Vegetables for the children!

Don't miss Carol Ott of Baltimore Slumlord Watch talking to CBS evening news. A poignant piece, but wish Jeff Pegues had reported anything about why there are so many vacants and what the city is(n't) doing about them.

Look who's taking too: city insiders are using clergymen as a front to get at a $25 million piece of the Harbor Point project. ... but it's for vegetables and Internet for the children! Think of the children! What kind of Nazi Teahadist could take a radish out of the hands of a preacher who is going to get a kickback to feed it to an innocent child? A racist one, probably.

Tavon White has entered a guilty plea. Speaking of children, wonder what will become of all of his?

A corrections officer was stabbed five times with a "makeshift weapon" at North Branch, an assault "attributed to gang activity"

The coke-dealing Byrd brothers got 10 years

Report of a shooting in area of 3900 blocks of Potee/S Hanover in Brooklyn.. #BPDSD
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) August 6, 2013

Recent homicide victims names: James Godsey, 21, killed Fri in 1600 blk Hartsdale Rd; Dwayne Powell, 22, killed Thurs in 6400 blk Harford Rd
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) August 6, 2013

In court this am where a BGF member who pled guilty to murder two weeks ago is asking to take it back, go to trial
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) August 6, 2013

Parallel Construction

Journalists can't protect their sources any more (now even TOR has been compromised), but the DEA's "SOD" [Special Operations Division] is apparently so good at protecting theirs that even judges and lawyers never know their sources existed. Vocab of the day: parallel construction: wherein investigators invent a cause for arrest where none previously existed in order to establish a legal reason to be investigating someone the NSA/DEA is already investigating. Example: "Agent Heywood Jablowme wanted to protect his informant Snitchy McPlea, and wasn't sure the warrantless GPS tracking, phone or email records he got from the DICE database would hold up, so he asked city police to pull over Pookie Green for a busted tail light when he knew Pookie was riding dirty to create a parallel construction for the bust and prosecution of the D-Bag drug crew."
Related: USA Today reported that the FBI let informants commit 5,658 crimes in 2011. 

All's well that ends.. horribly. Officer James Smith, who shot his fiancee Kendra Diggs in the back in front of police and medical crews* as she tried to escape him, has committed suicide in prison.*

Two men shot overnight in the Perkins Homes*

A city grand jury indicted James Berry III and three associates of the D-block drug crew for their roles in a revenge plot that killed seven* people

 Murderer

Scott Thompson, 47 (and not to be mistaken for the Canadian actor) was shot on Rosedale Street on Sunday and has died.*

On  March 3, 2013, the sketched  suspect  at  right  stabbed  and  murdered Twain  Robinson  in  the  3100  block of  Milford Avenue. 

Police arrested suspect Darryl Knight, who has his zip code (21234) tattooed on his face.

Jury selection began today for Karla Porter,* accused of arranging the murder of her husband William at a Towson gas station. Because of her alleged videotaped confession Porter likely would have faced the death penalty had the state not repealed it.*

Local gadfly Adam Meister escaped an attempted robbery last Friday night: 

"two black males around 16 to 18 years old approached me from the median on Eutaw as I approached Lafayette. One pulled out a gun which appeared to have a large barrel and pointed it at me as the other one said something to me that was very hard to understand because his English was so horrible ("give me...." is all I could make out). Upon seeing the weapon I instinctively turned my back to them and started sprinting north on Eutaw." 

Meiser escaped and the perps are still at large.

Remember the aspiring rapper with the weird-shaped head and tattooed eyebrows that spell "MAD MAN" whose wife stabbed a guy at the Fish Head Cantina in Halethorpe? Well,  Fish Head Cantina's been fined $2,000 for* its rowdy crowd.

The City That Breeds has a roundup of all the numbers in the Harbor Point development project/scandal. Note that Excelon is required to build in the city, so the employment numbers would be similar no matter where they built it.

