and Holy Crap! The Mayor was Indicted!
February kicked off with the "gold medal winner of bong hits," and "A Baltimore man filed a $210 million civil lawsuit ... in connection with a 2006 incident during which he says a band of rogue cops held him at gunpoint in the street, stripped him and searched his rectum in front of about 30 onlookers."
Wonder what happened to that one?
And February marked the end of The Examiner, which would become the beginning of Investigative Voice.
March kicked off with a murder outside of Coconuts, we learned of a murderous girl gang known as the Bounty Hunters and heard tales of Bloods-affiliated prison guards, plus the story of "Kanibal Lecktor," who led the Bloods from his Cumberland prison cell.
And don't forget, who Rikki Spector weaseled out of a traffic ticket and claimed the officer whose order she ignored needed more training.
In April, dog owners foamed at the mouth at new $1,000 leash fines. Indictments revealed how the Black Guerilla family got cell phones and Grey Goose vodka in jail. And there were the very sad stories of Lemuel Wallace and the family murders at the Towson Sheraton.
May kicked off with Patrick Byers spared the death penalty for the murder of Carl Lackl, and continued with pedestrians attacked by packs of wilding teens, a trend that would go on to rage through the summer. And Helen Holton thanked the Almighty for getting her off the hook! HALLELUJAH!
In June there was a hextuple at Shirley's Honey Hole, Bealefeld keeled over during the police 10k, and the CP debuted the charming feature, "Guerilla Family Portraits." And we met scary Sirliar Stokes, who shot a dancer in the woods and then went back to the strip club. And in June the year's oldest murder victim, Ethel Henderson, was set on fire, allegedly by her drug-addicted grandson who was angry she wouldn't give him money.
July brought more street attacks. In NY, a baby shower for the wife of Jamie Hector, the actor who played Marlo Stanfield in The Wire, ended in a gunfight that left a 17-year-old dead and two men injured. And the Sun turned to Twitter in a big way.
August was Jon Cardin's douchey proposal and lots of Harbor violence.
In September, Ponts killed Rice with the samurai sword, and hidden cameras revealed how helpful and friendly Baltimore ACORN staffers are.
And we got this stat:
"The 234 people killed last year had a combined 2,404 prior arrests - 162 related to guns and 898 related to drugs. That's an average of 10 arrests per suspect and 10.3 arrests per victim."
In October, Hopkins student Miriam Frankl was mowed down by a rampaging drunk after cops repeatedly ignored 911 calls.
November's claim to fame is the trial-- and conviction-- of the Mayor, who still refuses to step down. Still no word on who's going to pay for her crack team of esquires.
And here in December, we saw an 81-year-old put in jail by mistake, a soldier on leave from Afghanistan killed on a trip to the store, and our youngest murder victim, 20-month-old Janaya Wallace. And at 237 official homicides, we're wrapping up the year with three more murders than last year. For what it's worth.