Toddlers Toting Guns Now

Last night a man was shot twice in the 200 block of Collins Ave* (but he's still alive);  a man shot in the arm in the 2200 block of Parkton Street in Yale Heights; a man shot in the leg in the 4200 block of Fairhaven Avenue; a man shot in the thigh* in the 5100 block of Park Heights Ave. Friday night: a fatal shooting in the 4400 block of Frankford Avenue,* the victim was ID'd as David Porter, 42; a double shooting on Athol Avenue, a man shot on W. Preston Street. Yet no shootings on Saturday or Sunday night? Odd, if true.

Eleven raids, er, executed search warrants, on the East Side near 1600 E. Lanvale. Justin George reports that about 150 officers were ISO 20 people*: three shooting suspects and two homicide suspects, the rest being drug dealers, I guess. So how did it go? "Police arrested at least one suspect."

Robert Long

Last weekend the Sun ran Ian Duncan's interview with Demetrius Smith*. Smith was the guy who was wrongfully convicted of killing Robert Long in 2008. Smith was released in May, and Jose Morales was convicted of soliciting the murder. Duncan's account hangs the wrongful conviction on two lying witnesses, but as Ed Ericson Jr.'s article in the CP detailed last month, there was a whole lot more to it than that.

117 days without a cause or manner of death for Tyrone West. Medical examiner says they won't provide any clarity at all until it's all done
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) November 12, 2013

Huh? Whut? Erica Green reports that last year city schools suspended 33 3- and -4-year-olds from pre-K. "Most of the students were suspended for physical attacks on teachers or students, though a handful were suspended for offenses such as sexual activity, possession of a firearm or other guns, inciting a public disturbance, and vandalism.*" What??? Possession of a firearm?  Sexual activity? At 3? How is this even possible?  ... in other education news, an audit found that the state neglected to distribute $17.2 million in financial aid to college students.* Could have given it out, didn't.

Dan Rodericks revisits Smith v. MD,* a 1976-1978 purse-snatching case that was eventually to provide justification in the secret FISC court for the NSA's mass spying programs.

Oh geeze, so for years this guy Colin Flaherty has been writing me, Salon, and apparently any and every functioning e-mail address he could get his mitts on to promote his book "White Girl Bleed a Lot," a screed that has as its hypothesis that there are roving mobs of black people are going around attacking white people on the regular, with claims are based on a cherry-picked collection of  YouTube clips and anecdotes (because the press is "ignoring, condoning and denying" this secret rapacious pandemic, of course). Pretty nutty. But guess who's taking it seriously? The Washington Times, for one, and now the American Family Association's One News Now, which is apparently doubling down on its race-baiting strategy.

Oh, and 800,000 gallons of raw sewage flowed into the Gunpowder Falls. Eww!

Really out to get you

Spooky comment on the blog this morning--

Today's date of this posting is (October 7, 2013)... As I was driving down Interstate 95-S just past the 295 Baltimore/Washington Pkwy. at 12:45 a.m. this past mid April when I suddenly saw a large drone (about the size of a helicopter)hovering just off of the northbound side of 95-N with red lights flashing on and off underneath it, when all of a sudden, bright white lights touched down in front of my car, then on top of my car and then circled onto the northbound side on top of another car. That was probably the spookiest thing I've ever seen. I feel like we are now living in a twilight zone dictatorship called Obamba-land and no longer the good ole U.S.A. land of the free! We are living in scary times!!!

Yes they are, but spying is a bipartisan effort! And speaking of the federales, the New York Times has uncovered that the government shutdown has been planned for months, and guess which evil duo is behind it? That would be the Koch Brothers, founders of the Tea Party, who are no doubt pleased as punch that the government shutdown means less nosy gubmint poking into their activities, activities such as illegal sales to Iran, fracking and drilling for oil in national parks (which continue in spite of the "shutdown"). The shutdown is win-win for them, and we can expect it to go on for a long time.

The FBI couldn't figure out how to seize the Bitcoins of the founder of the Silk Road, so they seized users' funds instead. Fun fact: Silk Road operated on a TOR network, TOR being an acronym for "The Onion Router," so-called because of its encryption layers. The network was a creation of the U.S. government, which wanted to offer anonymity to users in repressive regimes. The FBI likely took down Ross "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ulbricht by using a backdoor in Firefox to insert malware that identified specific networking devices.

