Last night, I went out with the Towson Area Citizen's On Patrol group as they tourned several neighborhoods around York Road and Loch Raven Boulevard. I hoping to see them confront kids out for what has become "Mischief Night" -- the night before Halloween.

The constraints of newspaper deadlines made it difficult to stay out too late, and when I returned to the office around 8:30 it had been a quiet night. Well, quiet is an understatement. It was dead quiet. Of course, that practically guaranteed something would happen after I left. And indeed it did, as per the following e-mail from Karl Pfrommer, one of the patrol members.

He's addressing it to the manager of Kimco Realty Corp., which owns the York Road Plaza:

Hello KIMCO managers,

While I was patrolling Thursday night BCPD officers were dispatched to control hundreds of college age people at the York Road Plaza. They were waiting to ride party-busses to late night entertainment venues in the city.

According to police, entrepreneurs hired the buses and students paid the entrepreneurs for transportation to and from the city.  Six of the busses drove in a convoy south on York Rd.  Two of the busses turned west onto Northern Parkway.

When other party-busses have returned about 3:00 am,  there was public urination, vomiting, loud boisterous behavior, littering of the area and vandalism.  (I do not know if that occurred last night.)

Police told me that similar gatherings have also occurred at Towson Place and other parking lots in the Towson area.  (York Rd. Plaza and Towson Place are both KIMCO properties.)  Towson University has banned these party-busses from their campus.  If Towson can ban the busses, why can't you?

Shopping center owners like KIMCO and others might assist police with some of this activity.  Send letters to BCPD and bus owners permitting or denying the use of their parking lots as party-bus pick-up and drop-off places. This should give police the authority to act according to your instructions.

I'd love to know to which bar the busses were going. It's been on going problem in the city as well.

Here are two responses from Kimko:

I tried to reach Kimco but calls to their headquarters got me nowhere. At one point, a secretary told me: "We don't have a public relations department so we're unable to respond to most media requests."

Well, how about this one?

I got transferred several times until I reached dead air.

A man named Scotty Sellman is listed on the the York Road Plaza's Internet site. I reached him on is cell phone and he first told me, "I don't know what you're talking about" and then referred me back to headquarters. He then said he's the leasing agent, not the property manager, so he really didn't have any oversight. He hung up before I could get the proper number to call.

But Pfrommer got two quick responses from Kimco managers. I won't divulge their names here until I get permission from them, but I also want to be fair to the company. Here is what they wrote:

Karl,

"We have banned them at our Towson Center and have called the police for support several times."

The second response:

"Thank you for alerting us about this matter. We will address it immediately. Please contact me directly if this continues."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

There has been great response to my postings and those of the Baltimore Sun's Copy Desk Chief John E. McIntyre on old police terms, cliches and the differences in cop lingo between Baltimore and New York.

One reader reminded me of a New York term I had all but forgotten: "On the job."

Several readers have commented on the Espantoon -- defined in Webster's Third Edition: "In Baltimore, a policeman's stick" -- and one asked for a picture of one. Here are a couple by Sun photographer Amy Davis shot back in 2000 when then Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris reversed a ban and allowed officers to once again carry the sticks. Tradition returned.

Here is "Nightstick Joe" making an Espantoon in the basement of his Federal Hill rowhouse in 2000, and another of him outside with the stick.

What follows is the complete story published on Sept. 23, 2000 that I wrote on the return of the Espantoon. I've been warned against posting long takes from old stories, but so many want to know the history I think some of you might be interested:

By Peter Hermann

Nightstick Joe is back in business.

To the delight of tradition-minded Baltimore police officers, the city's new commissioner agreed yesterday to allow his troops to carry the once-banned espantoon, a wooden nightstick with an ornately tooled handle and a long leather strap for twirling.

Joseph Hlafka, who retired last year after three decades as an officer on the force and is best known by his nickname earned for turning out the sticks on his basement lathe, will once again see his handiwork being used by officers patrolling city streets.

Orders for the $30 sticks are coming in. A local police supply store has ordered three dozen to boost its stock. Commissioner Edward T. Norris bought five. Young officers who have never seen one are calling with questions.

"They want to know how to twirl it," Hlafka said.

Before Norris arrived from New York in January, he had never heard of an "espantoon." He knew the generic "baton," "nightstick" and "billy club," and was well acquainted with New York's technical "PR-24."

He challenged his command staff to prove the term belongs solely to Mobtown. And there, in Webster's Third Edition: "Espantoon, Baltimore, a policeman's club."

Norris signed the order yesterday, and the espantoon once again became a sanctioned, but optional, piece of police equipment.

"When I found out what they meant to the rank and file, I said, `Bring them back,'" said Norris, who is trying to boost morale. "It is a tremendous part of the history of this Police Department."

Hlafka is delighted. When the sticks were barred in 1994 by a commissioner who didn't like them, his production dropped from about 70 a month to 30, with most of them going to officers in departments across the country and collectors.

They are now made from blocks of Bubinga, a hardwood imported from South Africa that doesn't get brittle in cold weather. Hlafka whittles and sands the wood to remove visible blemishes on the sticks, which measure from 22 inches to 25 inches long.

It is art with a purpose. The espantoon recalls the bygone times of Baltimore law enforcement, when running afoul of an officer meant trouble. It fits in with the city's new assertive policing strategy of a new department leader who wants "police to be the police again."

