Other side of the bars

Five years for Larry Morris, and jail time for other corrections officers convicted of beating a woman in their custody at Central Booking and Intake. All very Stanford Prison Experiment.

Here Come the Swarming Drones

Perhaps you weren't freaked out about reports awhile back of drones crisscrossing Baltimore and trailing citizens' cars. And maybe you were unruffled when you found out drones have been cleared for use for commercial purposes (muses one flying-camera operator, "Maybe the F.A.A. should give a driver’s license for this ... Do a background check to make sure I’m not a terrorist.”) But how do you feel about Harvard engineering hummingbird-sized drones that can swarm you with cameras, poison darts or God-knows-what? Anyone else see the military-industrial complex's planes showing off over the city yesterday and heave a sigh of relief that they weren't bombing *us*...

Your Tax $$ at work...

The mayor's got more than half a million buck$ to throw at video-conferencing phones, in the meantime the Baltimore Police's public-information crime-mapping site has been down since at least April (if you can get it to load, let us know...)

.. Ahso, they have moved it to this link.  No more mapping, though, right? You have to search by street name, and there is no way to search by zip code...

Comptroller versus Mayor...

Comptroller Joan Pratt says the mayor broke the law when she bought 600K worth of video conferencing phones for the city

98

The man shot Monday night in the 2600 block of W. Patapsco Ave. has become Baltimore's 98th murder victim. He has been identified as 28-year-old Ronald Dawson, who (somewhat) infamously recieved just one year in jail for killing an 18-year-old in AAC back in 2006. It was believed that Dawson may have been the victim of an attempted robbery before killing Taveon "TJ" Watson. Dawson was awaiting trial on motor theft charges, and had a violation of probation on his Manslaughter conviction scheduled for October. **

'Ol Pat McDonough can sleep easy now, because the city has opened up a brand-spanking-new curfew center!

I'm posting the most recent North Baltimore crime report simply because the headline "Man Picks Fight, Gets Beat Up" makes me chuckle.

Owings Mills resident Miguiel Anthony Bailey (alternately spelled Miguel), age 22, was found shot dead inside a car near an apartment complex on Mopec Circle.

A long time in the pen for a County couple convicted of imprisoning and starving a a 22-year-old woman in order to collect her disability checks. Germaine Smith-Bey, 31 (Pictured Right) got 50 years while his gal pal Kimberly King, 39 (Pictured Further Right) received 40.

Finally a whopping 60 days in the can for robo-call "brains" Julius Henson. The political consultent was found guilty at trial on one count and acquitted on three others. Henson didn't much care for the case against him (shocking) calling it a "witch hunt."

'Your dumb ass just fell over a table ’cause you can’t walk straight'

Frank Klein: iced by a drunkard with a pink pimp chalice.

Honfest's First Annual Drag Queen Pageant was cancelled due to lack of interest from said drag queens, but thanks to City Paper photographer Frank Klein a fat, sweaty ice-heaving drunkard is getting his 15 minutes of fame. Police issued an 'APB' and I hope the CP will let us know if he turns up!

City's Getting Relatively Safer, Says FBI...

Crack open the champagne! The most recent FBI statistics show that Baltimore's murder rate is no longer among the top five cities in the US. Hooray!*

A 22-year-old woman was attacked and raped after leaving a Federal Hill bar. The woman, who had no recollection of the incident, woke up on someone's lawn several miles away.

County Police are scratching their heads after the body of 33-year-old Janell Earlita Balogun was found in the woods along Frederick Rd. Balogun wasn't quite a civilian, having prior drug dealing convictions, an assault conviction from a few weeks ago, and active warrants for motor theft and forgery.

Several recent shootings, including a guy who got capped in his Bridgehampton Drive apartment, a triple shooting in the 2200 block of Annapolis Ave that put two teen girls in the hospital*, and a Sunday drive by in the 5400 block of Crismer Ave.

A massive fire engulfed a vacant warehouse in the 500 block of South Broadway St.

During a foot-chase of a drug suspect in the 5100 block of Stafford Street an officer shot and killed a pitbull. 

19 years in the slammer for police impersonator Joshua Hatch, 29. Hatch would put on a fake badge and rob people with pseudonym of "Officer Henson." A co-defendant received two years for partaking in one of the impersonation robberies.

A 17-year-old girl was falsely accused of attempted murder, leading her to spend four days in jail and miss her high school graduation.

The hell? A couple of AACO teens threw a bottle bomb at a six-year-old girl playing on a school playground.

Over in Pikesville, a woman kidnapped her biological child in during a visit. The mother, 20-year-old Kendra Nicole Gough, 20, faces kidnapping and weapons charges.

In the county, the Towson Trader Joes was robbed at knife-point, and Essex criminal Thomas Edward Maroney, 19, escaped custody and enjoyed a few sweet, sweet hours of freedom.

Probably not going to make for a good reference... A disgruntled former employee of the Tark’s Grill, identified as 43-year-old Oscar Mendez, attempted to set fire to the kitchen just an hour after getting canned. No one was injured.

The wife of Carl Johnson, a man who died after being tasered by police, has filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the county and state police departments. 

Multitasking heroin dealer Kenya Salik Montgomery, 40, got 10 years in the federal pen for being a part of two different drug organizations.