And court records were unsealed that reveal why Ladar Levison shut down Lavabit, the e-mail service provider to Edward Snowden and about 400,000 other people: the Feds demanded that Levison turn over SSL keys that would give them access to every single user's metadata and fined him $5,000 a day when he refused.

Don't think extralegal government activities are something you should worry about? Read this plz, and mull over the fact that Maryland State Police spied on Peace protestors-- not just here or there, but monitored their activities for more than a year.

You're welcome for the porn, Israel

Pushback on the proposed lower curfew from the ACLU, with accusations of racism and class-ism and neighborhoodism abounding ("The sad reality is that if you go to Roland Park, you don't see kids out at 12 o'clock.")  will Batts back off?* That would be too bad, as 86% of Sun readers who take polls support a new curfew. Via @IDuncan, exceptions to the curfew include a minor who's out with a parent, emergencies, school and civic functions... and if said minor is married. Oh, Maryland!

Heated exchanges at a Hampden community meeting* about that methadone clinic. Notably co-owner Moshe Markowitz claimed that 80 percent of clinic patients live within two miles of the clinic. (Markowitz three years ago: "I'm sure in a year and a half we're going to see an article in the Messenger saying this was an asset to the community." So much for that!) Meanwhile an increase in property crime (including burglaries at Spro, Luigi's and Zissimo's) has business owners pushing for foot patrols, but the BPD says they can't afford them.*

Paula Shipley

Ugh, more horrible parents- Paula Jane Shipley of Hampsted, 46, was charged in the drug-related death of her four-year-old* in March; in HoCo Aron James Krampf, 26, allegedly shook his 6-week-old daughter to death.* Parents, if a baby just won't stop crying and it's driving you nuts, put the baby down somewhere safe like the crib, get away from the sound, take a breather, call 1-800-4ACHILD. You don't have to be a mouth-breathing redneck to shake a baby to death in a fit of pique (though apparently it helps).

O'Malley appoints a panel to ensure marijuana remains expensive, inaccessible. And some good news for O'Malley: he got slammed by governor Rick Perry. Not as good as a shout-out from Rush Limbaugh or David Duke but I'm sure he'll take it. M to the O to the M also showed up at the CJCC bearing slides, talking points, barbs for the Sun and City Paper for not sufficiently touting in his achievements.

And to do my part to keep this story from dropping off the radar, here's the NSA revelations of the day:

• the spying operation was so huge and complicated that there was not one single person at the agency who actually understood it.
• The NSA digitally disguised itself as Google to gather personal info.
• Not content to simply have their own secret court that never said no to requests, the NSA violated the court's modest guidelines and searched data even when no reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing existed.
• Oh, and they routinely shared unflitered data with Israel, with no restrictions on how Israel could use it.
• Brazilian TV revealed that the NSA spied on foreign companies as well, such as the oil company Petrobas and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a European firm that enables money transfers.

DEA Has Acess to 26 years of Phone Records

Well, you knew more shoes would drop, and to the world of crime this is the big one: they call it the "Hemisphere Project."
    AT&T and the DEA, in a joint program (heh!) collected every phone record that passed through an AT&T switch -- so basically every cell phone call in North America and some land lines, too. The DEA paid for it, and AT&T has been quietly giving them what they ask for via High Intensity Drug Trafficking-designated employees, with no pesky judge in the way.
   Interestingly, this revelation is not from the Snowden files but from anti-war activist Drew Hendricks in Port Hadlock, WA, who obtained it as a series of PowerPoint slides after filing a public information request from an unnamed West Coast law-enforcement agency. 

“'All requestors are instructed to never refer to Hemisphere in any official document,' one slide says. A search of the Nexis database found no reference to the program in news reports or Congressional hearings."

Easy money, real talk, no game

A man was shot in the leg in the 300 block of McMechen Street in Bolton Hill, walked himself to the hospital.

