Self-reliant and suicidal

Gun deaths as well as gun control attitudes both appear to have racial bias: according to government data, white people five times more likely to commit suicide with a gun than black people. Mansplained the NRA's Wayne LaPierre on the disproportionately high rate of gun suicides by gun owners:
"Gun owners are notably self-reliant and exhibit a willingness to take definitive action when they believe it to be in their own self-interest. Such action may include ending their own life when the time is deemed appropriate." And an ABC News/WaPo poll has found 79% of (presumably self-defined) black people were supportive of stricter gun control laws vs. 48% of white people. And, not for nothing, urbanites favoring stricter gun laws by a 2:1 margin over country folk.

When it comes to HeLa cancer cells, Hopkins' patient privacy liberties are the gift that keeps on giving.

In case you missed it: map of doomed-to-close liquor stores by Cham Green

Mary Washington

about an hour ago

HB 829, Correctional Services - Pregnant Detainees and Inmates - Restraint Restrictions has just passed the House of Delegates (131 Yeas, 4 Nays). Now on to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

Pedophiles, peepers and prisoners

Another new drug for my files: BZP-- as in, a Bronx drug dealer was stopped going 38 MPH Southbound on I-95 and was found to have heroin, MDMA and BZP, and was sentenced to 8 years in the Federal slammer.

Three businesses robbed in the Southeast; two on Eastern and one on Pulaski.

After 143 years, Baltimore's Prisoners Aid has imploded under mysterious circumstances

Good boys go to heaven, bad boys go to Howard County or join the Boy Scouts. So I assume the Baltimore hospital offers 'pedophilia treatment' on the Boy Scout link is Hopkins? Oh my, looks like it is/was, under no one less than John Money, the doctor who tried to turn a boy into a girl. Wonder if they still offer/design/research treatments for pedophiles?

So, a shooting victim walks into a hospital, and the doctor says...

The Office of the State's Attorney for Baltimore City has charged Baltimore City police officers Sgt. Marinos N. Gialamas and Officer Anthony Williams Thursday with second-degree assault for allegedly assailing a man in police custody on Oct. 27, 2011, the SAO also charged Gialamas, 40, with three counts of misconduct and Williams, 37, with a single count of obstructing and hindering an investigation. ... Officials said Gialamas and Williams allegedly assaulted the man in an East Baltimore home after he attempted to flee from officers who observed him engaged in suspected drug activity. 

Creepy and creepier

Two female corpses were found over the weekend. The badly decomposed body of a 41-year-old woman was found at the Wyman House in the 100 block of West 29th street, and the man in the apartment with her body was taken into custody. And a 60-year-old woman found on West 20th street.

A 21-year-old man was shot in the face in Park Heights.

Hopkins hospital has begun contacting patients who may have been infected with Hepatitis C by creepy lab tech David Kwiatkowski. Says a statement from the hospital, "Johns Hopkins is in the process of contacting these patients and offering them free testing for hepatitis C." So generous!

In Remington a man was robbed at gunpoint of a leather bag, $50 and some empty prescription bottles

A man was arrested for stealing two beers from the Kent House on York Rd and is being held on $50,000 bond.

Burglars in Pikesville did $200 worth of damage to two pool chairs. Also, if your pool chairs cost $100 each, you're a wiener.

Fishy, fishy.. SRB's office won't turn over emails and other records from former IT Chief Rico Singleton*. According to allegations, Singleton's ethical lapses at his previous job in New York cost the city $1.5 million.

A reader from Colombia took issue with Al Jazeera's assertion that Baltimore is "more deadly than Bogotá," but actually Al Jazeera is correct, at least when it comes to official numbers. Bogotá's homicide rate is 21 per 100,000 people, Baltimore's is 34.8. Of course we don't have vigilante groups that round up poor people and kill them (and I seriously doubt the official rate includes these limpiezas).

Media Blabber

The Johns Hopkins News-Letter steps in it big time, garnering national press for two lovely pieces: one by Managing Editor Greg Sgammato on how much he hates to see "fat chicks at a Hopkins party," another by one Javier Avitia on the advantages of "Banging Under the Influence," topped it off with half-assed non-apology. Grooming some real charmers over there!

Yes, I know, not a crime, stick to crime reports, etc etc.

Justified

Jessamy rules a JHU student who killed a thief was "justified"

May 22

19-year-old Tray Allen was found dead in a Columbia townhouse yesterday afternoon, in what may be HoCo's third homicide of the year.

Morgan State shooting "victim" David Briggs was arrested for lying to the police.

A 15-year-old boy was charged with shooting three people outside a Frederick County community center on Saturday.

Perv du jour: A Yellow Cab driver allegedly raped a 12-year-old girl who was riding in his cab. Oh wait, whoops, never mind!

Homeless pervs du jour: Missing sex offenders Ronald Roland Ellison and Thomas Joseph Gauthier are both in police custody.

Payton Potochney continues his recovery after being burned by acid that was poured on a slide.

In the Blotter: a 37-year-old man was hit in the face with a brick while gassing up his scooter, and a 49-year-old woman was knocked to the ground by thieves who stole her car.

Beware of groups of young Edgewood men bearing BB guns and knives.

Kudos to BPD officer Anthony Jobst for capturing a repeat burglar.

A blurry white dude is wanted for repeatedly robbing convenience stores in Baltimore County.

Robert Curran withdrew his request for partial martial crime time.

DOJ to Baltimore City: No more craptastic youth detention facilities.

JHU student financial services director Ellen Frishberg has resigned amidst allegations of some sketchy financial favors from student loan companies.

April 10

A man died of a gunshot wound in the 100 block of S. Morely St. near Gwynns Falls Park.

Donta Madison, 31, was shot in the parking lot of the Rite Aid on West Chase Street near Martin Luther King Boulevard Monday night, and survived.

This morning, Judge John C. Themelis sentenced Keon Stokes, 29, of the 1300 block of North Carey Street, to 36 years in prison -- 30 years for second-degree murder, three years for use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence, and 18 months each for car theft and arson, and the sentences are to run consecutively. A Baltimore jury convicted stokes March 20, 2007. Say charges,

On May 1, 2005 Stokes, in a stolen vehicle, struck and killed Kurt Fulp, 20, while Mr. Fulp was riding a bicycle in the 1500 block of Presstman Street. Stokes fled the scene without stopping. Police responded to a call of a car fire later that day and it was determined the burning vehicle matched the description of the one that struck Mr. Fulp.

In the county, Rami Adana Martin, 24, was shot to death at 1:30 a.m. in the Pikesville area.

"It was a regular afternoon at Keeper's Market, a tiny neighborhood convenience store on Brehm's Lane in Belair-Edison. Miss Debbie was buying her scratch-off tickets at the front counter, the store owner was checking inventory in the beverage case and Miss Linda and a manager were playing video games in the corner. ... Then ..."

Salvadoran Deysi M. Benitez, right, aka Rosi Chavez, aka Estela Sedillo, is officially Missing, according to the FBI; aka it's unknown if she is alive or dead.


PduJ: Christian Marcel Liverman, 30, who gave his address as Towson University, is charged with the sexual abuse of a 16-year-old female student at Chesapeake High School.

Non-Profit Malfeasance Dept.
Johns Hopkins University has put a financial aid director on paid leave after learning she had received about $65,000 of consulting fees from a student loan company.

A radiologist who was kicked out of the University of Maryland Medical Center after he performed a Muslim ritual has filed a $30 million lawsuit against the hospital.