Happy surprise drug test day

Two shootings Saturday night.

Trial is scheduled to start today for Quinton Bass, the man accused of murdering Alex Ulrich in Mt. Vernon.

Whoa, man. Apparently 6,005 people were arrested on marijuana charges last year,* which is, incredibly, the lowest number since 2008. Of those, the majority had less than two teaspoons of pot, and 93 percent of arrestees were black.

by Fenton

Here's the full story on Friday's dirt bike and puppy seizures*

Harry Davis, 22, was convicted on 2nd-degree murder charges. "Davis approached four young men sitting on the porch of a home in the 500 block of East Lynn Avenue and asked if they wanted to join his gang. When they declined, Davis laughed at them and said, "I'm gonna rob ya'll." Several hours later, he returned, pulled out a shotgun, and started shooting at them. He struck two of the young men. Stray bullets also hit a woman who happened to be exiting a neighboring home with her husband at time. She suffered eight gunshot wounds and died from her injuries."

Deeply Creepy Music Teacher
Lawrence Joynes, 54

Remember that deeply creepy MoCo music teacher with child porn on his computer? Apparently some of the videos were actually made in his classroom, and parents are understandably freaking out wondering where the images of their children have wound up. Also, he had the name of one of his students tattooed on his shoulder.

Raven Rolando McClain was arrested for disorderly conduct in Alabama.

Ever since it burned down and was re-opened, the Towson CVP has been a hotbed of nefarious activity. There was that shooting last December, and then a guy was stabbed and two guys were arrested Saturday night/Sunday morning. UPDATE: stabbed guy was ID'd as Ryan Scholthauer, a former U of MD football player, and the fight was over some girl's honor.*

Colin Wolf, 19, was arrested for killing his two-year-old neice in HarfCo, and a 50-year-old man was murdered in Edgewood

Media blabber: sounds like the Koch Bros are pretty serious about buying the Tribune Co. (NYT link)

Never mind that the Feds already monitor everyone's email and millions of people's cell phone activity, yet no one noticed one of the Boston bombers posting YouTube videos re. jihad, or that ubiquitous cameras did catch the bombers-- the "national security" lobby is using the Boston tragedy to push for even more surveillance. 

LOL OMG TRASHY ❤

Ravens to Superbowl: fans celebrated by either lighting fireworks and/or shooting guns (a possibility Buzzfeed declares a "lol" "trashy" "fail") and in Federal Hill boozy-but-jubilant fans were either sprayed with pepper spray* or Nicorette, depending on who you ask.

A woman named Melissa Davis was stabbed to death Friday by a man she was arguing with in the 300 block of E. N. Ave., she was the city's 9th homicide. The 8th was an unid'd 19-year-old man in the SW*

Speaking of the SW, if someone from the SW wants to buy your phone off Craigslist, just say no.

Depressing: "On Wednesday, school officials from around the state will outline the construction and renovation projects they want the state to fund.  The requests before the Board of Public Works is known as the 'Beg-a-Thon.'" Well, plans were stopped for State Center and the Youth Jail, voters held their noses and voted for gambling and football brings in all this money -- no one should have to be begging for nothin. ...some brand new state-of-the-art schools will be built tout de suite, right?

Sausage parties, gay trollies and football

RT @baltimorepolice: Homicide detectives are investigating a stabbing that occurred overnight in the 1800 block of N. Fulton Ave.
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) December 7, 2012

Four people were shot night-before-last*

Sheila Dixon will be in court today for a probation-violation hearing*

Senator Lisa Gladden (D-41) in the courtroom, either for moral support or may have a trial of her own? Donald English representing Dixon!

— MrGiordano (@MrGiordano) December 7, 2012

The poop-storm of robberies continues in the SE, this week's Baltimore Guide collection includes the mugger who said "thank you," an escort forced to drive her her home by two suspects who then robbed her, a woman robbed after she refused to buy food for a guy lurking around a carryout.

Marc Steiner had a sausage party last night to talk homicides (which I guess is cool, given most perps and victims are also male), guests included Fenton and Guglielmi, here's a link to the podcast.

In other sausage party news, The Daily Beast has yet more deets on the Kevin Clash case. (Wonder if they'll phase Elmo out, the whole scandal rather tarnishes the brand, no?) Here's a Jezebel/Gawker summary if you don't want to read all them words.

Down in Greenbelt, the 4th is hearing the case of Anthony McIntosh, a prison guard accused of failing to get medical help for inmate Ronnie White.


More bad speed cameras-- imagine that, a profit-driven corporation cutting corners to maximize profit. Now the one on University Parkway has been demonstrated to have given out a ticket to a car that the camera tracked at 45 mph but was actually going 7.* Yes, 7. Meanwhile last Saturday Xerox/ACS closed down three lanes of Cold Spring to test the camera there and found no problems. Hrm. Last month a state audit found that Xerox/ACS didn't test the cameras before installing them using the standards they were supposed to, and didn't perform calibration checks once they were installed.

A prisoner, Brian Dargan, is being charged with attempted murder after shooting an officer in the leg at St. Joseph's hospital.

Two CV appliance-booglars, Chambers Agurs and Derrick Moffatt, were in court yesterday; both agreed to the statement of facts but pleaded not guilty and both got time served, were ordered to pay restitution and got two years of supervised probation (which Steve G. notes costs the supervisee $75 a month), though now Moffatt (caught red-handed toting a refrigerator door) wants to appeal.

Can we quit acting like it's an isolated incident when people who get beat about the head for a living turn out to be a touch mental? Anyway, happy purple Friday, some Raven got his guns taken away after being accused of domestic violence by his babies' mom.

Also in North Baltimore, five stolen government cell phones, a stolen 1988 Oldsmobile, a burgled yoga studio (how many yoga studios are there in Hampden these days?), a stolen marriage certificate.

The owner of an Annapolis trolley company says he'll shut down rather than be forced to trolley same-sex newlyweds. Note that discrimination against sexual orientation has been against the law in MD since 2002-- guess this Matt Grubbs guy was cool with same-sex hand-holding tourists so long as they were still second-class citizens when it came to marriage. Speaking of marriage, the coverage of the issuing of licenses here has been notably blase, compared to the excited tone of coverage in WA. .. I called down to the courthouse, where a guy named John told me six marriage licenses were issued for Baltimore city yesterday, and that the reaction around the state was similarly underwhelming. (In contrast, Seattle issued about 400 licenses yesterday.) But this is sweet: curmudgeonly traditionalist Frank Conaway Sr. told Pat Warren, "I’m going to see that if the court wants to open on New Year’s Eve, I’ll be here at 12:01. If they want to get married, I’ll be happy to do it." Aww! 

Down at Ft. Meade, the commander who made Bradley Manning stand at attention while naked will take the stand. 

Eenteresting Tweet from Fenton: Oakland has now been put in receivership, which will put it under the purview of a federal judge, a compliance director, and technically also the plaintiffs of its 12-year-old lawsuit if the plan is approved next Wednesday. It looks like it's the first police department ever to be in such a situation, and as the KQED story notes, none in this troika of bosses is actually responsible for running the department.