Merely advisory

Two murders yesterday, of 34-year-old Dwing Robinson Webbs and 40-year-old Natasha Elizabeth Bates, bring the city homicide total for 2013 to 124. And the city is paying for two federal prosecutors, how does that work?

Did you hear the one about the 13 murderers* released in MD after the Court of Appeals ruled it's illegal for a judge to tell jurors that his instructions are "merely advisory" and not legally binding? Now the 13 murderers are getting set free, but, irony alert, the six-time escape artist who brought the case will stay in jail.

In Baltimore, every summer is a gun summer! J.M. Giordano, the photographer who's birthed iconic visual series on subjects such as the variegated fans of death metal, block dancers and doormen and the tranny hookers of Calvert Street is now embarking on a series of photos of city gunshot-wound locations.

Where in the world is Frederick H. Bealefeld III? Today it's the land of Lorca, y'all.

Davis

Busted by the Seventh Day Adventists for storing his homemade child porn at their general conference HQ, one Joseph Edgar Davis was sentenced to 150 years.

Crack dealer Kintrell Todd McEachern got 12 years and lost $13,601.50. Hey, for once the drug guy got less time than the pedo guy!

Remember Matthew "writer turned warrior" VanDyke, the UMBC grad who Dutch tried to rescue from Libya, but then he was all like, no thanks, I'd rather stay in this African hellhole and shoot people? Apparently he's now in Syria, and Van Smith has a curiously fawning article about him in this week's CP.  Recollects the activist documentarian with no apparent hint of irony, "I stayed, and it ticked off some people whose business it really wasn’t."

Baltimore police arrested a PA guy who'd celebrated his birthday by stabbing a homeless man.

.@baltimorepolice say they have arrested a juvenile connected to several Canton burglaries that worried residents http://t.co/p21CyYZFjK
— Justin George (@justingeorge) July 11, 2013

Worth one of your 10 free NYT clicks: "What Does It Take To Get Crips and Bloods to Stop Killing Each Other?"

Roasting, cleaving, voluntarying

Where are all the city's illegal guns coming from? With only five officers on the gun task force and all them federal pro-gun laws it's all anybody's guess. Check out this 4-time gun convict's hand cannon, recovered at a house also operating a daycare.

A city detective, Shane Volk, was killed when he crashed his Jeep in Glen Arm.

Michael "Blizz" Singer

 The tattoo-faced murder accessory who looks 65, left, is a 35-year-old local rapper who goes by "Blizz.* His wife Shelbie is accused of stabbing to death one John Bowman, 22, in Arbutus.

Police think one 16-year-old is responsible for 25 burglaries in Canton.

Tragic: Sharon Mulcahy, the woman whose dogs roasted in a motel parking lot for 20 hours, died soon after she was released from Central Booking. The family alleges the jail failed to give her proper medical attention.

City Paper: Baltimore is "famous for crime, and yet, when it comes to arson, this is the best we can do?" Uhm, I think the city actually does pretty okay on that front.

Hey, that abortion-sign bill is still breathing,* and the Sun actually has me convinced it's a good idea. If Wisconsin can make doctors rape women with a probe and Texas and North Carolina can get thisclose to shutting down every family planning clinic in the state, the phony baloney clinics can suck up posting a piece of paper with facts on it.

Speaking of intrusions, a federal judge has allowed EFF's case against the NSA to go ahead (thanks Scan Baltimore). And good piece in the Economist about our newly revealed secret Supreme Court.

Media Blabber: the Tribune is cleaving off its newspaper biz from its TV-station biz, and is apparently not yet scrapping the idea of selling the publishing piece to a rogues' gallery of shoppers that include Charles and David Koch, a group of libertarian 'voluntaryists' and an alleged Chinese spy's ex-husband.

Didn't miss much

TIL a guy named Dean Palmere is now Deputy Commissioner;
helicaghpter is Bel Air for ghetto bird

Quintuple shooting scene, W Balt https://t.co/LJr83UV9vv
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 9, 2013

Police say preliminarily five shot * here - 600 N Carrollton pic.twitter.com/uj5CYX8dXW
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 9, 2013

Check out tats on man charged with accessory after the fact in Fishhead Cantina fatal stabbing in Halethorpe pic.twitter.com/wRXE4zAKb2
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 9, 2013

.. also apparently he has a wife.

Peace mural unable to prevent shooting on man in wheelchair*

Is the Sun's culture-of-violence-themed Op-Ed a tacit endorsement* of Anthony "Technology*" Brown?

