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.

Crazy, fraudy, beaty and stealy

Back from vacation, what did I miss?

Man shot in the chest in the 2100 block of N Charles St.*

Another child murder by mom's boyfriend: Damond Stansbury, 27 (any relation to June?), was charged with the murder of Marlo McFadden,* 2.

Officer James W. Smith pleaded not guilty to killing his fiancee,* Kendra Diggs. Infidelity or PTSD, which is it? Maybe he hallucinated she was banging a Kurdish insurgent before he sniped her.

18 months for Veronica Alford, who helped two little homiciders hide Monae Turnage's body.

Sisters are doing it for themselves! And by "it" I mean honeytrap home-invasion robberies.

Jennifer Carlson

Glad to hear BPD caught "suicidal and homicidal" Jennifer Carlson, who was allegedly in route from the crazy house to Mt. Vernon to do someone in. Oh wait, Jeff Herman of the deuce says they deleted that Tweet and that 17 hours ago she was spotted in the Loyola Area and she's still on the loose! Yikes.

Unbeweavable thieves* target human hair.

Yay, 7/8 Light Rail robbers caught. Boo, $600 laptop sold for $20.

Where was the mayor the weekend after 16-month-old Carter Scott was shot? Sleeping in a lobbyist's bed* (literally).

33rd St. 7-11 robbed at knifepoint, employee stuffed in freezer.

Man beaten, robbed in 400 block of E. Biddle, taken to Hopkins. #scanner
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 14, 2013

Dumbass trying to sell cellphone via Craigslist in Homeland robbed of cellphone.

Cane Mwihava

Six mortgage fraudsters (with Tanzanian names, FWIW) indicted in a $3.5 million scam that involved properties in Baltimore and elsewhere.

Trevor Lee Testaman

The Yankees fan punched over a concrete railing at Camden Yards, Matt Fortese, is doing better.* Meanwhile the 1st court date for the alleged assailants was set for July 17.

Speaking of drunk rednecks, Trevor Lee Testaman went to OC, allegedly stabbed 3 @119th & Assawoman.

 Fat kid, hot girl

Oh, AAC teens, stealing a credit card to take goofy pictures. Of themselves with the stolen credit card. What do you want to bet the hot girl put the fat kid up to it?

Basta stronzo

Jail security chief Shavella Miles has reportedly failed a polygraph, and Gary Maynard was down in A-town yesterday answering questions and trying to convince everyone that 13 bad officers are the whole problem, and re-iterated that if he had to do it all over again he "would do it exactly the same way."

TIL seven grams of marijuana is called a "vic" after Michael Vick's jersey number.*

Basta pasta? More like basta drugging and trying to rape the underage waitresses, Michael Stakellis!

Plug that leak

In case you haven't hard, Verizon has been recording all of your phone calls. And don't buy the story that it's just the phone numbers and times, either-- that's just the table of contents for recordings of the calls as well. Such a massive amount of data is unhelpful if the aim is to identify a handful of people in 600 million who might want to cause citizens harm. It didn't stop the Boston bombers, and dude was straightup posting jihad videos on YouTube. But it would be pretty helpful if you are out to get a person in particular.

Cell phone blocking technology in prison: they're doing it. And body scanners! Because there is no city or state problem that can't be fixed by a task force followed by some very expensive soon-to-be-obsolete technology. And way to time the announcement, O'Malley, right before the release of a scathing audit of the jail* that finds dirty, dangerous and dangerously disorganized conditions in the jail, plus plenty of "superfluous supervisors."

Yes!! A blogger is taking on the liquor board with "Booze News - Distilled in Room 215." But how long til they just start locking said blogger out?

One Lenny Cain was convicted for his part in an elaborate Oxycodone conspiracy. What I don't get: wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to just buy actual heroin?

Eeewww 21,775 gallons of raw sewage dumped into the Jones Falls last week.

SC's Ragan

Eeewww a Port Deposit man, Michael Dean Ragan Jr, 30, pleaded guilty to making a deposit in a minor's port on camera. Curiously there's a 2010 report of a Michael Dean Ragan being arrested for a similar crime in South Carolina, but that lists his age as 33.

"Write what you write for your rag." Newlywed Lisa Harris Jones is back, and ringside for a showdown of well-connected companies for a tech contract. ... the city needs 75 IT consultants because why?

