Post -Riot Blame Game/That Woman Is On Drugs

Hogan's office and aide Keiffer Mitchell said they tried to reach SRB on April 27 from 3:30 to 6 p.m. to get her permission to activate National Guard troops as the riots began at Mondawmin, but she didn't pick up the phone. From the WaPo:

At 2:30 p.m., Drew Vetter, director of legislative affairs for the Baltimore police, e-mailed members of the City Council and state legislators representing the city about a “credible gang threat against officers” and “possible violent activity” at Mondawmin Mall and downtown. ... After 3 p.m., Gregory E. Thornton, Baltimore’s schools chief, headed for the mall, only to be turned back by police who were blocking the streets. Thornton went to City Hall and told the mayor what he had see. ... 

By [3 p.m. Monday April 27], Mitchell had arrived at City Hall, having been ordered by Hogan to “be where the mayor is.” A former Baltimore City Council member who lives a mile from Mondawmin, Mitchell has known Rawlings-Blake since middle school. His uncle, as a state senator, had shown then-Gov. Spiro T. Agnew around Baltimore after the riots that followed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. That was the last time the National Guard had been called in.  ...  

About 6:45 p.m., the mayor traveled from police headquarters to the Emergency Operations Center, where her cabinet was waiting, as were Mitchell and several City Council members. ... Even though the troops had been activated, the mayor waited an additional 75 minutes to inform the public.“She finally made that call, and we immediately took action,” he said. The mayor, when told of Hogan’s remarks, “was pissed off, because she viewed it as the governor politicizing this,” said Harris, her spokesman, adding that the two leaders had talked more than once that afternoon. “She thought it was a rookie move. And you can quote me on that.”

But the billion-dollar questions:

• who ordered police to assemble in full riot gear and lie in wait for kids to get out of school between 3-3:30 and close the subway stop and keep kids from getting on the bus? 
• was that a legal thing to do? don't kids have a right to assemble and not be detained without cause? 
• Wouldn't you freak the ef out and burn stuff if your kid was trapped behind lines of officers in riot gear? 

Witnesses say it took 4-30 minutes for kids to start throwing bricks and bottles at police.

And who/what were police supposed to be protecting on April 27? Not, apparently, Mondawmin mall, where looters were so brazen they loaded clothes and shoes into their trunks by the armful all afternoon and into dark. Or any of the businesses around Pennsylvania and North Avenue.

And who ordered/strongly suggested the shutdown of downtown businesses in the middle of the day, Batts? Did he consult with SRB at all? And why wasn't this suggestion issued directly from the Mayor to all downtown employees instead of what appears to have been communique directly to the biggest businesses? We didn't from the Mayor or Batts himself until late Monday night.

That Woman. Drugs.

Here's my theory of what started the riots: That Woman Is On Drugs. That Woman = Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, of course, and by Drugs I mean something or some combo that's sedating and also an appetite suppressant.  Vyvanse and Ambien? Strattera and espresso? Pot n Percocet? She seems spaced out to the gills every time she's on TV.

And with SRB MIA/apathetic or knowledgeably on board with what Batts felt was a pressing threat, wanting to prove to Hogan and whomever that Baltimore could handle its own business, faced with plunging morale within the department as the threat of body cameras and accountability seeming a real possibility for the first time, Batts dealt with the stress the only way he knew how, like a hammer looking for a nail. 

That's my theory.

'stripped searched in the streets'

Still no clues five weeks after the homicide of Larelle Amos, left.

The man killed on Dumbarton Ave in Pen Lucy was ID'd as Curtis Jones, 28.

Former state delegate Clarence Mitchell III has died at 72. He was/is the father of the CB4 radio host Clarence Mitchell IV, eldest son of Clarence Mitchell Jr. and Juanita Jackson Mitchell (the first black female lawyer in MD), nephew of congressman Parren Mitchell and cousin of Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr.

"Sister Convicted for Stealing Furniture from Man Who Housed Her; Brother Convicted for Trying to Kill Him"

Keith Parker, 40, got 67 months for his involvement in a scheme to steal people's mail, get their checks/credit card/bank account info and digitally rob them.

CVQ4's Steve Gerwitz on forthcoming trials of some village miscreants: Tikia Whitfield (trial starts tomorrow), June Stansbury (Oct 27) and Markell Jones (Dec 7)

The CV 7-11 was robbed of cash & cigarettes

A man was stabbed on Frisby Street and walked nine blocks to the Greenmount fire house for help.

The former CEO of Wings to Go, Mark Chandler Goodnow, will get to brood in a small cage for two years following a conviction for embezzling $885k of chicken scratch from his company to pay for phone sex and hookers.

It was a summertime thing, dealing cocaine and heroin in Westgate. But unlike the school children of Cherry Hill who'd spent their summer idylls lolling and dabbling in the gang's white wares, the Major Investigations Unit had been set hard at work on a mother of an A/V project, one that would, as the soft chill of fall set in, lead to the indictments of Teddic Anderson, Randy Ennis, Rashad Foots and Donnell Vannison, forever trading the balmy corner summers of their tender years with the pernicious clang of bars, and the stench of bologna sandwiches, flung feces and trash-bag wine.

An article from Mental Floss on the "Nutshell Studies" and Frances Glessner Lee, the "mother of crime scene investigations." (thnx CD)

Occupy Baltimore is gearing up to protest the confirmation of presumptive police commissioner Anthony Batts. And good on 'em-- his confirmation should not be a done-deal afterthought, especially given our Mayor's proven track record of hiring people without quality due diligence (eg Rico Singleton, county-dwelling deputy mayor Kaliope Parthemos) and the issues w/ Batts' tenures in Long Beach and Oakland. Not so sure about Occupy's claims of "the abysmal rate of police ... terror ... the reports of women being illegally stripped searched in the streets" though. Surely if police were committing terrorist attacks and women were being nakedized in the road we would have heard about it before now. In any case Occupy is meeting up at 4 on the 17th in front of city hall, confirmation hearings are at 5.

MD juice has a MD debate schedule; there will be a live debate on Question 7-- but it's all the way down in Chevy Chase. There'll also be a question 6 debate in Hagerstown next Wednesday, which will no doubt prove an interesting time.