No tasks, no force

Legitimate rape on N. Calvert St. in Mt. Vernon, bootleg-looking camera photos released*

A dog walker robbed and stabbed and a whole lot of punching in the Southeast

Morgan State U lawyers are trying to get dropped the lawsuit* from Alexander Kinyua's victim, Joshua Caesar, guy who was beaten and blinded when the skitzy cannibal attacked him with a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat. In other news of responsibility-denying universities, records released by the University of Maryland show their decades-long efforts to cover up/avoid doing anything about the pervy molestations of swim coach Rick Curl.*

Irresponsible Pop-Tart owner Josh Welch got a lifetime membership in the NRA.

Down in MoCo, LeRoy Carhart's Germantown abortion clinic was found not responsible for the death of Jennifer Morbelli and determined that her death was from natural causes. Oh great, disseminated intravascular coagulation, another new, rare, horrible affliction for pregnant women to freak out about. Anyway, the medical examiner's finding naturally makes not one whit of difference to anti-family-planning activist groups.

One Larry Michael Parrish admitted to running a Ponzi scheme in which $9.2 million of investors' money was squirreled away in the Bahamas and Nevis.

How I love a Page Croyder rant-- today's deserving topic is O'Malley's 'Task Force.' 

And who can resist Honkytimes Heimbach squaring off with Shorty Davis? Not Vice magazine!

Santini's Restauarant in Joppa lost its liquor license after a 14-year-old held a booze-soaked fete* on the premises.

More speed cameras in the county-- and are the city's back on or still off? ...  consider downloading the app called Waze-- it's a free talking navigation system that also alerts you to the presence of cameras (though its routes can be a little wacky).

Put on your bitch hat

Awfulness: a 59-year-old man was beaten to death during a home invasion in Oakenshawe.* "Mark Counselman, president of the Oakenshawe Improvement Association, said neighbors knew the victim as 'Ray.' He was known around the neighborhood as an eccentric — the rear entrance to the apartment was decorated with Christmas lights, and on the ledge of the basement window was a Monopoly game and a baseball cap with the word 'Bitch' printed on it." .. and a 15-year-old boy was shot in the Eastern district.

The murder of Carter Scott was a setup,* says his ex-con dad. (Warning, link has a loud ad, but you get to hear Batts say "it is an ongoing vacation. I mean, investigation," followed by Ian Duncan's Leeds lilt Birmingham brogue).

The Ink has murders up through 5/24.

A man was shot at DePaola's Pub in Arbutus*

Twenty years for 31-year-old burglar Bill Fulton.

An Annapolis mom whose daughters were raped on video by their dad and a co-conspirator is now suing the men who viewed video of her children, including six men from Maryland. The case is Jane Doe vs. Matthew Alter.

Instagramming inmate Michael Earl Thomas told a reporter yesterday that his illegal cell phone has now been confiscated.

Task forces for some, shutdowns for others

"At least eight" shootings this past weekend,* one fatal (not counting the baby), one barricade situation in which one Walter McCoy shot his daughter's mother in the legs. It sounds like it was a bad weekend for shootings nationwide. Speaking of shootings, NPR did a story on the ridiculously low-tech way that weapons are traced. And the NYT detailed gun manufacturers' resistance to giving the feds any kind of help when it comes to tracking illegal dealers or suspicious purchases. Sniffed Jeffrey Reh of Beretta, "I can advise you that Beretta U.S.A.’s position is and has always been that the purchase by an individual of multiple firearms is not, in and of itself, evidence of improper or suspicious behavior.”

A second man, Cornell Harvey, was arrested for shooting one-year-old Carter Scott, a third suspect is still at large.

Following the BGF prison scandal, O'Malley's unleashing his scariest weapon: the task force.

Cherrie Gammon

Truth in stereotypes dept: Maryland members of the Outlaws motorcycle club "Maniac" and "Bugs" have pleaded guilty to dealing the crank.

A life sentence for Tyrone "Roland" Johniken for his role in the 2010 murder of block dancer Cherrie Gammon. Co-conspirator "Tay" got 40 years yesterday.