It is just what Hlafka, 62, wants to hear. "No one sold drugs on my post," he said while standing outside his William Street rowhouse, twirling an espantoon he had just finished. "They knew they would have to answer to me."

Former Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier banned espantoons in 1994, saying that they weren't all the same length and weight and that an officer twirling the stick was too intimidating to the citizenry.

In one order, the Californian uprooted decades of Baltimore police history. Espantoons - the word is derived from "spontoon," a weapon carried by members of a Roman legion - were first issued to nightshift officers before the age of radio communication.

Officers used the sticks to bang on sidewalks or drainpipes to call for help. Twirling the stick became an art. "Telling a policeman not to swing his espantoon would be like asking a happy man not to whistle," The Sun said in a 1947 article.

To replace the espantoons, Frazier issued long batons, called Koga sticks, which many officers refused to carry because they were cumbersome. It required hours of training in martial arts self-defense tactics, and some argued that the Koga stick was more dangerous than the espantoon.

Sergeants were reluctant to send officers to Koga classes, and a trainer argued that some of the tactics being taught could be lethal on the street.

Capt. Michael Andrew was among a handful of high-ranking officers who never took Koga training. He still has the espantoon his father gave him when he graduated from the police academy in 1973.

His father, George Andrew, bought the espantoon from a West Baltimore Street shop when he joined the city force in 1940. The nightstick has been used ever since, "with the exception of five years when Frazier banned it, and we had to put it in mothballs," the younger Andrew said.

In the old days, the espantoon was required equipment. "You better not have got caught without that stick under your arm," he said. "If you ever left it in your car, you'd get yelled at by your sergeant."

The Andrews' espantoon started at the Eastern District, where his father began his career at the old stationhouse at East Fayette and North Caroline streets, and then moved with him to a foot patrol on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the Western.

The nightstick is now in the hands of his son, and back on the city's east side. The 49-year-old captain addressed a group of younger officers assigned to flood the crime-troubled Eastern, and held up the espantoon as an invaluable tool for their jobs.

He and other officers say that it can be used to stop threats without resorting to a gun.

The elder Andrew, who retired as a lieutenant in 1974, recalled arresting a drunken blacksmith on East Fayette Street who had grabbed his legs. "I tapped him with the stick," the 86-year-old said. "He let go."

Police commanders view the nightstick as an important tool that can be used to subdue people without killing them.

"Mace is very effective, and it certainly has done its job," said Deputy Commissioner Bert Shirey, who still has the espantoon he was issued at the academy 34 years ago. "But there are times when Mace doesn't work, and it's nice to have something in between Mace and a gun."

There is no doubt that getting hit with an espantoon hurts, and it can cause serious injury.

Hlafka, who walked a beat at both the Inner Harbor and Lexington Market during his final years on the force, said he has struck many people with an espantoon over the course of his career.

"People used to complain that we would hit them with the stick," Hlfaka said. "But would they rather get hit by a 9 mm bullet? Then, you don't come back."

All content herein is © 2008 The Baltimore Sun and may not be republished without permission.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

I can sympathize with the man whose car plunged into the murky waters of the Inner Harbor this morning near the ESPN Zone. He got out by climbing through the window and standing on the roof of his SUV as it sank.

Back in the early 1990s, when I was a cub reporter working out of the Anne Arundel County bureau and pulling the night weekend cop shift downtown, I was sent to a fire in Fells Point. I don't even remember the exact date or year anymore -- I tried but couldn't find the old clip -- but it was a vacant building that is now on the site of some planned upscale development.

It was nothing of a fire, worth just a few paragraphs at best, but I decided to get as close as I could. I followed some firefighters out onto a pier. They had flashlights. I didn't. At the end of the pier, they turned right. I didn't.

I walked straight off the pier and fell about 18 feet into the water. I didn't know what hit me until I was under, and remember not knowing which way was up. I shed my coat and swam, luckily in the right direction, and surfaced a long way from the pier. By that time, fighters had a spotlight on me and I swam over to a life preserver they threw. They hauled me up; I declined medical attention (I went to the hospital later, after my stomach couldn't handle whatever was in that water) and filed a short story on the fire.

I was lucky that the television cameras were on the other side of the pier and didn't catch my tumble. But that didn't save me from years of ribbing from my colleagues, who told and retold the story to new generations of reporters. The story made American Jouralism Review and instead of a card when I left the Arundel bureau, the reporters gave me an orange life preserver with their signatures on it.

I became the only reporter at the Sun, perhaps ever, to win the Employee of the Month award for peforming an act of stupidy. I got a coffee mug and a gift certificate.

But I wasn't the first to fall in the water. Mary Helen "Bebe' Cadwalader beat me to it back in the 1930s. According to her obituary by Frederick N. Rasmussen, she fell off a pier while covering a story in Curtis Bay. She was unfortunate to have a photographer with her, and a picture of her bobbing in the water hung in the city room, complete with this caption: "Bebe covers the waterfront, and the water covers Bebe."

Shortly after I fell in, I got promoted from Arundel to the cop beat in Baltimore. One of my colleagues wrote me a note: "Bebe Cadwalader fell into the harbor and went on to Life Magazine. You fell into the harbor and went to Metro."

Now, years later, I own a house on the other side of the pond, just above Key Highway, and I can see the spot I went in from my rooftop deck.