Orajelcap

Four separate shooting incidents and two people killed last night.*  But hey, almost a whole week without a homicide.

Grandma rubs methadone on gums of babies, kills one, sends other to intensive care*

Justin Buchanan

On Wednesday at Pratt and Light Streets this winner hit a shuttlebus, then a car, then grabbed a toddler out of the backseat of his car and fled.

A group of teens tried to rob man with fake gun in the 2600 block of St. Paul. Man pointed out that it was a fake gun, walked home, called police.

However, apparently the state of Maryland sold about 30 real guns to convicted felons.*

A guilty plea from Essex child pornography producer Robert Marzola, who was snagged in that huge nationwide ICE bust in January. It looks like he took down his creepy Google album but his LinkedIn profile is still up. Sabra, Wang and Associates. It would be really wrong to laugh at that.

Have you seen this guy's trumpet?

Failing forward

Was trying to remind myself of the details of the Grand Prix's various debacles, as that hot mess is apparently expected to return September 1 yet still has no title sponsor* and apparently isn't getting one. So instead of just selling to the highest bidder, SRB's just going to leave that money on the table. And look who's paying the bills now*-- none other than two (now former) Constellation Energy aka Excelon executives, Felix J. Dawson and Daniel C. Reck.* Oh wait, no, a third sports marketing company is running it now-- it's had three different organizers in three years-- Baltimore Racing Development, Downforce Racing and now Andretti Sports Marketing. Mess, mess, mess.

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.

Poop rolls downstream

/concussioninc.net/

I knew it was poop! The CP and Clean Water Baltimore allege years of sewage leaks and coverups by the city.

Overly attached California blogger alleges sex abuse at Michael Phelps'  North Baltimore Aquatic Club, bullshit called.

Dead ladies

Horrible: a neurologist from Towson, Dr. Autumn Klein, was apparently poisoned to death by her husband with cyanide.

Re: last retweet: Baltimore has only 30 less homicides than LA as of today. That's amazing. 3.8 million people vs. 620,000
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 30, 2013

@Justin_Fenton: in other words, if B'more had LA's murder rate, our total for the year to date would be 27. Wow.
— Spence (@BaltoBluesMan) July 30, 2013

The death of Michelle Hitchens, 51, who was shot in the arm in the triple on Elmora Ave that killed Gennie Shird, has been ruled a homicide
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 31, 2013

if you had your Silver Jeep Grand Cherokee stolen and can tell me the plate #, I can confirm if it was the one in the harbor. Call me! (2/2)
— Kevin Rector (@RectorSun) July 31, 2013

Jeronimo!

Bradley Manning aquitted of aiding the enemy, faces 120 years for other charges.

The cop who chased a 13 (14?)-year-old car thief yesterday afternoon, then apparently slapped him in the face, has been suspended from the force for being too much of a maverick.

Re: last retweet: Baltimore has only 30 less homicides than LA as of today. That's amazing. 3.8 million people vs. 620,000
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 30, 2013

Gods and Earths

Sad: Charles Village Court Watcher Stephen Gewirtz's wife Janet was hit by a bus downtown and he's suspending all court-watching activities.

The Bradley Manning verdict is due to be announced at 1 p.m. today-- will it be life in prison or life in prison?

Local activists schedule a "gang unity summit." "If you are an active member of a set of any of the local Gangs and you identify yourself as a Muslim, NOI and or 5% Nation of Gods and Earths Your attendance at this Unity Summit For Self Defense is requested."

Thirteen-year-old steals car, crashes it into a lot on Belair road, gets slapped in face by cop

a very important work of art

Four people were shot yesterday.*

Four guys arrested on N. Calvert Street for stabbing 22-year-old Jerod Andre Gilmore to death on N. Calvert and E. Baltimore Streets* on Friday, an event police watched live on city crime cameras. Gilmore's death was the city's 135 homicide of 2013. Notably, none of the four arrested have adult or juvenile criminal records, but Gilmore had more than a couple of arrests to his name, including for assault, armed robbery, illegal guns and drugs. 