"Gov. Martin O'Malley's tenure as mayor is often associated with aggressive police tactics, an attempt to meet force with force. But he also spearheaded the Believe campaign and its call for every segment of the city to band together to create a better future. That same spirit animates those who marched down North Avenue on Friday"

... yes, the spirit of Martin O'Malley's media campaign was what animated the otherwise 2-D figures who marched near where wheelchair guy got shot. Really?

There may be a big rise in Canton burglaries but it seems like the Southeast pretty much has problems all the time, stealing-wise. Yeah, hi, you bought a house in Canton, Google much?
How I missed this town and the mocking of its denizens!!

Elmo libre

 Kevin Kiadii

Sheldon Stephens

Three lawsuits dropped against native son Kevin Clash b/c of time limits; the alleged actions in, on and upon Cecil Singleton, Kevin Kiadii and an anonymous accuser allegedly happened six years ago, and in 2006 NY established a 5-year statute of limitations on civil claims on sex abuse claims.
BUUTTT there is still one more suit to go, filed by Sheldon Stephens in Pennsylvania district court in March of this year. PA has a 12-years-after-18 statute of limitations, and Stephens' lawsuit involves sleazy lawyers, crystal meth, nitrate poppers and a masturbating chauffeur.

Well, back to Baltimore, where seven people were shot over the weekend.*

.@BaltimorePolice reporting a shooting about 8 blocks from where @MayorSRB endorsed @LtGovBrown this morning
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 2, 2013

And what the fuckty fuck. One Lukasz Szkiluk, 63, "accused of killing his estranged wife had tied up another woman in his Highlandtown home before the killing, according to court records, and the captive told police she chewed through the ropes and escaped after the man showed her his wife’s body."*

'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? 

Make that 36

Ginnie Shird, from Twitter

Last night three women were shot at Elmora and St. Cloud in front of 50-100 witnesses in what the commissioner calls a "neighborhood dispute." One Ginnie Shird, 21, has died. In an interview with Rodricks, Batts attributed some of the carnage to the BGF, implying that the takedown of Tavon White and co. has left a power vacuum. ("We believe there’s a connection at the jail that’s spilling out on the street. But I don’t want to get too much more into that"). And another murder in the 900 block of Bennett Place, where one Marcus Taylor was killed just last weekend. The 2013 toll is now up to 116. Police have now taken the usual step of shutting down the whole street. Here, have a video of a fire hose spraying down human blood.*

"Daniel McIntosh, the erstwhile co-owner of the erstwhile downtown nightclub Sonar and Hampden’s McCabe’s," is awaiting sentencing for his part in a massive pot conspiracy, and if he ever gets out will owe the government $6.3 million. Which sounds like a veritable crapton unless you take into account that the operation was estimated to rake in $150-$200 million a year.

Councilman Stokes has reached out & apologized for his comments & says he stands w/@BaltimorePolice. Let's stay focused on fighting crime.
— Baltimore City FOP (@FOP3) June 27, 2013

DJ Boys?

Batts' testimony last night hints at possible explanations for our recent wave of violence: "In that small block of Kenwood, we have the Bloods gang that has one block. On the other block, we have Black Guerrilla Family on the next block. Then we have another crew that has been coming in called the DJ Boys, who have started to come in." Really? Somebody named their gang that? Also "police said two to three of the shootings appear to be connected" and "the random stuff that takes place because you step on my toes or because you look at me wrong – that was some of the things that were taking place this weekend also."

UPDATE: Fenton reports DJ Boys = Jefferson and Decker, and notes the parallels (and connections) to the 2008-2009 bloody Blackwell feud.* Steven Blackwell is currently serving 20 years in federal prison for money laundering, but apparently still has minions. And Carl Stokes blames the bloodshed on corrupt police officers.

Speaking of corruption, Gary Maynard is appearing on a panel before legislators to help them figure out how to spend more money on prisons.*

Meanwhile the violence continues, with 32 people shot since Friday, three people shot (two killed) early this morning* on North Avenue and Poplar Grove Rd. and a man shot in the arm on Cherry Blossom Way last night.

Well, there's something new, a 17-year-old from St. Michael's, Matthew Mikowski, was indicted for strangling his peer while tripping on LSD.* (TIL a "bad trip" on LSD comes from the dose being tainted with an adulterant like a research chemical or PCP. Also, while lots of people have stuck babies in ovens, none of those people were hippie babysitters on acid.)

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.