Ah, the memories.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

This morning's fire that killed two people in East Baltimore is an unfortunate but timely reminder that it's nearly time to turn back your clocks (Sunday) and at the time time make sure your smoke detectors are working and have fresh batteries.

The apartment that burned above the corner grocery on East Jefferson Street, according to city Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright, "had no evidence of a working smoke detector." State law requires residents to have the devices.

I know, this isn't really a crime. But it is related to keeping our resident's safe, and fires and fire-related deaths traditionally rise as the days get colder. The Baltimore Fire Department for years has distributed free smoke detectors to any residence that needs them. Firefighters will even install them for you and give you batteries; they routinely canvass neighborhoods and knock on doors to check.

Earlier this year, the city gave away its 100,000th free detector. "There is pretty much no reason for any household to be without a working smoke detector," Cartwright said.

Today's deaths bring the number of people killed in city fires this year to 17 (seven were in homes without detectors). Last year, 34 people died in fires. In 2006, 23 people perished, 22 in 2005 and 29 in 2004. The photo above, taken at the Walbrook Fire Station on West North Avenue, shows a sign that has not been updated.

Here's a scene from this morning's fire taken by Baltimore Sun photographer Kim Hairston

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The back and forth with the Baltimore's Sun's Copy Desk chief, John E. McIntyre, on policespeak has turned into lists of police cliches. Mr. McIntyre just posted a blog on his site on old words that still crop up from time to time. He lists bust, finger, heist and to cop a plea.

Back when Ed Norris stormed into Baltimore from New York, he brought more than a new form of tough policing. He brought his own lingo. Much of it was familiar -- straight from the proliferation of New York cop shows on TV such as NYPD Blue and Law and Order.

The New York influence is long gone, though New York's former top cop, William J. Bratton, visited recently and talked about crime. But he speaks with a Boston accent, and now leads the LAPD, so I'm not sure that counts anymore.

Norris started to introduce some New York terms, which I realized when I heard now retired Col. Bert Shirey say "perp." That's not a Baltimore word. We simply say "suspect." Nor do we use the New York word for a minor perp, skell.

Baltimore calls an arrest a "lock-up"; New Yorkers call it a "collar." A fugitive is "on the wing" in Baltimore but "in the wind" in New York; we both call a vagrant a "mope"; we have "PO-lice" (used as a noun); they have "cop"; we take our injured to the hospital in an "ambo," New Yorkers make the trip in a "bus"; our cops just go to the station, while New York cops go back to "The House."

Baltimore PO-lice have at least two terms we can call our own. You can still be yoked -- an unarmed mugging from behind -- and sometimes you hear an old-time dispatcher send an officer to a "yoking in progress." I'll admit, it's rare, but I heard one just the other day.

And we own the word "espantoon" -- the wooden, hand-carved nightstick. It's defined in Webster's, Third Edition, as "Baltimore, a policeman's club" though I haven't seen it in print in years.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
        

Years ago, the Baltimore Sun wrote a story about problems in the city's criminal justice system called "Justice Undone." This week, it's more like "Justice Never Gets a Chance."

Joe Sviatko, a spokesman for the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office, sent out a news release today about yesterday's docket. Six murder cases scheduled. Five murder cases postponed. All for the same reason: "No courts were available."

One man did plead guilty to killing a Patterson High senior and a lacrosse player who was an innocent bystander to a gunfight back in March of last year.

Delays are woven into the fabric of the downtown courthouse. One reason, documented by Baltimore Sun reporter Melissa Harris, is that defense lawyers in the lower District Courts quite often request moving to Circuit Court for jury trials. They know full well that the Circuit Court is overloaded as is, and they're more likely to get a dismissal or a great plea offer just to make their case go away. It helps them, but clogs the courts for more serious cases.

On Wednsday, there were technically 15 courtrooms available for criminal cases. But that's just on paper. Three were set aside for the cases moved up from District Court. Two were set aside as "reception courts" -- where cases are assigned to various judges.

"That takes it down to 10," Sviatko told me this morning. "Then what happens is somebody's in trial, and they can last multiple days. They aren't available until the trial is over, and every single day new cases come in. Yesterday, checking with prosecutors, they said to me it was there understanding that every single available trial judge was in trial. So at the end of the day when they all came in as postponements, it wasn't a surprise."

Sviatko did say it was unusual for so many murder cases to be scheduled for one day.

My good friend over at the other city crime blog wondered yesterday what would happen to these cases: "How many will actually start? (All but one are scheduled for the same judge-- duh!) How many will end in a conviction? Let's follow together, shall we?"

Now we know. Here's what didn't happen in court yesterday, outlined by the city State's Attorney's Office:

Baltimore, MD – October 30, 2008 – The following five murder trials were scheduled to begin in Baltimore Circuit Court Wednesday.

The murder trial of Bryant Williams was postponed to January 26, 2009. No courts were available.
Court documents allege that on May 2, 2007 in the 2200 block of Barclay Street Derius Harmon, 19, was found fatally shot.  Witnesses later identified Williams as the alleged shooter.

The murder trial of Dajuan Marshall was postponed to a date to be determined.  No courts were available. Court documents allege on June 8, 2008, Dajuan Marshall and an unknown male approached Kenneth Jones in the area of Custom House and Water Street.  Marshall and the unknown male allegedly forced Jones at gunpoint into the trunk of a waiting four door sedan.  The body of Mr. Jones was found on June 9 at 12:15AM in the 4500 block of Bonner Road.