Southeast crime blotter: A man robbed by a guy in a "security" t-shirt, harrowing "boyfriend" incidents including a pregnant woman hit in the face with pliers and a fight between a 15-year-old aunt and her niece broken up by a grandma with a broom handle.

A county suspect was shot in the chest last night after reports of an assault at a motel.

Oh, Colby.

Adorable: In Queen Anne's county a suspect, Colby Gilliam, was arrested after commenting on the Sheriff's Facebook page.

Don't miss Vice Magazine's report on Towson University's White Student Union.

Good news, white people!

Ashley Roane via CP

Wat. Ashley Roane, accused of protecting a purported heroin dealer and giving a list of drug informants to the guy (who himself turned out to be an FBI informant) is out on pre-trial release. She also faces charges of gross and willful eyeshadow abuse. If I was Roane I think I'd feel safer in jail.

Rashid Mayo

Sounds like 16-month-old Carter Scott should not have been in the custody of his violent, convict dad, and dad should never have been in town. But dad took no one's advice and mom failed to show up for a custody hearing.* Meanwhile police had ID'd a 3rd suspect in the toddler's shooting, Rashid Mayo,* and are asking the public's help to find him.

Murder #95(?), unID'd man, Glenmore Avenue.* 

Like Tavon White, BGF member Steven Loney has also been granted a stay in the relatively plushier confines of federal prison.

We're #4!! ...when it comes to pot arrests.* Cost of arrests in MD = $106 million. But don't worry, white people, you're five times less likely to get arrested. You'll recall our decriminalization bill, overwhelmingly supported by citizens, passed the House but died in the senate when Joe Vallario of PGC, friend to defense attorneys, refused to let it get out of committee.

Prepare your cheeks

So as you probably heard already, SCOTUS approved DNA swabbing from arrestees, by way of a convicted and de-convicted and now re-convicted Salisbury rapist. Love it or hate it and assuming the state can get it together enough to swab people and enter the info in a database, a whole lot of cases are going to start getting closed.

The city's 93rd homicide was Edward Spriggs, shot 15 years ago. Akeem Yarberough was #92, Fenton notes he just got out of federal prison.* #91 was an unidentified guy shot to death in front of the apartment building across from Jeong Kak.

The Washington Post is erecting a paywall.

Slumlord of the flies

A 30-year-old man was shot to death in the 700 block of Cator Avenue is homicide #90. He was shot in the back of the head but kept on driving.

How about slumlord Tom Karle Jr. of Summerfield Investment Group, who is allegedly harassing the holy heck out of a couple of Patterson Park residents with the gall to complain about him letting criminals live in his Section 8 properties. The cojones on this guy. Here's hoping this story will finally introduce him and his Section 8 vouchers to some consequences.

"Police review board called irrelevant, ineffective." Let's also call it futile, time-wasting window dressing, considering the board has no power whatsoever to enforce its findings.* What I wonder-- why do these members bother to serve, considering how much time it must take and that there's zero chance of affecting change? Related: "Mayor tries to suppress damning animal abuse report she commissioned." (Warning: graphic abused-dog photo.)

Armed robbery on the Light Rail at 3 in the afternoon, if Reddit is to be believed.

Good for you, city council members who are making disapproving noises at that Exelon $107 million nonsense.* But bet you a night at the city-owned Hilton it passes anyway.

@baltimorepolice just tweeted arrest in 4/25 murder, 3100 Pelham. Sources had told me victim in police databases as a verified BGF member
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) May 31, 2013

Overnight non-fatal shooting: 12:18am, 700 block of Cator Ave. Adult male reported to be shot. District detectives are investigating.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) June 1, 2013

Shooting Update 5/26: 2800 N. Dukeland St. The victim has succumbed to his injuries. Homicide detectives are investigating.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) June 1, 2013

Big Bradley Manning protest down at Ft Meade on Saturday.

How much would you pee if you woke up and saw this burglar staring you in the face?

In the belly of the whistling dog

A coupla drunk rednecks threw beer at a Yankees fan, then punched him and sent him over the railing onto concrete at the O's game, fracturing his skull.*

City officer Ashley Roane offered to give a drug dealer a confidential list of informants, the drug dealer was actually an informant.* Oops!

Two more murders* -- victims Wayne Vendemia ("blunt force trauma via hag") and Melvin Taylor -- bring the toll to 89.

