Monday, January 27, 2014

Who's Zooming Who?

A 16-year-old, Lavar Crawford, was murdered in CHUM on Saturday* at 28th and Hugo, also where rapper Kevin 'Kev the President' Green was killed last September (that Kev link is muy NSFW, BTW).

There were supposedly two other murders this weekend if WBAL is to be believed, but WBAL might be confused: they're claiming an additional man was shot in the head Saturday (location not reported and nothing reported by the BPD) and Kendrick Andrew Martin, 41, was stabbed to death on Payson St* on Saturday.  ... Not to be confused with victim Arrington Michael Sydnor who was stabbed on Wheeler Street last Saturday. ... As someone asked on the Twitters, "If there was roof over #Balto and we called the entire city a mall, would the 19 homicides get more coverage?"
Kevea Muldrow

A girl named Kevea Muldrow has gone missing, call police if you see her.

 Today in speed-camera rants, the Sun editorial board blasts the SRB administration* for its sketchy-ass secretiveness and questions its very credibility (but are you tired of hearing/bitching about speed cameras? Not me!), and the City Paper's Ed Ericson Jr. proffers a hefty list of various attempts at auditing and transparency that the SRB admin has stonewalled. Rodricks beats the war drum* for the unseemly public-private partnerships that are fertile ground for this bullshit, and Fox45 reports that city council members are being taciturn about Carl Stokes' proposal to investigate said bullshit, which the council will reportedly take up at their meeting tonight.

And in mall coverage, the shooter as ID'd as Darion Aguilar, 19, described by all as a pleasant and quiet kid. The 'love triangle' angle Tweeted by WBAL's @JohnVPatti hasn't held up-- the shooter and his victims weren't even Facebook friends and HoCo police have so far turned up no connections between them. WBAL reports that Saturday Aguilar's mom had reported him missing and police tracked his cell phone to the mall.

 Two brothers are in custody after vandalizing a Presbyterian church in Perry Hall.

Here, have a collection of city police mug shots.






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Saturday, January 25, 2014

Call of the Maul

A man was stabbed to death in the 200 block of N. Payson Street* after getting into an argument with some people, his death was homicide #20.

Three people are dead after a shooting at the Columbia Mall in HoCo,* one of the dead is believed to be the shooter. Predictably the story is immediately national news and a Wall Street Journal news alert, even. The victims have been ID'd* as Brianna Benlolo, 21 and Tyler Johnson, 25. The gunman has been tentatively ID'd by police but not publicly identified, and police say that in addition to a shotgun and bullets he was toting crude explosives.*

The lead detective in the Phylicia Barnes case is facing trial next week for assault and burglary.*

Remember the sad story of Myra Casom, a retired Glen Burnie school teacher shot in a parking lot? Police now say the shooting was not random and was likely someone who knew her.
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Friday, January 24, 2014

Men Behaving Badly

The man shot to death in the alley on Ilchester near Guilford Ave. was ID'd as Tavon Antonio Young-- nephew of City Council President Jack Young.
Mustafa Eraibi

The alleged brick-wielding attacker of Jon Fogg was arrested-- one Mustafa Eraibi, and Batts held a press conference to announce it. Fenton says he's been arrested for similar crimes before, with cases dropped/nol pross'd by prosecutors; he's on his way to the "cthouse" to find out. According to Eraibi's Facebook profile he's from Iraq, belongs to a FB group called ISLAM = PEACE, went to Patterson High, works at ESPN and follows the Big Bootie Freaks feed. Favorite books include the Twilight series and In Cold Blood.

There were three rapes reported in three weeks in the Southwest, and police think it's the same guy, a fair-skinned black man who speaks with a Jamaican accent.

There are bad childhoods, and then there's the victim of 49-year-old Michael Griffin, a foster child who was raped repeatedly and forced to have multiple abortions. Griffin was sentenced to 100 years.




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Thursday, January 23, 2014

Unreliable Witnesses

Tyrone West
Calvert Street is bringing it today-- Justin Fenton has put the Tyrone West documents on The Cloud, and uploaded audio* of a female witness's description of the "scuffle" to the Sun site. She was apparently the passenger in West's car and describes police and West (who she calls James?) somehow starting to fight, police and West punching each other on the ground, then on the police car, police hitting West in the face, more fighting on the ground, police Tasing West on the ground, more scuffling, West yelling "Travon Martin," more beating of West on Kitmore, West saying "you got me, stop beating me," then West getting away and running across the street followed by more beating, police cars running into each other at the crime scene, CPR. Other witnesses have described West being sprayed with pepper spray, but this witness doesn't.