The murder trial of Danny Battle was postponed to January 14, 2009. No courts were available.
Court documents allege Danny Battle was responsible for a shooting incident on January 25, 2008 in the 900 block of Pennsylvania Avenue.  Irvin Lawson was found suffering from gunshot wounds in the unit block. He died later at University of Maryland Shock Trauma.

The murder trial of Michael Wallace was postponed to a date to be determined. No courts were available. Court documents allege June 12, 2007 in the 2400 block of Ellamont Ave. the victim, Sterling A. Carr, Jr., 28, was found on the sidewalk suffering from a gunshot wound to the upper torso.  Carr died the same day at Shock Trauma.  Witnesses later identified Wallace as the alleged shooter.

The murder trial of Darnell Jeter was postponed to February 2, 2009.  No courts were available.
Court documents allege Darnell Jeter was responsible for the death of Theresa Parker on March 25, 2007 in the 1200 block of Treeleaf Court. Parker was found dead in the second floor bedroom of a vacant dwelling at that address.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection office sent out a news release referring to a man caught at BWI Airport with "monetary instruments" that exceeded the legal limit. What's wrong with saying money? Of course, the release could've been about securities and stocks. But then, why not just say it like that?

That got me thinking about policespeak -- the bureaucratic, official vernacular that cops use when they talk and write reports.

I challenged my good friend and Baltimore Sun Copy Desk Chief John E. McIntyre to come up with a few cliches and phrases containing unnecessary verbiage -- he flags them in our copy every day -- and he quickly responded. 

I've got a few of my own to share, and some further explanations for his.

Mr. McIntyre mentions "wooded area" and "fled on foot." It's been my experience that cops usually combine this into: "fled into a nearby wooded area." What's wrong with "ran into the woods?"

Mr. McIntyre also cites, "10-4" as a tired cliche and wondered if even cops use it anymore. You don't hear it too much on the police radio -- even cops tend to prefer English to codes -- but "10-4" is listed on the Police Department's radio translation list. It simply means, "Acknowledged." (My favorite has always been "10-7" for out of service, which can be used for anything from a bathroom break to a dead body.)

Transportation writer Michael Dresser adds "restraining device" instead of seat belts. And Dresser recalls that back in the 1970s a reporter wrote that a driver had failed to negotiate a curve and the phrase made it all the way to the Copy Desk, which, if at all possible, made it worse, by changing it to "failed to drive on a curve."

Here's a few more:

"The argument ensued" instead of argued.

"Eluded" instead of got away.

Listen to Bill Toohey, the longtime spokesman for the Baltimore County Police Department, who uses English when he's talking on TV. I asked him why, and he gave a simple answer: "Because I'm talking to the public."

I'd love to hear from cops and anyone else on their favorite police phrases.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

We're all familiar with calling in anonymous crime tips to Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland using the 1-866-7LOCKUP number.

Now, there are two more ways to help the cops catch a criminal: the nonprofit's web site now has a form you can fill out and submit electronically. You can also text your tip in on your cell phone.

That's right, text it in. Simply text MCS, your message and send it to CRIMES (274637).

The program started quietly two weeks ago as a test and was made public today, first by WJZ-TV. Earl Winterling, the immediate past chairman of the Maryland crime stoppers program and a regional director of Crime Stoppers USA, said already one text tip has come in. But even better, 20 tips have come in on the web form.

"And that's without any advertisements," said Winterling, whose paid job is security chief of 7-Eleven stores in Maryland and Delaware. He said the Crime Stoppers LOCKUP number typically generates only 28 tips a month, so 20 in two weeks, before anyone really knew about the program, is quite remarkable.

Now that it's public, Winterling said, "I can't believe what is going to happen to us."

Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland has paid out about $500,000 over the past 27 years. It offers rewards up to $2,000 for tips that lead to arrests and convictions. He said calls have been slow recently, even with a steady pace of crime and the stop snitching video that has made people understandably apprehensive about "having a police car pull up in front of their house."

Crime Stoppers offers people an alternative, pays money for useful tips and allows them to remain annonymous.

The Boston Police Department was first agency to get tips by texting. They started back in 2007, and according to the Boston Globe, received 678 text tips in the first year (compared with 727 by phone). The newspaper reported that one text tip that came in 12 hours after the number was launched led to the arrest of a suspect in a New Hampshire homicide.

I asked Boston Police spokesman James Kenneally if people like to text in tips, and he said: "Heck yeah, it's been real successful."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

With Halloween fast approaching, police and other government agencies are distributing safety tips. Convicted sex offenders have to post signs on their doors with pumpkins on them and warning that there is no candy at their house.

Here are some more tips for trick-or-treaters:

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

At last night's Eastern District Police Community Relations Council meeting, Baltimore Police Maj. Melvin Russell ran into flak from residents about his request that they e-mail him directly with complaints about drug organizations.

Breaking crime still goes to 911, his officers said, but e-mails about ongoing drug houses and drug corners will help both log the complaints and ensure action. But Russell, who is trying restore community policing, wants very specific information.

"Don't just put the drug dealers are in my block again," Russell said. "You won't get a response. Be detailed. Give me license plate numbers. Tell me that 'Pookie' is back on the street selling drugs."