Shanika Harris, mother of 15-year-old shooting victim Deshuan "Lor D'Shaun" Jones, talked to WMAR, says Jones wasn't shooting dice but was sitting on steps nearby. No suspects have been identified in spite of scads of surveillance cameras nearby.

In jail, you can't change the privacy of your Facebook page. And so here's Yashim Vaughn, arrested for shooting Zeb Drinkwater on 40th and Roland. And don't miss his "wifey," Isabel Love.

Prison official John Galey, 69, has retired, simultaneously taking the fall for a nasty string of attacks on guards, corruption and accidental releases while also collecting a sweet pension.

In other privacy news, the UK Guardian reported Friday that they were partnering with the New York Times to publish the Snowden revelations-- irony alert, in spite of it all journalists still have better legal protection in the U.S. than in Britain. Also last week the creepy revelation that the British government is leaking on itself to The Independent in an attempt to make Snowden look like a security threat.

City Paper for sale.And the former owner of the Jewish Times is now selling smoothies.

Make a little, break a little

An 86-year-old man was strangled to death* in his apartment at the Weinburg Place senior center by Pimlico, he's victim #145.

Michael Smoot, shot three different times in the 90's, was added to 2013's toll.

Yes, that was Cory Bowman who shot himself yesterday. The Sun reports that there have been eight domestic homicides this year.*  Indeed, why don't domestic abusers have ankle monitors (and/or shock collars)?

Two shootings in a year for officer Charles Mewshaw.*

It's been robbery-crazy in the Southeast part of town, even by the standards of the Southeast part of town. Also please help this guy find his bikes. ... a terrific map of all 2013 robberies by Cham.  I would not have expected Belair and Harford Roads to be such hotbeds.

A car that crashed into a house and a Catonsville robbery at gunpoint in the Patch's compilation of top news of the week.

Damon Pitts

Handgun violations bad, hairdo, A+, Damon Pitts. Other handgun violators include Tony Jackson, Keith Deminds Jr. (what's the C for?), Maurice Snowden (any relation to Carl?), Carvell Jones (any relation to CookiePuss?), James Powers, Chris Tomlin, Takuma Tate, Commie Williams (commie?)... wait, speaking of commies, is it really kosher to post photos of these guys when they haven't been convicted? Well, click according to thine own conscience...

WTF, why did George Walter Carlisle II call in a fake hostage situation?

D'oh! AAC purse snatcher snatches purse of woman he knows. Also in AAC, a little boy beaten up for his bike on Disney Road, the perps transmogrified into a donkey and a toad, respectively.

Chief judge of the Foreign Intellegence Surveillance Court: we don't police shit for shit. Obvz not, given the recent revelation that the NSA violated its own BS privacy rules at least 2,776 times.

No good very bad judgement

The Baltimore Sun's got no good, very bad, terrible judgement, says the daily howler, to run a headline re. Trayvon Martin, "The New Lynching." And even though the beating of a Hispanic man near Patterson Park* was not for Trayvon, Fox still has its deceptive headline up. Though now there's a new allegation of a "for Trayvon" beating coming out of DC.

Specialize in import/export and off-the-books specialty sales? Wonder what the latest revelations about the NSA's data tracking might mean for you? Well, these tips from the Guardian's data editor might be helpful. To summarize:

1. If Supplier Pookie has called you from his iPhone, emailed you from his City of Baltimore email account or you asked you to follow him on Twitter, you're going to go down with Pookie.
2. Similarly, if you call, text or email Pookie from an account that can be linked to you, you'll take Pookie down with you.
3. If what you're trying to send through email is your gang handbook, organizational structure or bank account information-- WTF is wrong with you? Show it in person or send it hidden in a book via FedEx or something, stupid.
4. If you can't talk in person or via carrier pigeon, ask yourself if you really need to talk.
5. Use TOR. Very, very slowly.
6. Don't trust anyone who might get tired and lazy and make a phone call or send an email or text on their non-burner phone, because lazy is who is going to send you to pound-your-ass prison.
7. Only use a burner if it never touches the network. Don't call your mom, don't call your boo, don't call your lawyer, just call Pookie. Also if you have an iPhone in one pocket and a burner in the other they can trace the location of the burner, so you're fucked on that front too.
   
   Happy dealing!