27 shot since Friday

Chief of patrol to brief media. 27 shot since Friday. It's only 10 pm #baltimore
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 26, 2013

Shooting: Gwynns Falls Parkway/N.Longwood St. Adult male reported to  be shot. District detectives investigating. Dispatch: 8:53pm #BPDNW
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) June 26, 2013

Shooting:2000 block Northbourne Rd. Adult male reported to be shot in the leg. District detectives investigating. Dispatch time: 8:09pm #BPD
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) June 26, 2013

Shooting: St.Lo Drive/Sinclair Lane. Male reported to be shot in the leg. District detectives investigating. Dispatch time: 7:12pm.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) June 25, 2013

Shooty shoot shoots!

If your expectations involved more shooting, your expectations have been satisfied.  Two guys on South Catherine Street were plugged in the side and the thigh, respectively.
Meanwhile the Police Union has gotten in on the blame game from last weekend's massacre, claiming their report for more effective policing from last July has been ignored by the department.
And Batts will be in city hall talking some words tomorrow night at 6.

Hashim Joseph, 27 arrested by BPD after robbing a McDonald's at gunpoint last night. Great police work by Northeast District. @FOP3
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) June 25, 2013

Another kid mauled by a pit bull, this one Thursday night on Ramsay Street. I know most pit bulls are really sweet but the ones that aren't sure do get around, dayum.

Ed Ericsson reported on the city's biggest tax gives, and how they're performing. "Why should city taxpayers subsidize a billionaire developer building office space for huge corporations and high-end housing, protestors ask, while basic needs go unmet and ordinary taxpayers get socked with ever-increasing fees?" Indeed!

Remember after the Colorado shootings how down in PGC this fat pizza-faced guy called his workplace, claimed to be "the Joker" and threatening to shoot everyone? Well dude is off the hook and has "defective" court documents to thank.

Make that 20

and record-breaking shootings calls for epic platitudes, so where has the mayor been all weekend and all day? .... but was Justin Fenton ever caught slipping? Hell no!* Like a quickly congealing blood puddle, reports are dripping in about the 20 people shot* this past weekend and since SRB slipped off to the conference of mayors in Vegas his soothing Northeastern soft-palate tone will have to suffice:
"do you know any of the victims from the shooting?"

"my daughter-in-law Donyae Jones, my cousin we call her Shanky, her name Yolanda Herr, it was two girls down the street, we heard all the shooting then it sound like somebody was trying to get in my back door and when I come up it was like everybody like all up in my house.. I didn't even know Donyae was like upstairs and when she inside she was all curled up I guess she was trying to leave a message to my son and took her blood and make a heart on the wall and tried to write my son name, you know, Moe. I'm sorry y'all, the more I think about it..."

Geeze I dn't even have the will to talk about the guy hiding coke in his flip-flops.

Make that 19

people shot the past weekend*-- 20 if you include a shooting in the 4700 block of Alhambra Ave at 12:45 a.m. and 21 if you trust the Deuce. After being MIA all weekend (another lobbyist's beach house?) SRB resurfaced today to issue a statement blaming illegal guns. Not satisfying, but still an improvement on Gugliemi's wet beer fart of a comment:

"This is a little bit of a spike in terms of the weekend, but all in all, we're pretty satisfied with the way the city is headed, violence-wise. These incidents are going to happen, so we want to set realistic expectations."

Then Batts walked around Hanover Street in large glasses, and Nick Mosby's wife blamed everything on Gregg Bernstein.

Go home liquor board, you are drunk

The latest booze news post uncovers a hazy limbo in which 'preliminary approvals' are granted before a liquor license is issued, during which time allowed to be open as they work to establish proper legal documentation. The problem is that the Liquor Board apparently never checks to make sure legal requirements-- like proper zoning-- are met, so that reportedly 28 of 30 establishments granted licenses didn't actually meet legal requirements. This led to, for instance, the Touch Down bar of Pigtown (formerly Carl's Little House) getting a liquor license even though it's zoned in a residential area.

Street, Avenue ... 18 shootings and 8 murders this weekend

A veritable spate* this weekend. And if Fenton is to be believed it looks like that 4:42 a.m. shooting was in the 5200 block of St. Charles Avenue, not N. Charles Street (and not to be confused with Charles Street Avenue in Towson), though the BPD has not corrected this on their Twitter feed or removed the Tweet that places the fatal shooting on the steps of the Hutzlers' Cathedral.