Russell said that when he was in the Northeastern District, one resident took him up on his word. The man took pictures of dealers through his blinds. Then he took video. "He sent me two 10-second videos of drug dealers. Hand-to-hand. Hand-to-hand. The guy took pictures of the alley where the guy hid his drugs. He didn't call it a stash. He called it a store. He drew and arrow to the spot."

Russell said police were on it that day.

That's the kind of cooperation Russell is trying to get. His deputy major, Dan A. Lioi, a former lieutenant in the gun squad, got praise from a resident who had spotted him at a drug corner. She had called him to complain about Preston and Aisquith streets, and Lioi went there. "I had to see what you guys are telling me is going on," he said.

Crime in the Eastern District has dropped more sharply this year than anywhere else in the city, according to police spokesman Sterling Clifford. At last night's meeting, police delivered an astounding statistic: the Eastern has had only one nonfatal shooting and one homicide so far this month.

The fatal shooting occurred about 1 a.m. Saturday in the 1800 block of N. Regester St. Derrick Phillips, 42, was shot in the head. His last known address was in Woodlawn, but Lioi said the victim hung out on Greenmount Avenue in North Baltimore. He said Phillips may have been visiting or looking for a woman on Regester Street, but other than that detectives have uncovered no ties between him and the Eastside.

Even one homicide is one too many. "It's a person who lost his life," the deputy major said. 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Efforts by Maryland parole and probation officials to protect trick-or-treaters from sexual predators is lauditory. Agents plan to check up on convicted offenders to make sure they follow the rules -- stay inside, keep their lights out and hang a sing on their door that says, "No candy at this residence."

There is a new twist. The once bland sign is now adorned with a picture of a pumpkin.

The head of parole and probation, Patrick McGee, said he was caught off guard by criticism of the pumpkin. Will it attract kids intstead of keep them away? Will it provoke strange questions by children confused at what could be construed as a mixed message?

Dr. Fred Berlin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University and director of the National Institute for the study of prevention and treatment of sexual trauma, believes that the signs, with or without pumpkins, could cause unnecessary hysteria.

Berlin said the overwhelming majority of sexual offenders do not go after strangers, but family members and friends, and then only after building a relationship that results in sex. Rarely, he said, do offenders go after "a child who has just knocked on the door."

My gut reaction is why give a sex offender the chance to meet -- and possibly start a relationship -- with a child in the first place?

Berlin said he isn't knocking law enforcement for trying to protect children from sex offenders, he just thinks that too many resources go into initiatives such as the Halloween crackdown at the expense of protecting kids from other crimes: like older youths stealing or attacking younger kids out on Halloween night.

"We have to protect children," Berlin said. "But do we want to do it in a way that stigmatizes and embarrasses a group of people when it doesn't serve any useful purpose and begs the question why?"

I'd love to hear what parents and parental advocates think? Is it better to be safe than sorry? Does we even care about stigmatizing a convicted sex offender, or does making them put up a sign raise more questions than answers?

Here is the letter the state has sent to violent and child sex offenders, as well as some tips from authorities on having a safe Halloween:

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Thursday night is shaping up to be busy with plenty of crime-related activities. I'm listing three below: a walk to prevent mischief in Towson, a town meeting for the Latino community led by Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy and a block party in East Baltimore sponsored by the mayor's office on criminal justice.

Here the are details:

Towson Area COPs are Prepared for MISCHIEF NIGHT PATROLS

Thursday, October 30, 2008   6:45 PM Gathering and Sign In, 7:00 Instructions followed by GROUP Photograph. The Hillendale Police Resource Center (1055 TAYLOR AVENUE, nearest intersection is Loch Raven & Taylor) will be the headquarters for the Mischief Night patrols.  Officer Kristy Fuka will be the command post dispatcher. Patrollers use their cell phone to request assistance and report any vandalism.

Towson Police, Precinct Six Commander Alexander Jones, Sgt. Stephen Fink and Baltimore other  County Police will meet at the new Police Hillendale Resource Center, 1055 Taylor Avenue for instruction and support as TACOP prepares to patrol our neighborhood streets and schools the night before Halloween, a night when young vandals often cause trouble. To help make Mischief Night a Safe Night in Towson, TACOP is deploying 40 patrol cars into twenty communities and several business districts. Reporting suspicious activities in the continued fight against vandalism helps to maximize police effectiveness in Towson area communities.

TACOP does not tolerate graffiti, throwing eggs, smashing pumpkins, breaking windows, slashing tires or any other vandalism at any time, especially on Mischief Night. TACOP and the Baltimore County Police have been working together for several years to curb these crimes and damage to residences, businesses and schools.

MOTTO: SEE IT-HEAR IT-REPORT IT: CITIZENS ON PATROL-THE POWER OF NEIGHBORS!

PARTICIPATING NEIGHBORHOODS: Anneslie, Burkleigh Square, Campus Hills, East Towson, Greenbrier, Loch Raven Heights, Loch Raven Village, Knollwood/Donnybrook, Aigburth Manor, Aigburth Vale Mansion Senior Community, Donnybrook Apartments, Fellowship Forest, Overbrook Community, Olde Hillendale, Ridgeleigh, Rodgers Forge, Stoneleigh, Towson Manor Village, and Wiltondale.