Now that's odd: the NRA's minions claimed they sent over a million emails opposing gun control when it was up for a vote in April. Little more than a month later and the gun-rights lobby can't even scare up 18,000 signatures to move repeal to referendum and in typical never-say-fail fashion is claiming it's because they're going the lawsuit route.* Someday.

Also failed: the death-penalty anti-repeal efforts*
 

From hero to zero: "Z on TV"* lauds Petrice Sanders' interview with Andres Alonso that prompted him to have an on-air mini-meltdown. You can't criticize $99 chicken dinners because das raysis! Perhaps most scandalous of all: even though the media got hold of the audit, it doesn't sound like anyone in the school system even bothered to read it. Alonso: "I feel like I'm in the belly of the beast right now." Yes, because the Fox45 set is just like prison-- dude, did you even read the book? [@9:31 - also when he starts to lose it.]

Melvin Taylor, 23, who was shot a few days ago in 2800 blk of N Dukeland, has died, police say.
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 1, 2013

No tasks, no force

Legitimate rape on N. Calvert St. in Mt. Vernon, bootleg-looking camera photos released*

A dog walker robbed and stabbed and a whole lot of punching in the Southeast

Morgan State U lawyers are trying to get dropped the lawsuit* from Alexander Kinyua's victim, Joshua Caesar, guy who was beaten and blinded when the skitzy cannibal attacked him with a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat. In other news of responsibility-denying universities, records released by the University of Maryland show their decades-long efforts to cover up/avoid doing anything about the pervy molestations of swim coach Rick Curl.*

Irresponsible Pop-Tart owner Josh Welch got a lifetime membership in the NRA.

Down in MoCo, LeRoy Carhart's Germantown abortion clinic was found not responsible for the death of Jennifer Morbelli and determined that her death was from natural causes. Oh great, disseminated intravascular coagulation, another new, rare, horrible affliction for pregnant women to freak out about. Anyway, the medical examiner's finding naturally makes not one whit of difference to anti-family-planning activist groups.

One Larry Michael Parrish admitted to running a Ponzi scheme in which $9.2 million of investors' money was squirreled away in the Bahamas and Nevis.

How I love a Page Croyder rant-- today's deserving topic is O'Malley's 'Task Force.' 

And who can resist Honkytimes Heimbach squaring off with Shorty Davis? Not Vice magazine!

Santini's Restauarant in Joppa lost its liquor license after a 14-year-old held a booze-soaked fete* on the premises.

More speed cameras in the county-- and are the city's back on or still off? ...  consider downloading the app called Waze-- it's a free talking navigation system that also alerts you to the presence of cameras (though its routes can be a little wacky).

Put on your bitch hat

Awfulness: a 59-year-old man was beaten to death during a home invasion in Oakenshawe.* "Mark Counselman, president of the Oakenshawe Improvement Association, said neighbors knew the victim as 'Ray.' He was known around the neighborhood as an eccentric — the rear entrance to the apartment was decorated with Christmas lights, and on the ledge of the basement window was a Monopoly game and a baseball cap with the word 'Bitch' printed on it." .. and a 15-year-old boy was shot in the Eastern district.

The murder of Carter Scott was a setup,* says his ex-con dad. (Warning, link has a loud ad, but you get to hear Batts say "it is an ongoing vacation. I mean, investigation," followed by Ian Duncan's Leeds lilt Birmingham brogue).

The Ink has murders up through 5/24.

A man was shot at DePaola's Pub in Arbutus*

Twenty years for 31-year-old burglar Bill Fulton.

An Annapolis mom whose daughters were raped on video by their dad and a co-conspirator is now suing the men who viewed video of her children, including six men from Maryland. The case is Jane Doe vs. Matthew Alter.

Instagramming inmate Michael Earl Thomas told a reporter yesterday that his illegal cell phone has now been confiscated.

Task forces for some, shutdowns for others

"At least eight" shootings this past weekend,* one fatal (not counting the baby), one barricade situation in which one Walter McCoy shot his daughter's mother in the legs. It sounds like it was a bad weekend for shootings nationwide. Speaking of shootings, NPR did a story on the ridiculously low-tech way that weapons are traced. And the NYT detailed gun manufacturers' resistance to giving the feds any kind of help when it comes to tracking illegal dealers or suspicious purchases. Sniffed Jeffrey Reh of Beretta, "I can advise you that Beretta U.S.A.’s position is and has always been that the purchase by an individual of multiple firearms is not, in and of itself, evidence of improper or suspicious behavior.”