Fifteen years for Guatemalan cocaine dealer Edwin Galvez-Berganza.

Twenty years for York-Road-corridor crack dealer Kenneth Robinson.

The Historical Society has gotten back their documents stolen by Barry Landeau* and his Scott-Thorson-esque sidekick Jason Savedoff.

Michael Barnes re-trial postponed.

The police tried to cancel Kanye West's video projection* on the side of the Walters, citing a lack of proper permits, but Yeezy wasn't having it. This comes on the heels of the Pow Wow being shut down and the cancellation of the Moonrise and sex-fetish festivals. Why so much dislike for the First Amendment, BPD?

Bring Back the Cemetery Picnic

So Memorial Day started after the Civil War, widows and survivors would picnic in the cemetery and sweep and decorate headstones. But as you remember the 4,488 dead in Iraq, 3,221 dead in Afghanistan, dead of Vietnam, Korea, WWII, WWI and earlier, think about the approximately 351,073 people killed in gun violence in the U.S. in the past decade. It's not men from the smellier countries we need to concern ourselves with. It's terrorists at home with no purpose and with testosterone and cortisol to burn and no one but the jackboots of the prison or military pipeline showing them how to build a life. What will we do about these men? How can we honor the dead of the conflicts of the past with our actions tomorrow?

Babies.

Eddie Tarver

Me: "holy crap, somebody shot a baby!" Longtime Baltimroean: "well yeah, but he wasn't aiming for the baby." ... Eddie Tarver, 20, was arrested in the shooting* Friday evening in South Baltimore, which killed Carter Scott. His dad, Rashaw Scott, survived and ID'd Tarver, who had two accomplices sporting latex gloves. Scott, aka Davon Greene, had been charged with murder himself, highlighting the mix of protracted self-defense and revenge at the core of so many of the city's murders. Yesterday "Batts spoke with people at the shopping center before talking to the news media, posing for photographs with a group of young girls and dropping in on a wrestling-themed child's birthday being held in a vacant storefront in the strip mall."

Also on Saturday, the officer who arrested Eddie Tarver shot a suspect in Washington Village (nee Pigtown)

Clifton Bernard

In Suitland, PGC, a two-year-old boy, Jamar Shipe, was murdered on purpose, and surprise, surprise, mom's boyfriend is charged, one Clifton Edward Bernard.

In the kitchen of the Towson Sheraton, one employee stabbed another in the head. The Towson Sheraton, room 1029, is also where in 2009 a man from NY, William Parente, killed his whole family.* For whatever reason Sheratons in general seem to attract a lot of nefarious activity.

Butthurt death merchants at Beretta have decided not to move out of Maryland after all, though took the opportunity to sniff via press release, "The idea now of investing additional funds in Maryland and thus rewarding a government that has insulted our customers and our products is offensive* to us so we will take steps to evaluate such investments in other states." Never thought I'd think this but have to hand it to tobacco companies at least a little-- when states started limiting advertising and smoking in bars and so forth, at least they took it on the chin, diversified their holdings and spared us all the faux vapors and couch-swooning.

Sunday Media Blabber Corner:
Former Commissioner Ed Norris is recovering after his motorcycle accident. He suffered a broken shoulder, broken ribs and minor brain damage.

Not long after Bernadette Woods' departure, dreamboat reporter Adam May announced he's leaving WJZ* for Al Jazeera, an opportunity that lets his family-- husband Derek Valcourt and their son-- stay in Baltimore. Al Jazeera is located in Doha, Qatar, where the penalty for same-sex sex is up to five years in prison, time that may include whippings. Oh, and if you drink a Cosmo? Whipping.
...update at 11:35, just watched his final sign-off and got verklempt. What a classy guy.
Sheldon Dutes has also left town, begging the question--  who's going to be the next candy for the hungry eyeballs of local news-watching ladies age 29-39? I demand to know!

Dick Irwin's* funeral will be on Tuesday.