STATE’S ATTORNEY JESSAMY TO HOST TOWN MEETING FOR LATINO COMMUNITY OCTOBER 30, 2008 

Baltimore, MD – October 27, 2008 – In an effort to better serve non-English speaking Latino victims of crime, the Office of the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City (OSA) will hold a town meeting in Baltimore City.  This special meeting will be held at 6:30PM Thursday October 30, 2008 at St. Patrick’s Church Hall, 1728 Bank Street.  Translators will be present for the entire resentation.

The purpose of the forum is to discuss the impact of crime and to provide information on how to

reduce criminal activity in the community.  Topics of discussion will include: Safety for Day Laborers; Domestic Violence; Gangs; and Human Trafficking. Due to language barriers, cultural differences, and a misunderstanding of the criminal justice system, many victims decline to report criminal activity to the police or reach out for services. “It is important to build trust and bridge the gap between the State’s Attorney’s Office and the Latino community,” State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy said.  “This forum is an opportunity for a positive exchange of information to help crime victims. I am committed to this effort.” 
 
The Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention awarded the OSA a grant to hire a bilingual victim advocate. Ms. Evelyn Vargas is available to help victims navigate the legal system and foreign language barriers while providing support to victims to heal physically, emotionally, and financially.  State’s Attorney Jessamy, Ms. Vargas and members of the Latino community will be available to answer questions from the public and media at this town meeting.

The State’s Attorney’s Office Victim/Witness and Community Services Division provides comprehensive services for crime victims and their families consisting of: information and referral, financial assistance, court escort, restitution and property returns, safety planning and counseling services.  All victims of crime may call 410-396-1897 for additional information.

Block Pary

The Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice will sponsor Operation Protect Block Party & Resource Fair on Thursday, October 30, 2008 from 4:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. The event will feature free food, entertainment from local youth performers and booths staffed with outreach workers who will provide information to the community.

Motorists are urged to use alternate routes and exercise caution and patience when traveling in the vicinity. The following street closures and parking restrictions will be in effect from 9:00 a.m. until 8:30 p.m.

 Barclay Street from East 22nd Street to East 22nd ½ Street
 East 22nd Street from Greenmount Avenue to Barclay Street

Posted by Peter Hermann at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The meeting was billed as a roundtable discussion with politicians and law enforcement officials. It was a small table.

The main players were: U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, Queen Anne's County State's Attorney Frank M. Kratovil Jr., who is running for congress in the in Maryland's Eastern Shore-based 1st District, the head of the Baltimore County police union and two state police union officials. The audience consisted of aides, two repoters and a television cameraman.

Held in the county police's FOP Lodge 4 headquarters on Harford Road in Parkville, the meeting was really a campaign stop for Kratovil, a Democrat who is locked in a fierce campaign with his Republican challenger, state Sen. Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins. It was high on rhetoric, low on specifics.

This was a hike for Kratovil, whose district is mainly east of the Chesapeake Bay but contains a sliver of land on the western shore up through Baltimore and Harford counties. The Baltimore County FOP isn't even weighing in on this race; they're backing C.A. Ruppersberger in the Second District, which covers more of the county, letting unions from the shore decide whom to back in the first district.

Kratovil talked mostly about wanting to restore funding to local police programs that he said has been cut or curtailed by the Bush administration. He singled out the COPS program that the Baltimore Police Department once endorsed. That program paid college tuition for men and women to join police departments  for four years.

Kratovil said that in these suddenly difficult economic times, which can bring an increase in crime, it's important that the federal government support local law enforcement. "If we don't do that, we're going to be back to where were in the 1980s," he said, referring to a period of high crime across the country.

Added Cardin: "You can't say you support cops on the beat and then cut their programs."

Cole B. Weston, the president of Baltimore County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4, said police are at a turning point in driving down crime. "We can't lose so much ground that we give up the foothold we now have," he said. "It could take us a decade to get back out of it."

Harris' campaign manager, Chris Meekins, said his candidate also enjoys the support of law enforcement, and said any idea that he would cut money that helps local police departments is "a ridiculous claim from a desperate campaign."

And in a campaign that already includes hard-hitting ads, Meekins hinted at more to come: "I think the voters will have a clear understanding of Mr. Kratovil's real record as prosecutor before this campaign is over."

We only have a week left.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

So Nicholas W. Browning has pleaded guilty in the shooting deaths of parents and two brothers in their Baltimore County home in February.

Baltimore Sun reporter Jennifer McMenamin reports that under the deal the 16-year-old will get no more than two consecutive life terms. This comes on a day when a judge was to have heard arguments on whether Browning's statements to police -- that he stood over his father for 25 minutes before shooting him in the head and that he tried to cover up the crime by making it look like the house had been burglarized.

This certainly was a horrible case that once again challenged people to figure out how this could happen. Without a trial, many questions might never be answered. I'll be watching to see if the young man says anything when he sentenced on Dec. 2.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

So, just how many people were relocated from a redevelopment project in East Baltimore to the Belair-Edison neighborhood?

The nonprofit East Baltimore Development Inc. says that in the first phase of the project, 35 families moved into the Northeast Baltimore community. The president, Jack Shannon, offered that number last week as part of a column I wrote exploring complaints from Belair-Edison residents that an influx of newcovers from East Baltimore were driving up crime rates. Shannon said that is not possible because so few people relocated there compared with the community's sizeable population of about 13,000.

