Friday, September 21, 2012

So Random

Victim of a hit-and-run in West Baltimore, Veronica Grey, has died. Should she be listed on the toll? Homicide, yes, intentional, probably not, but could she been saved if the driver stopped to render aid?

A man was shot in the shoulder by random people* who knocked on the door of his house on Random Road, a 19-year-old was shot on Harford Road, the man shot on Coventry Road was ID'd as Miguel Crosby.

Baltimorean Daquan Davis was charged with killing his girlfriend's six-month-old son in Atlantic City; Davis is due back in Maryland October 1 to face theft charges in Upper Marlboro.

Officer-turned-bail-bondsman Keith Nowlin is facing federal charges from an incident in 2010 in which he used his police computer to run someone's tag number for a friend*-- probably usually not a biggie, but friend was a drug dealer being followed by the feds, and the someone turned out to be an undercover officer. Whups!

Forty years for Bruce Byrd, the triggerman in a conspiracy to murder witness Isaiah Callaway, who snitched on a stolen-money order scheme. (Probably more has happened with the U.S. Attorneys lately, but as has been happening for weeks now their site attempts to load endlessly but won't. Can't help but wonder if some con artist or other disgruntled convict is attacking their server).

Thirty-five years for Steven Langville, who broke into a guy's house while he was sleeping, wrapped his hands around his neck, demanded money and his car keys and rode off in the victim's car.

Police say the Peppers were killed by blunt force trauma from a knife and a dumbbell; Oklahoma Fox affiliate has a photo of their highly suspect grandson Matthew Long, left, who's now out of a coma and in an OK jail.

A lot of missing laptops and a waitress assaulted with a wine glass by a patron over a "dispute about seating" at some restaurant in the 800 block of S Broadway (Max's? Bertha's?) in the Balt Guide's SE blotter.

The Sun recounts a notorious 1956 county murder of a housewife who was snacking on cupcakes and ice cream when a drifter broke into her house and killed her. The moral: snack on what you damn well like, because you just never know.

Good gracious, that Dan McIntosh/Keeghan Leahy trial is still going on down in Greenbelt

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

City homicides to be solved by honor system

The woman found near Oldtown Mall was ID'd as Rasheedah Muhammed.

Whoa. If Cham's research is accurate, the police haven't charged anyone with a homicide in nearly a month--- and the last guy charged, Dominic Gantt, turned himself in. If the chart is accurate and I'm reading it right, all of 2012's 151 homicides, only 40 have resulted in anyone being charged. Could that possibly be? A 25.9% clearance rate? Really??

Another whoa, Rod Rosestein's former right-hand man, Jason Weinstein, has resigned from the Justice Dept. following the Fast & Furious report (aka the "ATF Gunwalking Scandal"); the DOJ says he should have known what was happening and stopped it, Weinstein told the papers that's a load of crap (in classier language).

Former Baltimore Police officer Daniel Redd got 20 years in the federal pen for selling heroin.*

A fire in the NE was reportedly set by a molotov cocktail.

Oh, and by the way, if you have more than two pets, according to the city council you're running a private kennel and owe the city $100.

154

The body of a 26-year-old woman was found dumped in the parking lot next to Oldtown Mall. The mall, really just a shopping strip, is a notorious heck-hole; in 1999 it burned down, for years it's been a mostly-vacant eyesore, in 2009 it housed the China Garden restaurant from which the murderers of victim Tien Zin Wang ordered his last delivery.* The woman was shot in the torso.

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A Fenton article in the Sun and WaPo today gives more details on the life and death of scientist and dad Peter Marvit, shot to death in Belair-Edison. (thanks evaline)

David Simon and the City Paper are scandalized about what they say are "new rules" for charging homicides emanating from Gregg Berstein's office, which give the SAO "unilateral" authority to decide to charge suspects with murder. The alleged rules have allegedly tied the hands of detectives and resulted in half as many homi­cide cases being pros­e­cuted by his office than under Jessamy. Simon and Ericsson also accuse the SAO's office of doling out demotions or transfers to any detective who disagrees with the policy, and of providing misleading statistics to reporters, then, when called on it, claiming that the stats don't matter. Bernstein's office denies both that there's a new policy and that homicide prosecutions are down (no word on the retaliatory demotions). Hrm. (If the new policy exists, then surely it's for a reason-- why deny it?)