One Troy Keene arrested for a murder in the 900 block of Bennett Place last Tuesday.

Sources: Downtown stabbing believed to be gang dispute, and for once it's not BGF: this one's believed to be Bloods v. Crips
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 29, 2013

Law violated
 by panel

A state panel found that the city violated the law* by holding secret meetings on the Harbor Point deal-- but that finding doesn't change a thing. Can we please stop calling it a $107 million project? The city is borrowing $107 million, but interest on the loan will be $174 million and tax breaks will be $113 million, so let's call it what it is, a $394 million deal. And have we mentioned that Excelon's merger requires them to build in the city no matter what? ... Help a friend steal $394, go to jail. Help your friend steal $394 million, pose your boob flab in a cocktail dress for the Sun magazine.*

Dayum, Sun-- at least eight staffers have left recently, including AAC crime and courts reporter Andrea Siegel, impish entertainment scribe Sam Sessa, and apparently whoever airbrushes the boob flab out of the vanity pieces in the magazine. How much thinner can that paper possibly get?

A man in Essex was shot multiple times by home invader* Kenneth David Cox, 24 ... then the victim somehow beat Cox to death with an unnamed "blunt object." I imagine it went just like this, but with three guys, a gun, and blood everywhere.

In Pasadena a man shot his girlfriend's Yorkie.*

Tomorrow at 12:45 JM Giordano will be talking about his photo series "The Summer of the Gun" with Kojo Nnmandi on 88.5 WAMU.

Bwahaha, Julius Henson's appeal in his robocall case was rejected and he still owes that $1 million fine. Hope he saved some of that "Jump the Broom" money.

Mom needs some new wigs

She's #1! According to Boston.com, SRB is America's worst mayor. Her "reign has been characterized by a lack of vision, bungled projects, and ineptitude. She has presided over sweeping cuts to parks and after school activities, tax breaks for a big box superblock development, and straight-up cronyism." Owch. (Thnx, anonymous reader). While on the subject, the state is also up there in the rankings for most segregated public schools.

New charges in the jail-corruption mess against corrections officers Sean Graves and Clarissa Clayton, Clayton's boyfriend Parker, inmate Michael Gordon and ne'er-do-well city resident Garnett Logan.

Have you seen these armed, dangerous convenience-store robbers?

A man was robbed at gunpoint in Woordbourne-McCabe

14 people were indicted for conspiracy to distribute hairron

A car dealer pleaded guilty to hiding $2.1 million in earnings.

HoCo bandit

Four people have been arrested in that craycray Little Italy mob attack.

A drunk killed a tractor-trailer driver on Russell St., she's been arrested.

A bewigged bandit struck in HoCo. Wig ladies just love banks!

Double shooting that killed one took place at N Belnord & Jefferson. Safe Streets bumper stickers everywhere pic.twitter.com/vYXkTzVNml
— Justin George (@justingeorge) July 26, 2013

William Bethea was arrested by #BPDNED for a handgun violation #ASaferBaltimore pic.twitter.com/Hz2fPLlweY
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) July 26, 2013

Michael Keeney was arrested by #BPDSD for a handgun violation #ASaferBaltimore pic.twitter.com/aioj08IbOn
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) July 26, 2013

Frisk the children!

Good news! Police arrested Dante Woods for the murder of Donte Stephens in Rodger's Forge. "Donte Stephens was gunned down in Rodgers Forge last week because he had told the suspect days earlier that he wasn't allowed to do laundry at the house,* according to charging documents."

Capone Chase, "Public Enemy No. 1," was arrested for the July 15 murder of Ramon Rodriguez,* a murder that was reportedly "for Trayvon" but instead turned out to be for Black Guerrilla Family.

Lawmakers including Del. Keiffer Mitchell Jr. toured the City Detention Center, Gary Maynard is now allegedly working there now.*

 

Davonte Tyron Ronald Muse

Davonte Muse is wanted for burglaries in Guilford and "police have stepped up foot patrols in the neighborhood and told officers to stop and ask any juvenile walking around the neighborhood for identification." What? How illegal is that?!