Then I started getting e-mails. The first was from Ede Taylor, founder of the Belair-Edison Healthy Community Coalition. She argued that they had been told back in 2003 that 1,100 people had been relocated, with 40 percent going to Belair-Edison. "Forty percent is a far cry from 35," she wrote, adding that before, "The 'hardest' crimes the Belair-Edison had to contend with were 'car thefts.' For the past 2 years, homicides have ocurred all too frequently."

Over the weekend, I got another e-mail, this one from Karen Kemp, a board chair of the Belair-Edison Association: "I totally agree with Ms. Taylor's email. I recall in 2003 when Bernard Hutchins attended the Belair-Edison Association meeting regarding the relocation of East Baltimore residents. I recall him stating that it was approximately 75 residents that moved into the Belair community."

That was followed by an e-mail from Baltimore Deputy Mayor Salima Siler Marriott: "I want to affirm the clarity of Ms. Taylor's articulation of the challenges facing the people of Belair Edison and the East Baltimore community."

I called Shannon this morning. He too got these e-mails. As for the 40 percent of 1,100 number, he said, "I have no idea where that came from." He said people may be "mixing apples and oranges" and that in 2003 they had only moved a handful of people. In total, they moved 991 residents, about 1,000 people, roughly 30 percent to the greater Northeast Baltimore area, 30 percent to other parts of East Baltimore and 30 percent scattered around the city and elsewhere.

Shannon said he spoke with Hutchins this morning, who works for EBDI, and he doesn't remember the conversation with the community that is mentoned in the e-mails. Though his numbers seem more accurate, if he said then that 75 residents would move into Belair-Edison. Shannon says 35 households moved in (each with about 2.6 members), which would make that 91 people total.

Of course, people could have thought Hutchins meant 75 households instead of individual people, a number that stuck with them through the years. Said Shannon: "We provide lots of data at these meetings, sometimes maybe too much data."

Anyway, Shannon is sticking with his original numbers. And even so, it's doesn't answer the question of whether newcomers brought more crime with them.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Back in 1996, the Baltimore Police Department dressed Officer Lori Marketti in seductive clothes and put her out on Calvert Street. Her job was to catch men looking for prostitutes. Not only was she attractive, she wasn't worn by shooting heroin or living on the streets.

She was, therefore, a prized catch -- I would argue entrapment. Brake lights went on. One man solicited her from the driver's seat of an armored truck, creating quite a problem for police about how to impound the money with the driver being hauled off to jail!

Police have been doing these stings for years -- targeting both the women who sell themselves and men looking to buy their services. In some neighbhorhoods, the problem is so bad that women get solicited when they step out the doors of their rowhouses. In Pigtown, a vigilante group takes pictures and video of hookups and posts them on the Internet, complete with license plate numbers of cars.

In 1997, I was in the Southern District station when police brought in both prostitutes and johns who had been arrested in a sting operation on Patapsco Avenue (still one of the city's biggest problem areas for the trade). I overheard this wonderful comment from one of the women, to a man who invoked his right to remain silent:

"If you wouldn't proposition us, none us us would be here."

City police for years debated whether to target men, or women, or both. The women are easy targets; the men are more difficult, and require dangerous stings with undercover officers such as Marketti. But women viewed the arrests as simply the cost of doing business. Going after the men, police thought, would disrupt their lives, end their marriages and sometimes cost them their jobs, and it would have a greater impact. Former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke wanted to publish the names and photos of every man convicted of prostitution, but gave up on the idea when he discovered that so few men who were arrested were actually found guilty that it was useless. In six months, the entire list consisted only two names. 

Over the weekend, Julie Bykowicz wrote a story about the bust of a suspected brothel in Butcher's Hill, in a home in the middle of nice neighborhood near Patterson Park. Most arrests are of prostitutes working the streets. Who knows how many work inside, where they are less likely to be noticed (of course, men lining upside a house on a residential street certainly draws suspicion)?

In San Francisco, voters on Nov. 4 will face a question about whether to decriminalize prostitution. The city's main newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, is urging residents to vote yes on Proposition K, arguing it will reduce violence and help prostitutes and their customers seek and get proper health care. The debate continues as to whether that means the streets will be flooded with more street-walkers, or if the street-walkers will simply be more organized and free from pimps.

In the 1980s, Baltimore got national attention merely proposing a DEBATE on drug decriminalization; I couldn't find any information about whether that also included prostitution. I checked with Ryan O'Doherty, the spokesman for City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and he assured me that the issue isn't being discussed now either.

"It's not in our plans," he said.

It's still an interesting topic ...

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

I had a great opportunity earlier this week to lead two journalism classes at the Walbrook Homeland Security Academy. (also check out our school reporter Sara Neufeld's blog on another school visit). I met a great teacher, Philip Turner, who introduced me to more than 35 of his students.

It's heartening to talk with young people who are interested in your profession, even when your profession is up against hard times. For the most part, these young adults were engaging, insightful and challenged me with questions about my job and forced me to confront some of my own preconceived notions.

Yes, some of these kids are growing up in difficult homes and dangerous neighborhoods, and some have had run-ins with the police. They wanted me to write about how the police rough them up for no reason. But most wanted to know how we interview mothers who have just lost sons, and whether we cry later. They wanted to know whether officials from City Hall try to get us not to write stories, and wondered whether I'd be afraid to publish what really goes on in a city high school.