Somehow, some way, intrepid reporters Luke Broadwater and Scott Calvert got their mitts on that secret speed camera audit that taxpayers paid $278,000 for but weren't supposed to see,* and hoo boy is it a doozy! Xerox's cameras had a whopping 10 percent error rate and 26 percent of the tickets were "questionable," costing Baltimoreans at minimum an estimated $2.8 million in erroneous tickets. The camera at Loch Raven Blvd. had an error rate of 58 percent (!!!) and the one at 6500 Eastern Avenue, 45 percent. Xerox is still the camera operator in the County and HoCo. Could class action lawsuits (a la New Jersey) be far behind?

In the Eastern district an 18-year-old guy was shot in the leg* there last night.

Lamin Manneh
Speaking of the Eastern, former Eastern District officer Lamin Manneh, 32, accused of pimping out his 19-year-old wife and her friend down by BWI? He's pleaded guilty* to operating a prostitution business. "In a federal indictment filed against Manneh in August, prosecutors said his wife had entered into a 'contract of slavery' with him and agreed to be subservient to him as her 'master.'"

Twenty years for gun-toting coke-slinging felon Antoin Lamont Garrison, 46.

The owners of Sam's NY grocery store on North Milton Street were arrested for allegedly stealing $1.5 million of food stamp money.

Remember Katz Insurance and Hal Katz? Apparently his son Geary is the operator of Senate Insurance, the "Kiss my Bumper" one, and now he's facing legal troubles of his own.



Weds February 5th the restaurants of Canton will hold a benefit night with proceeds going to the recovery fund of Jon Fogg, the Sun editor who had his skull fractured in six places, possibly by the guy below.
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Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night

Police have released a photo of a person of interest in the Jon Fogg brick-beating case.

Police have released some files in the Tyrone West case,* based on the Sun's FOIA request. West's passenger claims police kept beating him even after he gave up.

In the 3300 block of Baltimore St. in the Southwest a man was shot in the fucking face.*

Two guys tried to pull a guy out of his car at gunpoint on Moores Run Drive, then shot him in the leg.*

A man was shot in the torso on S. Caton Avenue after willingly leaving his car.

A man on S. Eutaw street was shot in the back of the head and lived.

It's a snowy day, so kindly uncle Fenton Tweets us a yarn to read by the fire: in January 2009 a woman named Jasmine Harris, 23, was shot in the head, and one Sgt. Steve Olson found her killer by following his footprints in the snow,* one Kenneth Warren, 24. But evidence against him soon "melted away,*" in the words of his intrepid defense attorney Jack Rubin (who, BTW, in classic Smore fashion, is father of judge Julie). So

Twelve Loyola students were busted with fake IDs at Favorites Pub, the one on York Road with the sign that advertises it as a venue where one can eat one's Good Friend's Good Food. Thanks to reader/reporter Adam Bednar for this story from 2011, in which officials from Towson U and Loyola express concern about the number of underage patrons transported to hospitals for alcohol poisoning and pub owner Jeffrey Evans finds that notion "preposterous."

In AAC, Checkers, KFC, 7-11 robbed. Also a woman's body was found "near the 15th hole tee box" at the Bay Hills Golf Club.*

In HarfCo a guy was stabbed and his brother assaulted by "a black man."

In MoCo a woman was groped by a bus driver.

The BPD is having a Tweet-up.

Media Blabber:
After his brush with the glamor and glory that is Nancy Grace, Scott Wycoff is exploring the art and science of filling potholes.

CP's Baynard Woods: Mayor High on False Hope, Lacks Courage of Schmoke. Burn!

Baltimore makes national news for a drunk man ISO Taco Bell on Craigslist and Kate Amara video-bombed by a guy in a horse head.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

White, white everywhere



Robert Hopkins
Police are pinning the murder of Jose Abreu on murderous dead carjacker Robert Hopkins, but brother-in-law and witness Jose Melo says police have the wrong guy.* And indeed the dead suspect* looks like he has a much thicker build than the guy on the creepy video.

Almost 20 pounds of white drugs* found in Lochearn (I reject your metric system!).

Chair-in-parking-spot-level snow did not stop someone from shooting someone at Caroline and Gough today.

Ew, Scott Wykoff of WBAL was on Nancy Grace and he's really happy and proud about that.