A robber made off with $265 worth of Newports from the Charles Village CVS

 

An unknown person shot up a family's house in Rosedale. 

 

Trial for alleged Remington killer Benny Davis is scheduled to start tomorrow (and likely to be postponed, but you never know).

SRB defended her million-something contract with financial consultants and blahblahblah.

Norris McDonald arrested #BPDNED 2300 blk of Barclay St. Weapons violation / shotgun & AR-15. For #ASaferBaltimore pic.twitter.com/3bkwuSLNQC
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) July 24, 2013

Clifton Butler arrested #BPDSED in the 3300 Blk of E. Fayette St. for a handgun violation. Making  #ASaferBaltimore pic.twitter.com/gt6efN71QT
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) July 24, 2013

Dominic Simmons arrested #BPDSED in the 3300 Blk of E. Fayette St. for a handgun violation. Making  #ASaferBaltimore pic.twitter.com/pMcL2k0YFB
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) July 24, 2013

Pregnant woman, why u make Ocean City police beat u up? (In case you were also nosy wondering, the alleged perps are from Freetown, Sierra Leone via Woodbridge, VA.)

Pulled by dreads

The man shot to death in a Dodge in Rodger's Forge has been ID'd as one Donte Antonio Stephens, and residents, apparently unaccustomed to getting no information from the police, are adorably pouting and stomping their feet about it.* FWIW, the JIS shows that Stephens had been charged with rape and assault (though charges were dismissed).

Less adorably, the family of Tyrone Antonio West, DOB 5/69, pulled out of his car by his dreads, pepper sprayed and somehow brought to death, are sobbing and appealing for witnesses.* Is there video footage? One would think there would be a ton around the metro station, what with all those Homeland Security grants. The family has retained A. Dwight Pettit, so a lawsuit is sure TK. Audio and video reports on the CP site.

A masked man stabbed a woman in the stomach on Greenspring Ave.

Well here's some crazy shit, disbarred former attorney and petty thief* Stanley Needleman is now  implicated in the murder-for-hire of Robert Long, carried out by Dead Man Inc., which benefited client Jose Joaquin Morales Jr.

ha! SRB's financial advisers have won a $460, 942 new contract.

Video of man attacked by a mob on Exeter Street in Little Italy

Three murders last week detailed in the Ink

A West Baltimore raid seized dozens of guns

Girl-on-girl face punching, robbers in a minivan and a carjacking on Fayette and Caroline in the Baltimore Guide blotter.

Brace yourself, the gun nuts are coming. A juvenile court master wants state legislators to crack down on illegal toy guns.

Punishment cake

Tyrone West, 44, was allegedly beaten to death by police after a traffic stop in NE Baltimore at Kelway and Kitmore last Thursday. A cause of death hasn't been released, but witnesses say they saw an officer punch West while he was unconscious;* police said he had narcotics and noted he has been arrested previously for resisting arrest.*

Men killed in the intentionally set fire at DaVinci's on Park Avenue were ID'd as George Scarborough, 48, and Ali Poushangi, 49.* The arson ended four days of no murders or shootings*(?!)

 A man/suspect was shot in the foot by an MTA officer at the bus stop by Mondawmin Mall.

Kemp

Snitching lands Stop Fucking Snitching star Sherman "Goose" Kemp in jail until 2035, when he'll be 56. Of all SFS conspirators, says Van Smith, "Kemp might take the cake for attracting punishment."

"A federal jury today convicted Daren Kareem Gadsden, aka “D,” age 36, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on charges related to a conspiracy to steal almost $1.4 million from a Housing Authority of Baltimore City bank account"

Bold daytime robberies in Roland Park

Ten years for a Reiserstown man who dealt the Kate Moss

County firefighter got 195 months in federal prison for collecting depictions of little boys' privacy areas

Party at the laundromat

Homicide in the 1700 block of N. Bond

Breyon Cason

Breyon Cason, 22, was charged as an accessory to the murder of one-year-old Carter Scott*, and for falsely reporting her car was stolen.