Anna Ditkoff's Murder Ink recaps last week's seven homicides

Our own little Chris Brown, Aquille Carr, will have his babymom-kicking-and-punching-related charges dropped if he completes a domestic violence program.*

A burglar burgled the offices of 43rd District Reps Maggie McIntosh, Curt Anderson and Mary Washington, making off with a laptop. The Patch notes that 6th district City Council rep Sharon Green Middleton also was burglarized a month ago. And a few blocks away a JHU security officer caught a burglar breaking in to the Moxie Hair Studio.

Police warn Canton residents of (another) string of burglaries, from a brazen thief who likes to strike between 3-11 p.m. by coming right in the front door.

Matthew Long, grandson of the murdered Peppers who drove off in their car and was found in a coma in a Weatherford, Oklahoma Travel Inn, left a note saying "sorry for what I did."

Twenty big fat federal years for Rodney "Rocco" Peters of the Gettis drug organization from Judge Motz. Peters was the 28th member of the organization to plead guilty, others have included "Captain," "Cutty Rock," and "D-Squared."

A drive-by paintball-shooting in Old Goucher

Four bald pot dealers were arrested in Glen Burnie

Police in AAC are looking for a guy who robbed a bank in Annapolis wearing a ... what is that? Charlie Sheen? Matthew Broderick? Rod Blagojevich? ...  anyway some kind of creepy mask of a white guy with a cowlick.

Oh, you knuckleheaded cutup, you...

A must-read for any resident of our pervy town from Malcolm Gladwell in this week's NYker: "In Plain View: How Child Molesters Get Away With It."

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

153

Dr. Peter Marvit, 51, left (via AP) was shot to death in the 2800 block of Chesterfield Avenue* near Belair Road and Herring Run Park last night. MG Hare reports that he was shot in the head and chest while parking his car; police think was an attempted robbery. According to the Internets, Marvit attended Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, Oberlin College and got his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked as a clinical trials researcher for the NIH at the University of Maryland.

A 21-year-old was shot last night on E. 21st St.* near Charles

"That's why you're the judge and I'm the law-talking guy." Bernstein's taking heat from Charles Villagers,* incensed that one Lonnie Butler of Worser Waverly was sentenced to time served for dealing heroin by Judge Barry Williams, in spite the fact that Butler was on probation when he got caught. (He does have quite the resume, that Lonnie P. Butler b. 1958, a veritable smorgasbord that includes calling in a fake bomb threat to breaking n' entering and assault.) (Bernstein correctly pointed out that he can't tell judges what to do, but don't prosecutors have to agree to deals?) Charles Village court-watcher Steve Gerwitz has another busy week ahead, with armed robbers/ burglars and carjackery on the docket.

Yay, a picture of the meshuggah Oldsmobile-driver in White Marsh who tried to run over a lady she thought had stolen hear parking place (and also the bystander writing down her info). Note the tear on her right cheek. She was ID'd as Brandy Tennille Ames, 35, of Harr Park Court in Edgewood, and she's being held on $1 million bail. She's being charged with first-degree assault, but not attempted murder.

Uhm, whut? A 40-year-old man in HoCo, Donnell Vannison, was sentenced to 60 days in the pen, relating to an incident in which he went to Long Reach High School in a ski mask to seek out the teenager who'd allegedly thrown a French fry at his sister two days before. Said teen responded by using the long reach he'd been studying to deck Vannison and knock him out cold, an indignity caught by some student's camera phone. Naturally, the video "went viral" on WorldStarHipHop.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Paramedic assaults patient,
a gas cocktail,
a flipping scheme


Have you seen missing 9-year-old Jasaiah Roberts? He was last seen Saturday in the 3100 block of East Monument St. 