Batts is due to be on the Marc Steiner show (88.9) at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

A weird-looking gun-toting drunk guy was arrested for threatening a woman in Glen Burnie

In prison news, a British company has sold 344,000 copies of a game called "Prison Architect." And NYT reports on state's various approaches to offering kosher meals in prison.
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Friday, January 17, 2014

Dutchy Passed To Left-Hand Side


View Larger MapA man was shot and killed in Harwood* in the alley behind the 300 block of Ilchester Ave, making 17 murders in 17 days.

Prez Jack gets on the pro-pot bandwagon, using Kurt Schmoke's "health issue" verbiage, even.

A victim with a flowerpot smashed over his head and a crapton of burglaries in the SE blotter.

No sentence modification for Nicholas Browning; the motion was heard by Judge Bollinger, the one who sentenced Browning the first time.



Via Ian Duncan, the feds have seized $25 million worth of Dread Pirate Roberts' bitcoins.

Batts showed up to a vigil last night at the store where Jose Abreu was killed. Abreu was shot once in the chest and died, his wife, sister of the store owner, was shot four times and is still alive.

Men arrested after transporting heroin in their underpants from here to Altoona.

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Thursday, January 16, 2014

Another day, another ____

A 59-year-old man is in critical condition after being shot in the head last night in the 2400 block of Pickering Drive

Two robbery victims shot in two separate incidents in the SE.

"The state could be forced by next week to let suspected criminals in Baltimore go free* until trial if it does not provide them with lawyers at the time their bail is set." .. but they mostly go free on bail anyway, so whatever.

Another day, another PR boner for SRB. The Schmoke of the North touted a Twitter chat, then ignored citizen questions in favor of astroturf questions from out-of-town political consultants.

Another day, more top brass fleeing the BPD--





Another day, more scumbag behavior at Arundel Mills Mall: four men made off with $15k+ worth of necklaces.

Oh, look, novelty. A Baltimore man went to Texas, stole $200k worth of Hermes purses* (so in other words, eight bags).

Rock climber from VA David DiPaolo, 31, was arrested and charged with killing 69-year-old Geoffrey Farrar with a claw hammer* at the C&O Canal park in Bethesda.

Remember Nicholas Browning, who at the tender age of 15 and mad about being sent to Boy Scout camp and not being allowed to use the family car, killed his parents and younger brothers in Cockeysville then went to a sleepover and came home and pretended to find them? He's 21 now, and wants a modification to the two life sentences he's serving at Patuxent. A hearing is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9:30, presumably at the Towson courthouse. In 2012 Browning posted a prisoner personal ad, revealing that his favorite band is Blink 182, his favorite movie is "The Departed" and his favorite position is doggie style.

And in HarfCo, Robert Richardson III, 18, has pleaded guilty to killing his father, Robert Jr. and was sentenced to 18 years. Like Browning he'll likely serve his sentence at Patuxent; unlike Browning, multiple witnesses agree Richardson was abused by his father.


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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Schmokin

SRB just says no to legal pot. "I'm not going to be waving the Schmoke flag."
   Funny, Schmoke presided over all kinds of steaming hot messes as mayor: privatizing public schools with shiteous results and 90 city schools taken over by the state due to excessive crapulence, all while simultaneously emblazoning the "City that Reads" slogan on bus benches, misusing and losing federal housing funds, crony hires with plush salaries ... but all of his epic missteps have been long forgotten in favor of mocking his one brave, bold, good idea. But it was an idea before its time, and the vituperative knee-jerk backlash from conservatives has obvz spooked mayors for decades to come, including ours, and probably set the NORML cause back 20+ years. History will vindicate Kurt Schmoke on the pot issue, but in the present the spanking continues.

And vindication for Jason Weinstein, former assistant U.S. Attorney in Baltimore responsible for high-profile busts like Itchy Man, Ed Norris and the guy who burned the Dawson family to death. In 2012 he "resigned" from the DOJ to take the fall for Operation Fast and Furious* after Republicans blamed him for the Bush-era program. Now it's come to light that the DEA had been working with the Sinaloa drug cartel since the late 1990s, a decade before Weinstein came on the scene. But a "happy" ending, since the WaPo story was published, Weinstein landed a job with Steptoe & Johnson LLP, sacrificing his populist morals for big $$ white-collar criminal defen$$$e.

In other potlitical news, Van Smith interviewed rising gubernatorial candidate Heather Mizeur.