A second man, Cornell Harvey, was arrested for shooting one-year-old Carter Scott, a third suspect is still at large.

Following the BGF prison scandal, O'Malley's unleashing his scariest weapon: the task force.

Cherrie Gammon

Truth in stereotypes dept: Maryland members of the Outlaws motorcycle club "Maniac" and "Bugs" have pleaded guilty to dealing the crank.

A life sentence for Tyrone "Roland" Johniken for his role in the 2010 murder of block dancer Cherrie Gammon. Co-conspirator "Tay" got 40 years yesterday.

Fifteen years for Guatemalan cocaine dealer Edwin Galvez-Berganza.

Twenty years for York-Road-corridor crack dealer Kenneth Robinson.

The Historical Society has gotten back their documents stolen by Barry Landeau* and his Scott-Thorson-esque sidekick Jason Savedoff.

Michael Barnes re-trial postponed.

The police tried to cancel Kanye West's video projection* on the side of the Walters, citing a lack of proper permits, but Yeezy wasn't having it. This comes on the heels of the Pow Wow being shut down and the cancellation of the Moonrise and sex-fetish festivals. Why so much dislike for the First Amendment, BPD?

Bring Back the Cemetery Picnic

So Memorial Day started after the Civil War, widows and survivors would picnic in the cemetery and sweep and decorate headstones. But as you remember the 4,488 dead in Iraq, 3,221 dead in Afghanistan, dead of Vietnam, Korea, WWII, WWI and earlier, think about the approximately 351,073 people killed in gun violence in the U.S. in the past decade. It's not men from the smellier countries we need to concern ourselves with. It's terrorists at home with no purpose and with testosterone and cortisol to burn and no one but the jackboots of the prison or military pipeline showing them how to build a life. What will we do about these men? How can we honor the dead of the conflicts of the past with our actions tomorrow?

Babies.

Eddie Tarver

Me: "holy crap, somebody shot a baby!" Longtime Baltimroean: "well yeah, but he wasn't aiming for the baby." ... Eddie Tarver, 20, was arrested in the shooting* Friday evening in South Baltimore, which killed Carter Scott. His dad, Rashaw Scott, survived and ID'd Tarver, who had two accomplices sporting latex gloves. Scott, aka Davon Greene, had been charged with murder himself, highlighting the mix of protracted self-defense and revenge at the core of so many of the city's murders. Yesterday "Batts spoke with people at the shopping center before talking to the news media, posing for photographs with a group of young girls and dropping in on a wrestling-themed child's birthday being held in a vacant storefront in the strip mall."

Also on Saturday, the officer who arrested Eddie Tarver shot a suspect in Washington Village (nee Pigtown)

Clifton Bernard

In Suitland, PGC, a two-year-old boy, Jamar Shipe, was murdered on purpose, and surprise, surprise, mom's boyfriend is charged, one Clifton Edward Bernard.

In the kitchen of the Towson Sheraton, one employee stabbed another in the head. The Towson Sheraton, room 1029, is also where in 2009 a man from NY, William Parente, killed his whole family.* For whatever reason Sheratons in general seem to attract a lot of nefarious activity.

Butthurt death merchants at Beretta have decided not to move out of Maryland after all, though took the opportunity to sniff via press release, "The idea now of investing additional funds in Maryland and thus rewarding a government that has insulted our customers and our products is offensive* to us so we will take steps to evaluate such investments in other states." Never thought I'd think this but have to hand it to tobacco companies at least a little-- when states started limiting advertising and smoking in bars and so forth, at least they took it on the chin, diversified their holdings and spared us all the faux vapors and couch-swooning.

Sunday Media Blabber Corner:
Former Commissioner Ed Norris is recovering after his motorcycle accident. He suffered a broken shoulder, broken ribs and minor brain damage.

Not long after Bernadette Woods' departure, dreamboat reporter Adam May announced he's leaving WJZ* for Al Jazeera, an opportunity that lets his family-- husband Derek Valcourt and their son-- stay in Baltimore. Al Jazeera is located in Doha, Qatar, where the penalty for same-sex sex is up to five years in prison, time that may include whippings. Oh, and if you drink a Cosmo? Whipping.
...update at 11:35, just watched his final sign-off and got verklempt. What a classy guy.
Sheldon Dutes has also left town, begging the question--  who's going to be the next candy for the hungry eyeballs of local news-watching ladies age 29-39? I demand to know!

Dick Irwin's* funeral will be on Tuesday.