The city housing authority and a landlord are getting sued after a house fire killed five.

Cal Ripken is offering a $100,000 reward* for the arrest of the guy who kidnapped his mom Vi.

'Nearly 40'

"Nearly 40" shot.* I guess it's coming so fast and furious no one wants to commit a number to paper.

Meanwhile, revelations about the extent of the NSA's data collection and disregard for the law keep coming, but you wouldn't know it if you only read the Sun. If it's not spare assorted wire copy articles* about Edward Snowden's personal drama then it's how the NSA, FBI and CIA are like, so totally right and who cares about the government's secret courts because Snowden is like, such a hoser! So here, have some links about the secret court that compelled Yahoo and other technology companies to break the law, the new "secret body of law" the government created to justify its means, and the latest revelation that the NSA can store a billion phone calls a day, with 850,000 people having clearance to access said calls. And how about that apparent smear campaign going on against Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who wrote the story? 

5 shootings in 5 hours

last night and another shooting today,* making 28 shot since Friday, helpfully mapped by Spotcrime.

Members of Special Enforcement Section just carried out raid in 600 block of N Kenwood, blk south of quintuple shooting; drugs, guns,arrests
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 26, 2013

Meanwhile Anthony Gugliemi has been reassigned following his unsatisfying remarks after last weekend's record-breaking wave of violence. ("I can see how it looks bad" apparently not a sufficient apology/explanation). So who's the new flak? And police hit the streets ISO tips.*

Milton Tillman Jr.

Milton Tillman III's notorious bail bond company 4 Aces may be put out of business by a new ruling that requires it to quit stalling and actually pay its bonds.* Don't hold your breath, though, the company is masterful at stalling and dodging. Tillman reports that the company has $300 million in liabilities (though the court is only asking for 1/300th of that for the moment). What's kind of amazing is that someone convicted of tax fraud is allowed to own a bail bonds company.

Employee of Charles Street GameStop threatened with death by robbers.

Thirteen years for accused hairron dealer Antonio Lamont "Tracey" Johnson

The Guardian (UK) revealed that the NSA has 850,000 analysts checking phone records, calls and emails. Meanwhile, Bradley Manning's trial is continuing in its 4th week down at Ft. Meade.

TIL in 1983 Johns Hopkins Hospital offered treatment for "severe pedophilia." Wonder what that entails? Also between 1960 and 1985 the Boy Scouts had 1,365 reports of "perversion" in its ranks.

Btch plz edition

Holstein, meet Rosenstein. Local farmer's market fixture South Mountain Creamery has had $62,000 of its assets seized for the crime of depositing cash into their bank account after said farmer's markets. The feds allege the creamery purposefully made smaller cash deposits to avoid triggering IRS reporting requirements so therefore they're entitled to seize SMC's butter. So now following the letter of the law is a crime? Why is this not an IRS/State of MD revenue issue?

NSA: You can't use our illegally collected data to exonerate a murder defendant, that would imperil national security! Related: Gawker has an interesting interview with the couple behind crypome.org. (Note last link is NSFW!)

Finally a picture of Raymond Grey, the police trainee who was shot in the head. Presumably the picture was taken prior to that.


A 49-year-old man was shot in the back and paralyzed on E. Chase St. yesterday.

In case you missed it, a pentuple shooting of three women and a guy in the 700 block of N. Kenwood on the east side. Family dispute? Drug business? Sneaker stepped on? Nobody's saying.

20-somethings in an old minivan robbed a woman of her iPhone and got a fine come-uppance.*

NW MT @BaltimorePolice: Shooting: 5200 block of Cuthbert Ave. Adult male shot multiple times. Homicide Detectives are responding
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 22, 2013

Murderous love triangle revealed in Rosedale (one Diop Fatiu and Tyvon McQueen, 'a man with whom she was romantically accused'). Pics plz Carrie Wells!

The sex offender registry is like a 13-year-old: once you're on it's not easy to get off.*

Drones over Baltimore!

You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you! -- more than one reader has reported seeing what sounds like "Raven" law-enforcement drones flying over Baltimore's East-side neighborhoods, 95 and the Harbor area, hovering around houses and also trailing specific cars.
.. anyone else see these??