'I'm going after you'

Maybe he was talking to the booger.

"You're done.. I'll make sure you're through... I'm going after you." 

BGF prison babydaddy? Jilted swain? Tony Soprano?
That would be Steve Kearney, former director of policy and communications for Martin O'Malley, now a shadowy henchman for the Harbor Point project, threatening Carl Stokes in front of two witnesses. Wow. And yes, it's *that* Steve Kearney of KO Public Affairs fame, who toiled in the shadows to bring us astroturf for assreamings such as speed cameras, State Center and casinos. Interesting how Steve's picture appears nowhere but for the Brew's photo of his flabby jowls whilst he apparently picks his nose and/or eats his boogers at the Harbor Point vote.

Two street robberies at 6 a.m.? Were the robbers up early to make it to Zumba class? The victims were victimized at Huntington and W. 30th and at Wyman Park Drive, respectively ("the robbers shoved or tripped him, knocking his glasses off") by three young black males in a silver four-door-car. There was also a robbery in the 3600 block of Greenway (Guilford) Monday. If connected to the other recent street robberies this would be the sixth and seventh robberies by the same group.  And here's #8-something from this morning (so they robbed a guy at 6 a.m. in a silver car, stole the Volvo and went back to robbing?):

Time: 8:47 AM

Summary: A JHU affiliate was walking east in the 200 block of Wyman Park Drive (North side of street) when approached by several juveniles. Two of the juveniles were walking ahead of the victim while a third grabbed the victim from behind and pulled the victim to the ground taking her purse. The suspects then took off running towards Remington Ave. Witnesses to the incident reported observing the suspects entering a vehicle that BPD indicated was reported stolen and used in a previous robbery in Baltimore. Victim had abrasions on her legs and was treated at the scene by Baltimore City medics. BPD and Campus Security canvassed the area for suspects/suspect vehicle with negative results.

Suspect Info:
Suspect #1- B/M, juvenile, wearing a polo shirt with blue/white/green stripes, no further description

Suspect #2– B/M, juvenile, wearing white jeans, no further description

Suspect #3 – B/M, juvenile, no further description

Suspect #4 – B/M, juvenile, no further description

Suspect’s Vehicle – Brown or Gold Volvo – Maryland Tag # 2BC2237

Also a robbery and a bloody assault of a 62-year-old woman in Little Italy yesterday in the wee hours. The victim of the 40th St. shooting has been ID'd as Zebadiah Drinkwater,* employee of Chesapeake Systems. A page has been set up to collect donations for his medical expenses. Get well soon!

Murder suspect Cory Bowman may have shot himself in the head in the Perkins Homes yesterday.* He's suspected of killing Victoria Glover in front of his own son. Glover had a protective order against him since he attacked her with a knife after she asked him to go to church with her in February.

And speaking of the Constellation Energy Group: "Strip club promotion causes scare* at downtown office tower" - dumbass titty club put sand in their party invitations. Scores should partner with the Liquid Lapdance people for giveaways (NSFW).

Foreclosures in the city have tripled since this time last year, reporteth Bloomberg. TIL MD has the second-highest foreclosure rate in the county, right after Florida. Dayum.

"Trial begins for Baltimore detective accused of lying about shooting himself*"

Devil Exchanges iPhone for Soul At Crossroads

A man shot in the upper torso in Roland Park (yes, technically 40th and Roland is Roland Park on the north side-- it's where four neighborhoods meet: Hoes Heights to the West, Keswick to the East and Hampden to the South). According to a police source the victim was robbed for his cell phone and either hesitated or resisted, so robbers shot him.

The morning/night before at 1:44 a.m. a man was shot to death in the 500 block of Tunbridge Road, on the mid-Govans side.

Leon Harvey

One Leon Harvey, 54, was arrested after being shot by police while robbing a house with his nephew in Woodlawn.

He's bayuck-- AFJMacArthur reports on a police-involved shooting in the 3400 block of Old Frederick Road in the Carroll neighborhood.

Police say the shooting of Victoria Vernetta Glover in front of her son in Parkville yesterday was not random, duh, and gabby neighbors/ journalists report that the victim was recently divorced and soon to be in court to seek some kind of child custody/support order or modification. So no shit, police now have some questions for now-ex husband Cory Shirell Bowman, 38.