Corrections officer Taryn "Mrs. Loney" Kirkland got 3 1/2 years for her part in jailhouse drug-smuggling,* her inmate lover Steven Loney got 9 years.

Gregg Bernstein has raised $340k for the State's Attorney's race,* 20 times more than his closest competitor. His contributors include the Orioles and Harbor Point's Michael Beatty.

Six middle-schoolers-- three boys and three girls between the ages of 13 and 14-- were arrested for assaulting a woman on the light rail near the Westport stop.

A man was beaten with a brick, robbed and carjacked in Canton.


Chad Kinney, head of the CitiStat program, was fired after a mere 17 months on the job for reasons undisclosed. And the city has agreed to pay a New York company $286,000 to redesign the city's web site,* because there are no web companies in Baltimore.

"What if I smack the shit out of you?" "What if I pull this pistol out?," a dog owner lured onto the baseball fields and robbed in Patterson Park and a rape thwarted per the victim's request in the Baltimore Guide east side crime blotter.

A man threatening to shoot his mother, a guy robbed for his coat and lots of American cars stolen in the North Baltimore blotter.*

12 years for crack dealer Donte Cox

A 13-year-old boy was awarded a $50k settlement* in a wrongful-arrest case.

Statistics corner: there were 761 drug overdose deaths in Maryland in 2012, of those 378 were from hairron. H ODs in 2011 = 245.
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Tuesday, January 14, 2014

BPD Shutting out the Sun?

A guy is dead after a police-involved shooting in the 1800 block of E. Lanvale, the guy and someone else were reportedly sitting in a white car being "suspicious," were approached by two plainclothes officers. The suspect didn't fire a shot, though did have a gun.

A man was shot multiple times on the west side, condition unknown.

Police are looking for a robbery/stabbing suspect from an incident on Jan. 2 and have released a video and sketch.

Police and the FBI are searching for a suspected serial road-rager who killed a man near Hagerstown.

The mayor and Batts walked through CHUM. And apparently the administration is giving the Sun the cold shoulder: Justin George Tweeted that Batts refused an interview at the end of the year, even though he spoke with TV stations, and didn't tell Sun reporters about the CHUM press conference.

The Ink identifies some recent victims: Keon Carter, Johnathan Terry, Bobby Jones, Marvin Lee McGowan, Jose Abreu, Spencer Falcon, Dejuan Willis and Ricky Mellorson, and identifies the man holed up in the Family Tree as Spencer Falcon's carjacker, Robert Hopkins, 28. And the victim in the 3900 block of Edgewood Road was ID'd as Jermain Terrell Johns.

Former army specialist Craig Benedict Baxam, 26, got 7 years for destroying his hard drive before he allegedly fled to join the Somali terrorist/ivory poaching organization Ø­Ø±ÙƒØ© الشباب المجاهدين.

Did you know? Five states still allow conjugal visits for inmates, and in early-1900s Mississippi, a conjugal visit could be with a hooker. [NYT link]

A Baltimore man was arrested in PA driving an unrestrained 3-year-old and hauling 408 illegal prescription pills







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Monday, January 13, 2014

Ladies, This is Happening

Anthony Lontae Harper
and daughter, via Twitter
A triple stabbing outside of the Isis Nightclub in the 200 block of Park Avenue, a block away from where Eli Barber-El was shot in the head last month.

Three shootings last night* made for two homicides. If Twitter is reliable, the victim in the 3600 block of Reistertown Road was Anthony Lontae Harper. The weekend's deaths brought us to a total of 16 murders in the first 12 days of this year. A stabbing victim from Friday morning in the 2500 block of Fredrick Road was ID'd as Dejuan Willis, 17.


#14: Ricky Mellerson, found shot to death* in an overturned car Mt. Vernon.
Dejuan Willis, via Twitter

Police released a creepy video of  the killer of Jose Abreu pacing around the Latino American Deli on Smallwood St.

There's something new: arrests in Charles Village robberies.* ("Ladies, this is happening.")

Legalized marijuana has a new champion, senate president Mike Miller.  And a MoCo Democrat and a HoCo "civil libertarian" Republican are introducing a bill of their own.

Magical boots in Arundel Mills mall* forced a woman to pepper-spray 20 people in order to possess them. Also at the mall: two guys arrested for robbing a guy in the parking lot while he was sleeping in his car.