Man shot multiple times in the NW*

Mothers of Murdered Sons and Daughters* :(

Correction: Patterson Park beating of Hispanic man not for Trayvon.

meanwhile local wacktivists be infighting

Akim Austin

Man with chinstrap beard arrested for a handgun violation

Police say a fire that killed two at 847 Park Avenue in Midtown was intentionally set*

Latest Liquor Board hijinx: a license granted to a laundromat

The Paschall family crime ring dealt opiates at Jessup and "used a forklift at Crazy Ray's junkyard in Baltimore to stack up cars next to a balcony at the business... then climbed up the pile and stole a safe"

A robber with a brick took $21 in Abell

Michael Myers

In HarfCo, man named Michael Myers, hair feathered like the wings of a magnificent bird, got drunk, stole a tractor and a snowblower and led police on a thrilling chase. Speaking of HarfCo, the man accused of fracturing the skull of Matthew Fortese at Camden Yards are due in court today.

Woman stole a wallet from a victim in a wheelchair, "Party" is a verb at the Patch

Life of Diamond

Police need help finding a suspect in a shooting July 11 at 248 E. Broadway. Also lots of men punching women and robberies in the Southeast blotter.

Councilman:Man who died in police custody had drugs in sock, punched officer;"wide-ranging fight acrss several yards" http://t.co/P5ZBcKYZCv
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 19, 2013

Sources telling me who died in police custody is Tyrone West, 44. May have just been released from prison; got 20 yrs in 2000
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 19, 2013

16 yr old Diamond Williams' father confirms to @RectorSun that he was the one who found her body last night. Just terrible.
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 19, 2013

Three Diamond Williams*' on Facebook, this looks like her. 

Street artists call out slumlords 

A stabbing in Frank Conaway's hood:

Baltimore Metro Breaking News Page

BALT CITY | STABBING | 3100 LIBERTY HGTS AVE | FEMALE FATALLY STABBED |

New pix up for the "Summer of the Gun" photo series

Enjoying the City that Breeds podcasts, with local politics/legal/crime/education talk.

Green Jobs Indeed

Renita Franklin-Thrower, from the CP

The Feds have arrested an embezzler in the mayor's very office, one Renita Franklin-Thrower. 

"The Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED) in 2011 hired a convicted embezzler, only 14 months out of federal prison and still on supervised release, for a $41,000-per-year position to run a green-jobs training program funded by a state grant." 

... so over this mayor's sloppy stewardship! If it's not giving developers $393 million for no damn reason, it's felons and grifters in her own office. 2016 cannot come soon enough! Who will be running against her?

And how about Gansler v. Brown for governor next year? Who are you liking? 

In other bureaucracy news, new site Baltimorecode.org codifies our city laws and ordinances in an attractive and helpful way.

Pookie in Roger's Forge

Gunshots and an overturned vehicle in... Rogers Forge?

Murder Ink brings us to to our 126th homicide.

Gennie Shird

Darryl Anderson, 25, wanted for the shooting at a block party that killed 20-year-old Gennie Shird and injured two other women, was arrested in Alabama.

Well, there's something, the BPD has arrested one Lamont Jones for a quadruple shooting (no date given). "Court documents say Jones and another man were disguised as construction workers when they came up on the four victims who were sitting on the steps of a home on Edmonson and Carrolton and opened fire. All four men survived."

Irwin

The sun wasn't all that was rising in Michael Dale Irwin's Cecil County home.

Real estate swindles

City to borrow $107 million, plus $174 million in interest(!!) for a total cost of $281 million, plus will be handing out $113 million in tax breaks so that Harbor Point developer Michael S. Beatty can make an estimated $174 million in profits.* Note that the developers are legally required by their merger deal to build their headquarters in Baltimore City no matter what. Labor unions have a protest scheduled at  p.m. tonight in front of city hall.

