the pretty blond woman a couple of weeks ago who contacted all four local news outlets, Councilman Jim Kraft, and Sheila about a mugging that took place on her block- which resulted in Canton getting a special meeting set up with the SE Police Major. If you were in attendance at this meeting, you would know that the Canton residents had some ridiculous requests- such as having foot patrols set on each block.
Was there a homicide today? I saw something on WBAL (tv not their website). Wasn't sure if it was City or County.
I guess you didn't hear all the bellyaching from the pretty blond woman a couple of weeks ago who contacted all four local news outlets, Councilman Jim Kraft, and Sheila about a mugging that took place on her block- which resulted in Canton getting a special meeting set up with the SE Police Major. If you were in attendance at this meeting, you would know that the Canton residents had some ridiculous requests- such as having foot patrols set on each block.
You're obviously part of the problem in this city--Canton would be nothing more then an ordinary shit hole without the investment that has come almost entirely from individual homeowners in the last ten years to move that community into the slightly above average shit hole category. To infer that those residents don't deserve the same level of city resources that other areas of the city receive is just flat out wrong. In fact, if there were more of these types of demands city-wide, we wouldn't be stuck with as many of the moronic and corrupt political leaders like Dixon and Jessamy.
Right on Traveller.
Folks spend their time and money to improve their neighborhood and the troglodytes want to take it from them as a "fairness" issue.
You're obviously part of the problem in this city
Have you ever attended the SEPD community meeting (doubt it, since I never see any Canton residents listed on the sign-in sheet)? Have you ever participated in a COP walk (doubt it, since our community association had to come to your community meeting to discuss how to set one up in your neighborhood)? You want a higher level of protection for your neighborhood without putting forth the effort. Perhaps you should look in the mirror before you accuse me of being part of the problem.
that's a question to ponder-- if one neighborhood is paying in many times more local income & property taxes than another, does that entitle the neighborhood to better services and more of a say of what goes there?
A Columbia student in NY did a study of what they called "Million Dollar Blocks"-- where the cost of incarcerating the residents of a block was <$1m a year.
Our population density is obviously a lot lower, but I'll bet we have a couple of those.
Anyhoo, if one block is costing the city millions and another is paying in, it doesn't make practical sense to put a sewage pumping station or a halfway house, etc, on block B, right?
... not that a "high quality school" is the same as a sewage pumping station.
Ahem.
Ahem!
It's NOT the block that entails all that incarceration cost. It's the individuals living there.
Individual people, or even subcultures of them, are at fault, not things and not places.
And these people are a PUBLIC hazard. They are a public nuisance.
Monitoring and incarcerating them is not your neighborhood's job any more than it is mine. If Cedonia isn't interested in bearing its share of the burden of Belair-Edison's problem people, then it needs to secede and comprisea new, independent municipality, but as long as it intends to live under the same municipal roof, everyone is entitled to the same expectation of public safety.
Regardless of where they live and regardless of what they pay.
What Baltimoreans seem to intend is 'I want to be personally safe, but I'm willing to authorize criminals to victimize everyone else, which is justified because they're not in my race, or my class, or my neighborhood.'
Question: If we let some junkie kill your next-door neighbor inside his house, are you OK with that because 'well, that's next door.' ???
In any DECENT place, basic, nasty criminality is offensive and unacceptable wherever within a community it should happen to occur.
I've never heard of authorizing crime as long as it's on the other side of the park. If you don't want to provide policing there, redraw your municipal boundary and cede jurisdiction to a government which will responsibly implement the State's Criminal Code. But you do NOT have any authority to choose to selectively shelter criminality under the umbrella of your jurisdiction.
What the Hell kind of 'community' authorizes which victims to subject to basic crime ??
Wake up, Baltimore. You don't have a little criminal population. At least a third and maybe a majority of your young males (and increasingly, the females too) would be behaviorally unacceptable in most American communties.