Why did the city discharge Brekford from its speed camera contract? A camera ticketing a parked truck* likely had something to do with it.

Whoops, in spite of the new law expanding background checks, somehow 200 people barred from owning guns got them, including a guy who used his in a carjacking.*

Police are looking for this guy who robbed the White Marsh McDonald's.

Another day, another church youth group leader charged with possession of child porn. Today's winner, Robert David Wright of Clynmalria Methodist church in Phoenix.
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Friday, January 10, 2014

Landscape on the Shores of the Patapsco

Beleaguered neighbors around 21st and N. Charles streets were tormented from about 2:15 a.m. on this morning by a barricade situation at the Family Tree, a child-abuse-prevention nonprofit that a suspect broke in to. Neighbors report that police were beseeching a guy named Robert to come out of the office for hours. Justin George Tweeted at 10:55 a.m. that the situation ended when the gunman died of a self-inflicted wound. George and Wells report that the man may be implicated in other crimes nearby,* and WBAL reports that a second victim was found inside.

The 10th homicide in 9 days was in the southwest,* at the Latino Deli and American Grocery on Christian and S. Smallwood, across the street from Samuel Morse Elementary. A man and a woman were shot, the man has died. Also that Karl Merron Ferron photo is giving me an acid flashback.

What to think about this press release? "Despite Recanted Testimony of Single Eyewitness, Langley Convicted for Shooting in the Northeast"




Ew, farther afield, 4th graders were flashed peen in Hanover, and a day care worker arrested for assaulting a 3-year-old in HarfCo. And in HoCo one Jeremy Ng was arrested three times in two days on charges involving forcibly groping women. The last victim had an off-duty-officer friend nearby.

Mom Gwendolyn McNeil, 48, (literally) stabbed her daughter in the back in Aberdeen.

Alpha Diagnostics of Owings Mills has been charged with defrauding Medicaid out of $3.3 million,* and falsely claiming to have had a doctor review x-rays.

In happier news, Renoir's 1879 napkin painting "Paysage Bords de Seine" is going back to the BMA,* though it'll sit in an FBI warehouse until Martha Fuqua exhausts her appeals. Fuqua claimed to have bought the Renoir at a flea market, a "colorful" tale that quickly unraveled when witnesses (including her own brother) called her story into question.

And Obama is expected to announce today that Maryland is going to be an expiriment in health care regulation, setting a cap on hospital spending and prices. This will make Maryland either a "model" or a "cautionary tale." Hrm.
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Thursday, January 9, 2014

Problem parts

A call-homicide-it's-serious shooting last night* in the 5300 block of Eastbury Avenue

http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/baltimore-protest-demands.htmlWhat took them so long? The families of former Marine Sean Gamble's family and of Officer William H Torbit Jr. have filed suits against the BPD over the shooting at the Select Lounge that killed them three years ago today.* In November 2011 a panel found that police lack of supervision and poor training led to his death,* though the panel's report claimed Gamble intervened with Officer William H. Torbit Jr. while Gamble's family claims he was running away from the scene when he was shot* by Torbit. Torbit's family has staged protests and called for a new, outside investigation.* The Select Lounge is still in business.

RE the homicide rate, SRB says citizens are "part of the problem."*

The BMA might get its stolen Renoir back tomorrow.

Another day, another fiscal-mismanagement story: questions but still no answers about the mismanaged $7 million federal grant for the homeless.
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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Ow My Frickin Ears!

https://twitter.com/chrisfromabc2/status/421030936982327296/photo/1Three years for Adrena "I love money" Rice, the first Corrections Officer to be sentenced in the BGF jail case. Christian Shaffer of ABC bravely Tweeted a transcript of one of her expletive-filled caught-on-tape rants.

The Board of Estimates approved $237k to go to the auditors of the speed cameras that are turned off.*

Jamol Kingsborough
One Jamol Kingsborough was arrested for the murder of Darius Taybron last October.

District Court Clerk Lonnie P. Ferguson is the subject of a civil rights lawsuit after giving an underling a "passel of pornographic DVDs" depicting "hardcore degradation of women." The evidence in the case has gone missing.

Undercover officers were allegedly offered illegal sexytimes at Lina's Massage on Belair Road.

Van Smith says Nathan Barksdale is likely to plead guilty to heroin-and-gun charges.

New low achievement unlocked: a woman in Brooklyn Park robbed while bringing in her trash cans.
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Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Vortex

Johnathan Terry
It gets worser: eight people murdered in six days. The victim on West Forest Park/Liberty Heights was ID'd as Johnathan Terry, 28. The Ink has more details on the other victims.