The man shot on 26th street was ID'd as one Danquel Darden,

Victim Danquel Darden, 37, was a registered gun offender; had 36 charges including attempted murder dropped in Baltimore Co. last year
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 23, 2013

Oh, and

Thought we might get through the day. RT @BaltimorePolice Shooting: 900 block of Bennett Pl. Male shot. Homicide Detectives notified. #BPDWD
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 24, 2013

Oh, and BALT CITY | MAJOR TRAUMA | 2500 BLK W LAFAYETTE ST | FEMALE W 2 GSW TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD |

Seriously, what the hell, this weekend? ... Sun reports 18 shootings and eight murders,* the highest number on a weekend since at least 2006. Batts and SRB both have their phones off the hook, so the bon mots of their minion will have to suffice: "This is a little bit of a spike in terms of the weekend, but all in all, we're pretty satisfied with the way the city is headed, violence-wise." Keep up the good work there, Satan!

In other news,

Single pot seed prompts Baltimore County arrest, seizure of $105,000 in cash http://t.co/3NKUP6K6zB
— Baltimore City Paper (@city_paper) June 21, 2013

15 shootings this weekend

Says Fenton... obvs not all are reported by the media quite yet, but if so 15 would be a record.

By my count, 15 people have been shot in Baltimore so far this weekend, including a quintuple shooting, a triple, and a double
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 23, 2013

Fatal Shooting: 5200 block of N.Charles St. @ 4:42 AM Adult male shot. Homicide Detectives Investigating #BPDND
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) June 23, 2013

Overnight Fatal Shootings: 1400 block of Pennsylvania Ave. @ 11:56PM Adult Male & Female shot. Homicide Detectives Investigating #BPDCD
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) June 23, 2013

E or W? RT @BaltimorePolice: Shooting: 500 block of 26 St. Adult male Shot. Homicide Detectives notified #BPDND
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 23, 2013

FELLS POINT | BALT CITY | SHOOTING | 48 S BROADWAY | 20 Y/O MALE SHOT AT LOCATION |
— Baltimore Metro News (@BaltMetroNews) June 22, 2013

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

Also the 200 block of Mason Court 

Oh, and drones

Mueller admitted what BCrime readers have known for a year: drones b swarming. We even have our own model, the Raven, (surely) inspired by and tested over Baltimore, built in Simi Valley and deployed to Afghanistan,

نعب للغراب

نعب للغراب

byotcihz.

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.*

Friggin beer owed

That old calling card of drug dealers and Pasadena teenagers, the Moltov cocktail, is making a summertime comeback in the Northeast with 12 thrown since the end of April.

The Ink has details of murders 96-100 (but no updates)

Ooh boy, the jail corruption task force is setting to work,* we're going to see some right big changes real soon now y'all!

Who's calling Baltimore residents and asking what they think of SRB, Dixon and author Wes Moore*?

Irony alert: Congressional Committee NSA hearing lovefest ends with NSA boss Keith Alexander accidentally broadcasting his own private conversation regarding a "friggin beer."

Meanwhile Van Smith writes about how Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander is presiding over a FOIA lawsuit for the release of 49 legal documents in the Bradley Manning case. The military courts decided they don't have jurisdiction to decide, so it's on her.

Overheard on the @BaltimorePolice scanner: 'Subjects are selling fake iphones. They are pieces of sheet rock with iphone stickers.'
— Phil Yacuboski (@WBALPhil) June 20, 2013

Murder 101

Five men shot last night, one killed,* three of the men were shot in the 2600 block of Grogan Avenue in Berea, East Baltimore.

Jamal Diggs was our city's 100th murder victim* of 2013. (Any relation to Kendra Diggs, #74, or Anthony Diggs, #183 of 2012?)?

Penis-related
Police are looking for a man who showed women his peen in a HoCo Target dressing room

WBAL, this story takes place in Delaware. Why are you running this? Oh, right, the part about the 8-month-long erection. hehehe

Mugged for pizza

We've had 99 murders and Riggs Avenue is one.

Shooting last night in the 400 block of Brunswick St.*

A man who allegedly tried to stop a domestic assault was stabbed in the 7-11 in the 6300 block of Sherwood Road,* right over the city line.

Crime is up in Hampden,* including burglaries, domestic assaults and car break-ins.

A rash of car thefts* in the Northern

In the SE, a woman mugged for pizza, a woman choked by her baby's father and her cell phone taken (happy father's day!), stolen candy.

Whew, the deuce reports that missing suicidal/homicidal Jennifer Carlson has been found.

Female corrections officers in male prisons*: sunshine spreaders, sex predators, underpaid underlings.