A teenaged jogger was robbed at gunpoint of her iPod in Towson, and in Glen Burnie a man was robbed while pumping gas.

What the?! Baltimore City Housing Authority has paid $6.8 million in years-old judgements against it, which may affect the availablility of housing vouchers for 700 families.

Media blabber: don't miss NYT's story behind the story of Edward Snowden's whistleleaking.

Androids for inmates

Following CBS Evening News' story on Carol Ott and her Slumlord Watch last week, the Sun's Ian Duncan wrote about* Nether Baltimore's Wall Hunter project to paint murals on said slum properties. Today in the CP Ed Ericson Jr. stone-cold busts Ian Duncan, Justin George and Carrie Wells not doing their homework checking Rochkind's lawyer Danny Stenger's claim that Rochkind didn't control the property at 4727 Old York Road (... but if he did, added the lawyer, the Exodus-themed mural would be a "hate crime.") Looking forward to that correction. And y'know, really, the mural project is gifting these slum bums with valuable works of art. If Rochkind had any sense of money (or sweet irony) he'd remove the mural and donate it to a museum for a write-off ... or sell it to Bank of America or Wells Fargo to install in the lobby of their corporate HQ, hyuk.

Justin George tweeted that Jennifer Owens,* "corrections officer accused of smuggling drugs into Baltimore jail & having relations with BGF gang leader, pleads guilty ... To one count of racketeering conspiracy. Sentencing is in January." Notable "J.O." quote from the CP: “I understand you stressed out, cuz you locked up, ok, but I am too. You locked up, and I’m fucking pregnant again. Like really, who the fuck does that? Only my dumb ass do shit like that, for real. I can accept that I fucked up. I know I did, but I did that shit cuz I wanted to. I don’t regret it.”  That makes two BGF perps who have taken pleas so far, 23 to go.

A woman was shot to death in Parkville while putting her 3-year-old in the car.

#Baltimore County PD hauling away murder Vic car where they say she was killed loading her son in back seat pic.twitter.com/zNYzMlPv7S
— Brian Kuebler (@BrianfromABC2) August 13, 2013

Brekford's speed cameras are up, so why hasn't the city turned them on yet?* Waiting for Harbor Point rage to dissipate first?

Doug "Androids for inmates*" Gansler gets even less appealing, now claiming Anthony Brown is running on his African-Americanness. FWIW Brown's parents are Swiss and Jamaican.

MoCo PoPo ISO victims of pervy old music teacher, Silver Spring Elementary School teacher Lawrence Wesley Joynes, he's been charged with sexually abusing 14 girls so far.

Karla Porter's jury still deliberating guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty, of first-degree murder and = five other related counts.

Matthew VanDyke's Syria short copped some pixels on the Business Insider site

you assholes!

Harbor Point approved.*
Now including $95 million of federal highway funds.
$88 million enterprise tax credits (including $44 million tax reimbursements from the state)
$24 brownfield credits (even though the site was cleared for building in 1997)
$95 million federal highway funds for bridges and roads
$13 million utilities
$2 million Crossroads Academy $$
___
$266 million
+
$174 million interest on $107 million loan
___
$440 million
+ $200 million in lost in state education funding

$596 million cost to taxpayers.

Nothng better to do with that money

After nine days without a homicide, a fatal shooting at the NY Fried Chicken* and W. Baltimore and SCarey street was the 142nd homicide of 2013.

Gilman dog sculpture stolen. Also, Gilman 5th graders have so much money they have nothing better to do with it than buy a $550 cement greyhound.* Local rival gangs likely to blame include the Lakers, the Mawrtians, the Quakers and the Roland Park Smurfs.

Down in AAC, good guys chased down and tackled a guy who snatched a woman's purse from the JC Penney shoe department at the mall.

Well duh. A NY judge found that the city's stop-and-frisk policy violates rights.

Eric Holder suggests he may do away with mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenses.

Thanks for the tax dollars, bitchezz!!