Everyone said it was a horrible idea, and everyone was right, and finally Martin O'Malley has commented about the financial black hole that is the city-owned Hilton, the comment being that it's Ehrlich's fault for not giving the city some state money for it.

Tavon White's lawyer says Tavon is going to plead guilty to racketeering.* He's also due in court August 8 on attempted murder charges.

The Sextortables

Page Croyder splains the Unger decision that releases 13 murderers.

Pitman

Nice job, Curtis Bay neighbors, busting breaker-inner Michael Pitman.

Shooting: #BPDSWD 200 block of Diener Pl., An adult male shot. District Detectives responding.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) July 16, 2013

Gough St victim: Ramon Rodriguez, 21. Police say they have an arrest warrant for a suspect.
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 14, 2013

There have been 126 people killed in Baltimore this year, and Rodriguez is the 1st Hispanic victim (police list 118 black, 7 white, 0 Asian)
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 14, 2013

Witness claims youths yelled 'this is for #Trayvon' in beating #Hispanic in #Baltimore http://t.co/2xEn8bi108 #zimmerman #florida
— Justin George (@justingeorge) July 15, 2013

"Towson Man Locks Himself in Parents' Severna Park House, Gets Tased" in childhood bedroom

"Vera Bradley Bag Burglar Arrested in Dumpster Pleads Guilty"

Reservoir Hill mortgage-scammers Kimberly Eileen McMillian and Glenroy E. Day, Sr. pleaded guilty to wire fraud

In AAC, wanted pedophile Christopher Barnes was arrested, and four other wanted pervs were nabbed by ICE in the state. New word: "sextorting"* The 61 victims of the nationwide bust of 255 predators included 42 girls, 19 boys and three victims under the age of 3. Blurgh.

And oh, hey, there's some BS: Scott Calvert says the Police Department tried to charge the Sun thousands to access public emails* (and still is hoping for $150). Needless to say if you're a regular citizen who suspects police malfeasance, fuck you gently with a chainsaw and appeal to officer Heywood Jawblowme.

Have a pleasant night and a lovely tomorrow!

Killer Darryl

Darryl Anderson, call 911 if u see

The BPD is ISO Darryl Anderson, left, for murder.

Somewhere a robber is pooping blue and orange and smoking Newports.

Worth noting amid the heightened focus on Baltimore crime?: no shootings reported overnight Friday or since overnight Thursday...

— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 13, 2013

A man was robbed and stabbed near a bike trail in Glen Burnie 

Wakefield

Oh noo, remember  Dale "Bugsy" Wakefield, who celebrated his 21st birthday by stabbing a 71-year-old homeless man 71+ times? Then fled here and was caught by the BPD? Yeah, so, Central Booking accidentally released him. Fortunately his sister turned his stabby ass in when she found out he was OTW to her dorm room at Coppin State. The jail's major assbonery prompted some rare judgy words from the PA DA, David Heckler, who blasted Central Booking officials as "utterly incompetent." Oh, also "inept and completely uncooperative" and "frickin' irresponsible."* (the "frickin" appears in the print edition, but is apparently too saucy for electronic media).

Joe & Krystal

These ghosters in Sticksville got robbed. Love that robin egg backdrop they got in HarfCo.

Media blabber:
Hey, look who cleans up nice! Are those his real glasses? Z on TV has a piece* on Fox 45 News Producer Stephen Janis, who started as a music producer and segued into crime reporting with Luke Broadwater at the Examiner and then to starting Investigative Voice.

AF James MacArthur's back and blogging, and went a whole paragraph without promoting himself. TL; DR: he's launching a rebranding as The Baltimore Citizen.

... I wish Z would do something on the state of getting one's local news these days. What does this paywalling and dispersal of info mean for civic involvement? Where do you readers get your news, besides here?

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!!