A 24-year-old man was shot in the chest on a basketball court in the 1400 block of N Caroline St. in the Oliver* neighborhood, reports the Sun's Mary Gail Hare

?! A woman in the 4600 block of York Road tried to sicken her niece by serving her water with gasoline in it.

?! A paramedic named Shaun White was arrested for assaulting a patient*. Fenton reports that the victim was a drunk 36-year-old woman and the assault was caught on tape* and involved a slap across the face. Oh my. And irony alert!! Olympic gold medalist Shaun White was also arrested this weekend-- he was drunk and assaulted a telephone and then himself by slapping his drunk face on the floor while trying to hit someone else. What does it all mean?!

Poor Anthony Batts! His contract with the city has him taking a $60,000 cut below what he was making in Oakland* to command a force six times smaller than ours.

One Kenneth Koehler pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud in a scheme whereby he lied like a rug to get fraudulent loans for six properties in Upper Fells Point, kept Fannie and Freddie's cash and then let the properties fall into foreclosure. Four of the houses are in the same block of S. Chapel St., one is 2217 Gough and another in the 200 block of S. Castle. The City Paper covered this story back in 2008, Koehler told Ed Ericsson he's owned 27 properties in and around Fells Point.

Glen Burnie dad Mitchell Gresham is being charged as an accessory to murder after helping his son, Cornelius Johnson, cover up the killing of his half-brother, Andrew Michael Johnson.  (Explains the Gazette, the brothers had the same mom but two different dads.)

More deets on Matthew Long, the grandson suspected in the deaths of the Peppers: he was en route to California and found in a Travel Inn in Weatherford, OK; the motel owner called the cops after not getting a response from Long's room. Creepy detail: the motel is two blocks from Dead Woman's Crossing, so named after a notorious murder in 1905 that, legend has it, led to a suspected accomplice poisoning herselfWhat does it all mean?!

From the "shocking to no one" files, Luke Broadwater reports that "More than half of the 1,900 city officials and employees required to complete ethics and financial disclosure forms fill out the forms incorrectly or not at all.*" In other unshocking news, all signs point to our gov eyeballing a 2016 presidential run. .. poor O'Malley, after all these years he's still trying to live down "Carcetti." Meowed the guv to Governing magazine, "David [Simon] came to Baltimore and saw nothing but suffering and hopelessness, and made a lot of money on it."

In the Patch metro blotter, a skeevy 20-something in Essex set fire to a garage,  a drive-by shooting in Pikesville, an armed robbery on a Sunday afternoon in Owings Mills.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

152

A fatal shooting in the 500 block of Coventry Road* in the SW, a fatal shooting on Buena Vista that was determined to be a suicide, nonfatal shootings on the 4200 block of N. Charles (right between Guilford and Tuscany-Cantebury) and a shooting following a bar fight on 200 block of South Pulaski St.

Murder victim #151 Freddie King was ID'd as the father* of Georgetown's Tyshell King, one of the country's top basketball recruits. "King had done time in prison — court records show he received seven years in 1996 for a drug distribution conviction — and that he was focused on his [child] having a better life."

On Friday one Marcus Lynch was found guilty of raping a 13-year-old in Frank Bocek Park. Lynch also tried to strangle her, but was run off when passers-by heard her screaming.

The city will pay $500,000 to an elderly couple, Aubrey and Lena Knox, who police accused of kidnapping their grandchild, and who were kept at Central Booking even after the grandchild was found in another state.

The grandson of murdered octogenarians Vauhgn and Marjorie Pepper is now officially a suspect in their deaths; Matthew Long, 31, was found in Oklahoma but is in a coma following a suicide attempt.

GOTTA GET TO YANKEE CANDLE!! -- out on the pale swamp, a Volkswagen-driving woman was punched in the face then squashed by the Oldsmobile of a woman who felt the victim had stolen her parking place. Also hit was a bystander who was writing down ×ž×©×•×’×¢'s information.

A man who was shot by police when he tried to run over an officer with his car was ID'd as Steven Gary, 45, of Pikesville

There's an idea: a guy in Houston paid his speed camera ticket with 137 dollar bills folded into pigs.