Why the waffling on Harbor Point, Sun? Their own poll shows 73% of their readers are against the $393+ million project.
"Will Harbor Point be good for the city?" I guess if by "the city" you mean the 1% of assholes who don't mind paying to park for the privilege of shopping next to some office complex, maybe, but aren't they already served by Harbor East?
     "Somewhat secretive nature of the process"? Oh, so those secret closed-door meetings were only somewhat illegal? But "future such discussions will now be public." And why would one think that? Future developers now understand that there are no real consequences to breaking open meetings laws.
     Harbor Point is an in-your-face assraping of city taxpayers the likes of which this city has never seen before, and our children and children's children will be paying for it long after the project goes the way of West side redevelopment, the city-owned Hilton, the revival of SoWeBo, the Metro to nowhere, and well, every other city project since the Schaefer years. It's not their first time at the rodeo; the Sun's editors know even if 99.9% of citizens are against it the city council is going to pass their bill anyway.* So why so much milquetoast, Sun? Afraid Michael Beatty will use some of his billions to sue? Second reading of the bill is tonight, BYOPeanuts, or if you're trying to purge to lose weight The City That Breeds will be streaming it live.

Designate Evidence Afterwards/ Secret Obfuscation Department

Nicka

 Putney

D'Amico

Matt Nicka, of Nicka Conspiracy fame, was nabbed on Monday with his weird-looking girlfriend Gretchen Peterson whilst waiting for a ferry in Vancouver near his new home/meth lab in Coquitlam, British Columbia. Nicka was considered the leader/recruiter of the scheme, which involved trucks, trains, planes and a lot of local stash houses, and was found to have laundered some of his pot-sealing proceeds by buying sound equipment for Sonar, the "armpit of a venue" he silently co-owned with local restauranteur/money launderer Dan McIntosh from 2007- 2012.*
    The import business started in about 2001 and involved moving about $150-200 million bucks' worth of pot from Canada and Northern California to Baltimore and then elsewhere. Nicka and Peterson's arrest leaves only two of 20 alleged conspirators at large, David D'Amico and Jeffrey Putney. Putney had actually been arrested back in 2009 after a bust on Hickory Avenue in Hampen, said Van Smith, but MD just took his Toyota 4Runner and declined to prosecute, because in Baltimore that's how we do.
     And could the latest NSA/DEA/SOD revelations collapse the government's case? Dan McIntosh's sentencing is currently on hold waiting on a ruling because, reported Smith, Deborah Johnson, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case against McIntosh and pilot Keegan Leahy, 'stated that the government knows 'for a fact that there’s been telephone communications' between defense attorneys and a Philadelphia lawyer named Michael Farrell. The statements suggest the government listened in on lawyers’ conversations about the case, and that’s a no-no that, if proven, may breach attorney-client privilege and poison the integrity of government’s entire case." Better hurry up and get to recreating that investigative trail, federales. Sentencing for McIntosh is scheduled for September 18.
    Other defendants involved in this vast soap opera: Jacob Jeremiah Harryman (real estate developer), Andrew Jin Park, Brandon Marrow, Anthony "Mr. Purple" Marcantoni (large-scale distributor, owner of martial arts studio), Michael Phillips, Ryan Foreman (Rolex watch delivery), Jeremy Landsman (Nicka and McIntosh's landlord), Andrew "Bird" Sharpeta, Sean "Chong" Costello, Daniel Fountain and Ian Travis Minshall (mid-level dealers), Adam Constantinides, Joseph "Goose" Spain (truck driver sentenced to one day), Michael Borakove and Kevin Brandes.

Antonio "Tank Top" Davis was convicted of being the ringleader of a fake robbery* proposed by undercover DEA agents. Sounds like the dictionary definition of "entrapment," though federal agents claim it wasn't because Davis had been involved in robberies before. And speaking of the DEA, Austin "Yellow" Roberts III got 19 years in the federal pen for taking Kate Moss to the shore. He was one of 71 defendants indicted in Wicomico Co. in January.
Related TIL: in California making a car trap is illegal.

Robert Jarrett Jr. used to love her, but he had to kill her. He knew he'd miss her, so he had to keep her. He buried her right in his backyard. Thirty years* seems insufficient.

Also in HoCo, a woman's breasts grabbed on a walking trail and cellphone thief Travon Millar hit his victim and a witness with his car.