In the terminology of Homeland Security, you are living within an insurgent stronghold. A big, glowing red hot zone on the map of the East Coast.
Martial Law and lockdown are not hyperbole. I guarantee that if you airlifted half your young male population into Peoria, they would promptly declare a crime emergency. Kinda like the Katrina diaspora cities.
And for anyone inclined to say 'Oh, he's over-reacting, it's not that bad.', let me remind you that in the real world the sitng of school could be controversial because kids are loud or parking is tight.
When a broad cross-section of your young population is criminally hazardous and a goddamn middle school is a credible threat to public safety, you're in a disaster zone. Time to admit it.
that's a question to ponder-- if one neighborhood is paying in many times more local income & property taxes than another, does that entitle the neighborhood to better services and more of a say of what goes there?
Good question, but keep in mind that although property values are generally higher in Canton than in its surrounding neighborhoods, Canton residents aren't necessarily paying more in property taxes.
Here's an example: In 2007, Person A buys a Canton rehab for $300K, and Person B buys one in Patterson Park for $250K. Both houses were last assessed at $50K (i.e. pre-rehab value). Since Canton's next reassessment does not occur until 2009, Person A will be entitled to claim the Homestead Credit- which will cap his net assessed value at $50K plus 4 percent. However, since Patterson Park's reassessment occurred in 2008, Person B would be ineligible to claim the Homestead Credit since he did not live there for 12 consecutive months. Thus, he would be subject to the full tax liability based on a $250K assessment. Using the tax rate of $2.38 per $100 of assessed value, Person A pays just a little over $1,200, while person B pays five times as much!!! Therefore, it is possible that Patterson Park pays just as much in property taxes, in aggregate, as Canton (if not more).
Cybes, on your question of how to pay for the million dollar blocks, I'd suggest that aggregating them by block or any other geography is very convenient. And analytically meaningless.
I do have a tractable solution: allot a maximum lifetime value per offender for incarceration, treatment, etc.
When excessive episodes of criminal behavior exceed his maintenance budget,... line full; no food. No heat.
If they want to pay their maintenance privately (including rent), fine. Sit in jail,serve our term. Otherwise, perish.
I see no reason why we should reward the most criminal with the most expenditure.
mjb,
This accidental shooting.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.
My goodness, the bickering! In your separate corners, please.
Now. My son attends a public school, and I am also the chairperson for the Youth Services Committee at WPNPC. Our target demographic is "at-risk" youth between the ages of 16 and 21.
Do some of our kids have criminal records? Sure they do. On the flip side, they're the ones who see me walking home from the Safeway struggling with a heavy bag in my hand and offer to help me. Do my tax-paying neighbors do this? No, they honk at me and wave as they drive by. I never hear them say things like "Miss Carol, you shouldn't be carryin' that heavy bag, your arms are too short." No, they HONK and WAVE. Like I have a freakin FREE HAND to wave back??
As for tax money being the ticket to entitlement...well, let's face it -- we live in a society where everyone thinks they're entitled to better than what the next guy has. So taxes are a handy excuse to justify this sickening societal trend.
Look, I'm not saying everyone should do what I do and engage these kids -- but there ARE some out there who would love a shot at something better, and they're willing to work hard to get it. They're polite, kind, and creative...which is why I'm currently busting my ass trying to expand our programming to include an arts program down here in Pigtown.
And for the record, Living Classrooms does some absolutely incredible work with kids here in the city. YOU find a kid who hasn't eaten in three days, has no permanent home, and has a drug-addicted parent...and tell him to "suck it up and get over it". It CAN and DOES work. I'm not in favor of mollycoddling kids -- just ask both of my own children, they'll tell you I'm tough. But...I also try to balance it with the knowledge that had it not been for a couple adults in my life who never gave up on me as a teenager (most notably, my grandmother..for whom my cafe is named) -- I would have been just another statistic, just another kid for you to scorn.
I thought that this story was heartwarming (the prison sentence part that is. The bit about forgiveness made me roll my eyes.)
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