Derryl Walker, 26, convicted in a Mt Vernon rape, has been sentenced to life in prison.* (But what happened to the other guy?)
Todd Wheeler Jr.

Deputy Commissioner Anthony Barksdale, passed over for Batt's job and reportedly suffering from heart problems, has retired,* and also former police Commissioner Bishop L. Robinson has died.

Mug shot of the day: Todd Wheeler Jr., Glen Burnie explosives hoarder, who was not running a meth lab but merely hoarding 100+ pounds of explosives for reasons known only to him.* Also, clear-framed glasses are creepy, please make a note of it.

A mystery corpse was found behind Logan Elementary in Dundalk.*

Cadillac, Ford, Nissan, Dodge: lots of stolen cars in the blotter.*

A pregnant woman, a guy trying to sell his medication outside of his house and a fast-food worker = poor souls robbed in the SE last month.
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Monday, January 6, 2014

Mexicans, queens, liquor and statistics

Fenton does math so we don't have to:*
Homicide clearance rate of 2013: 50.2.
Percentage of victims with criminal records: 86.4
Percentage of alleged perps with criminal records: 86
Deadliest neighborhood: Belair-Edison*
Percentage of victims who were shot who died of their wounds: 31.7
Percentage of dead victims shot in the head: 55

Our famous dine-n-dasher, Andrew Palmer, was arrested yet again* after running up a $50 tab for vittles and libations. What restaurant manager on the planet hasn't heard tell of this guy? The one stuck working the New Year's day at the Kona Grill Inner Harbor, apparently.

Somebody robbed the Towson Starbucks at York & Burke at around 6 a.m., and on Dec. 29th somebody robbed the Starbucks in the strip mall near the Giant* on York Rd. (BTW, while the County police chief was on TV crowing about their low murder rate, he noted that they had linked the robberies around Towson University to three different groups).

The chair of Baltimore's chapter of the NAACP is not impressed* with Batt's "everyday people" quip.

No es bueno: Curt Anderson was caught on tape remarking on how there's an "amazing" number of "Mexicans" working on building contracts. You should know, Curt Anderson, a diversity of South Americans are being exploited on our local building sites.

Torrey Smith is in agua caliente for calling some dude in pink socks a "queen."

Julius Henson still breathing, opposes Berea liquor license transfer

The Brew compiled a tidy year-end summary of last year's fuckery

Feel-good story: Glen Burnie woman scares off muggers by screaming and freaking out.

Slumlord shamer Carol Ott reports "I am being represented by Peter Keith, Esq. of Gallagher Evelius & Jones, LLP."



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Friday, January 3, 2014

Braggarts and dinguses


Update, said victim has just died, five murders already this year.*

Meanwhile, Baltimore County is crowing that it had the lowest homicide rate since the 70's. Oh, shut up, Baltimore County. You want to rub it in about the low taxes too? How about the schools, how are those? I'm so happy for you.

A lot of interesting info in Fenton's crime chat. Por ejemplo, the fact that 95 percent of last year's homicide victims were black is the highest rate in a decade, five bodies were pulled out of the Harbor last year and most of the deaths were somehow alcohol-related (so far this week two bodies have been found in the water), and indeed, Anthony Gugleimi didn't really say anything police brass wasn't already thinking and/or hasn't said itself many times since his firing.

For fart's sake, people! Yet another crappy guardian was arrested after leaving a kid in a freezing car to go do some stupid thing. Today's idiot, grandpa Juan Carlos Calva Diaz, 47, allegedly left his kid in the car in freezing temperatures while he shopped for three hours at Arundel Mills Mall.