The defense has rested in the Karla Porter trial. She admitted to police to hiring a hit man to kill her husband William, but took the stand to claim she was abused by him-- a claim that witnesses handily refuted.*

JM Giordano's Summer of the Gun series continues with hauntingly beautiful photos of the August all-male anti-gun-violence march.

Wat? Former MD Republican Party director of opposition research and assistant chief of staff for Bob Ehrlich, Robert Ballinger II, was arrested for impersonating a Secret Service agent to withdraw money from somebody's bank account.

Barf, barf, barf.

E.L. Reisinger III

W.H. Cole

 Branch

M. Beatty

A city council committee meeting of three councilmen-- Warren Branch (13th), William H. Cole IV*(11th) and Edward Reisinger*-- approved $107 the million in financing that will cost taxpayers $398 million, as requested by Harbor Point developer Michael Beatty and vigorously protested by every other person in town. Beatty also shot down the church members' $25 million request but promised to put $3 million towards affordable housing because it's "the right thing to do."
     Things apparently got loud, because  Road-Trippin Trikki Rikki Spector, city councilperson notorious for repping the 5th district, living in the 10th, and charging taxpayers for her gas, called public observers a "peanut gallery."
     Now that you mention it, Rikki, all of those greasy grifters really should be pelted with peanuts wherever they go. Also waiters should sneak pubes in their food, women (and/or men) should refuse to have sex with them and schoolchildren should compose mocking jumprope rhymes using their names.

Sleazy William Cole, sit on a pole!
Dirty Warren Branch, move to the bunny ranch!
Backdoor Michael Beatty! Go live in Haiti!
Edward Reisinger the 3rd ...

They should be menaced by paperboys until the day they die, old and alone, perhaps asphyxiated in a vault, fetalized on top of their ill-gotten gains. Their children, children and children's children should be condemned to reside in one of the slums next to the development until every taxpayer of Baltimore is repaid the $663,333 in goods and services that the project will cost us.

'I will not let you know when your time has run out'

Fenton chronicles the foretold death of Quintin Poindexter*

The Medical Examiner says that autopsy results on Tyrone West could take weeks,* West died last month during an attempted arrest by city police.

Tavon White pleaded guilty to racketeering and attempted murder*

Prison officials got a threatening letter from the inmate accused of stabbing a corrections officer at North Branch, but they didn't warn said officer.* The union says that there have been 15 assaults on officers in the past 30 days (!)

The bomb squad was called to Elijah Cummings' office over a mysterious putty-like substance, the stuff was found to be not explosive.

The Fells Point residents' association has decided they do not not oppose the $398 million Harbor Point project, and the Downtown Management Authority (DMA) has also come out as opposed, which the Brew calls "a blunt wake-up call" to the mayor and city Development Director Brenda McKenzie.

Directly following the "Night Out" against crime a man was shot in the 1400 block of Guilford Avenue. And in nearby Waverly, residents are trying to curtail the hours of longtime trouble spot Yau Bros.

A body was found outside of Hillcrest Elementary school in Catonsville July 30

Stand up straight! Suck in that gut! Look like you know where you're going! A Canadian study found that street robbers pick their victims based on the way they walk (thanks EM)

Oh shit they got Muffy

Street crime comes to Roland Park*! A jogger on Wyndhurst threatened with her own pepper spray, a 54-year-old threatened with a Taser® on Roland Avenue and a 40-something jogger in Wyman Park thrown to the ground by robbers in a dark-colored sedan and a stolen SUV.

Crazed and murderous ex-cop James Smith's cause of death in jail* = hanging.

Butterfaced homophobe Don Dwyer pleaded guilty (again) to boozy boating in hopes of avoiding jail time; as you may recall, despondent over the failure of his marriage and the House of Delegates' inability to ban gay marriage, he and his male friend got shitfaced while boating on the bay with three children, wrecked said boat and put the three children in the hospital. The specialer-than-you legislator was also cited for illegal crabbing last month. He plans to seek a fourth term.
Wonder how the 5-year-old with the fractured skull is doing?

aaaand Doug Gansler's gubernatorial campaign just screwed the pooch bareback* on a bed of rose petals with a side of fries.  So long, nice to know you. Well, not really. Didn't really know you. But it was nice to have an alternative to Anthony Brown for five minutes. So, well, anyway, bye.

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