"Police find destructive devices in home" *cough* meth lab *cough*







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Thursday, January 2, 2014

Everyday Creepers

Oh, Batts. He has stepped in it again, this time asserting to Jayne Miller that while murders and shootings are up, crime is down for "everyday citizens."* Whatever might he mean by that?
"It's very localized and unfortunately, it's with African American men who are involved in the drug trade and 80 to 85 percent of the victims are involved in the drug trade going back and forth." 
Well. Not only is this offensive as the dickens on many levels, as Fenton points out it's not even factually correct. According to the police's own information, in only 3 of last year's homicides listed something drug-related as the motivation, and furthermore, larcenies, car thefts and street robberies are actually up. The only categories that are down are carjackings, burglaries and rapes (a number that, as we all know too well, could easily be attributed to a refusal to take reports). So disturbing was this the Sun editorial board put in their dentures and gently opined* that his attitude kind of sucks.
     What would have been more honest, and true, as the CP points out, would be to say that as much as the police may try, it's not always a police problem. Sometimes it's a jury problem, sometimes a prosecutor problem, and at its heart it's an anger-management problem. And even if the victims are not Everyday People and some kind of 3/5ths people, we've got to live together! Batts needs to take us higher! And now he's got that song stuck in my head all day. Thanks Batts. And it sounds like it's Code Elmo for his job:
WBAL's Jayne Miller asked Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake if Batts' job was secure.
"He should feel the same way any person that is part of my administration does, and that is just as I am called to show up and perform every day with no guarantees, that's the same way," Rawlings-Blake said. "Everybody should have a little bit of anxiety. I know I do."

Anyway, for those keeping score at home, the city saw 235 homicides in 2013. In 2012 we had 217, in 2011 we had 197(!),
2010 = 223
2009 = 237;
2008 was 234;
2007 was 291;
2006 was 274; 
2005 was 269. 
One good thing about last year: fewer juveniles killed than usual,* with only 3  11 kids under the age of 18, though the first homicide of 2013 was a baby. The average age of the victims was 31, and 95 percent of the victims were black.

The first two homicides of 2014 were a father and son,* identified as Frank Turner, 48, and Anthony Turner, 21. There were five shootings on New Year's Eve.
Rapist guy

Bad news, everyday citizens: a sexual assailant/rapist is on the loose and has attacked four women in their homes.

One Paul "Paulie" Eugene Sessomes, owner of a swank condo at 414 Water Street, was revealed by the DEA to be a trusted contact of Colombian drug dealers.  Also, there are DEA agents who still don't know the diff between Columbia and Colombia.

CP: "After a prolonged and Herculean effort to claim the government unconstitutionally monitored his movements to build its drug case against him, Richard Anthony “Richie Rich” Wilford yesterday was found guilty of cocaine-conspiracy charges by a federal jury."

Another body pulled out of the Inner Harbor.
Brown

Alleged awful mother Alicia Denice Brown, 24, is accused of locking her 4-year-old in a freezing car for eight hours to go gamble at the Maryland Live! casino on New Year's Eve.

Attorney Isaac Neuberger, 66, has been accused of groping a waiter at a urinal. Assault, or manly advice taken the wrong way?

Cash in your old cell phones now-- mall managers at the Pale Swamp are removing kiosks.*

Apparently undaunted by Joe Vallario trapping his previous pot-decriminalization bill in committee, Jamie Raskin and Kurt Anderson is bringing their bill back next year. They estimate that legalizing it could earn the state as much as $100 million in tax bucks.

The two Justins are doing a Q&A tomorrow at noon, you can submit questions now if you'd like.*

In happier news, 2013 was the safest year for police officers since 1887.

Not crime, but big news: there's a new fire chief in town, name of Niles Ford. He's a former city manager from Chamblee, Georgia, population 9,800, a job he was fired (heh!) from. Prior to that he was the fire chief of Lincoln, Nebraska. I guess no one in Baltimore was qualified?

Over in Salisbury, accusations of "extreme hazing"*
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Sunday, December 29, 2013

This Much is True

Justin Fenton isn't prettytalking to please anyone: violent crime went up this year in Baltimore while in almost every other major city it went down.* More murders, more nonfatal shootings, and (now it's me talking) a return to stop-and-frisk strategies that are not only not legal but do not work and a commissioner who seems clueless about what the law actually is.* All of the hard-won and tremendous-but-tenuous gains the city made under Dixon/Bealefeld are rapidly slip-sliding away due to poor management, disorganization, a lack of transparency, and an apparent reluctance to take an evidence-based approach to anything.
Robert Wimbley

In other awful news, Andrea Williams, 45, was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend Robert Wimbley early yesterday morning.

 A 23-year-old man was shot to death in the 2700 block of E. Monument,* victim #234.

 The Sun's Carrie Wells has picked up the story of the Slumlord v. Ott lawsuit.* [Rochkind] "alleges that I vandalized his property — it's just simply not true," Ott said. Which is technically correct, in the way it's technically correct that Stanley Rochkind doesn't own the property because his real estate trust/LLC does. Court date is in March, and it will be well worth the price of parking.
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