I was so engrossed in the conversation that 90 minutes flew by, and at the end I honestly couldn't tell you if I was in an inner-city school or a freshman class in college. That is the fun part of this job. I hope they learned something; I know I did.

That said, no, I'm not afraid to tell what I saw in the school. First off, this is the Homeland Security Academy, but I think they forgot the security part. The students told me there are metal detectors (after a series of fires set in bathrooms) but apparently they're only up in the mornings (one student told me the school borrows them). I walked in around 9:15 in the morning and went straight to Mr. Turner's classroom on the third floor without ever being confronted, stopped or questioned by anybody. I walked right by the main office and several kids hanging out in the lobby.

During class, the disruptions were constant. Announcements came often from the main office, everything from calling students to different rooms to requests for attendance sheets. Kids roamed the halls, and weren't too quiet about it either. After class, I roamed the school again, chatted with teachers, police officers and paramedics (who are there to teach the public safety theme), but again, no one ever asked what I was doing there.

After all, this is a school that once tried to get students to wear royal blue shirts as part of their uniforms, until fights broke out and teachers realized that blue was the color of the Crips gang and the Bloods didn't much like the choice of attire. Can an adminstration that runs a PUBLIC SAFETY school in one of the roughest neighborhoods of the city be that out of touch? They now wear yellow.

One student seriously asked, "Is crime always bad?" Another asked, "I want to know what makes a person fight over a color."

Yes, I said, crime is always bad. But I also tried to explain that crime is something that is against the law, and we get to make the laws. Then a student told me, "All you do is write." True, but it's more than just sitting at a computer and writing. I want to talk with real people -- not officials -- but real people, like them, who feel ignored. Tell those stories, I told them, and it makes "just writing" all the more worthwhile. In addition, I said it gives me, and potentially them, a license to question authority.

Mr. Turner was gracious enough to let me have several papers the students wrote for one of his projects called, "Crime in my eyes." The biggest complaint these kids had was that they feel they are being cheated out of a good education. Three principals in four years. Constant interruptions in the hallway. Classes that repeat basic information. Said one student: "These teachers are doing a good job teaching kids who don't want to learn." Reading their essays, I was even more astounded, not by the crime they describe in intimate detail, but that the kids I enaged for 90 minutes in smart conversation could survive in such heartwrenching conditions.

Here is their work:

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Jerry "Buz" Busnuk, a retired Baltimore police captain who has his own crime blog, attended the speech by LAPD Chief William J. Bratton and had his own thoughts, both on the talk and on the blog I posted earlier today.

At one point, Bratton talked about arriving in New York City and being overwhelmed by squeegee men cleaning windows. The chief said he investigated and discovered there were only 75, but they were strategically located at the most crowded entrances to the island. Nearly 40,000 cops easily took care of the 75 squeegee men who had terrorized millions, he bragged.

Here's Busnuk's take (and he promises more on his own blog soon):

Thanks, Peter! I skimmed your piece on our intellectually-stimulating talk last night, and have some thoughts running around in my mostly-empty head. You must have had a recorder on or took real good reporter-like notes. I have some perhaps contrary notes, and I'll post those if I get a chance, but a couple:

Geesh, if NYC had, for real, only 75 squeegee men, I wonder how many dirt bikes there are in poor ole Bmore?

There seems to be a slight intellectual conflict, in my mind, between Compstat -- which generally measures Part I crimes -- and his talking about all the other quality-of-life issues that he says the cops so matter about. Were squeegee corners noted at Compstat?

He kept mentioning "38,000" police. He and Giuliani both forgot that the Dinkins administration, before they left office, pushed thru a "Safe Streets" act, which dramatically increased the size of NYPD--and New Yorkers taxed themselves to pay for it. The Housing and Transit police were also merged into the city police, at one time having a force of over 40,000--though it's a bit smaller now.

More to come from the curmudgeon, but final thought: he says that the community concerns of little things matter, but he keeps mentioning the drop in homicides.  Baltimore has seen a huge drop in homicides, but all the little things seem to be off the hook...

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today's column revisiting complaints from Belair-Edison residents that a redelopment project in East Baltimore sent an unfairly high number of impoverished residents into their community, spiking a crime increase, continues to spark interest.

John T. Shannon Jr., president of East Baltimore Development Inc., took exception to that argument and said the numbers are too miniscule to make a difference. He said only 35 families moved from East Baltimore into Belair-Edison, inhabited by about 13,000 people.

But Ede Taylor, founder and executive director of the Belair-Edison Healthy Community Coalition, says Shannon is wrong:

Dear Messrs. Hermann and Shannon:
 
I regret that you take exception to the opinions expressed by Belair-Edison community leaders and residents in the Baltimore Sun's Crime Beat blog regarding the quality of life issues that have arisen in the community after the involuntary relocation of East Baltimore families.
 
Please note that I am very concerned about the tone of today's blog, "The other side of the Belair-Edison struggle," and I take personal exception to the accuracy of the data presented by Jack Shannon. To partially quote former first lady Hillary Clinton, "There's no way, no how".... EBDI relocated 35 families into the Belair-Edison community.
 
In December 2006 and early 2007, an EBDI board member extended invitations to me to attend EBDI's Relocation and Housing Committee Meeting, chaired by Doug Nelson. It was at this meeting that the then director of community services reported 1,100 persons were successfully relocated, with 40% moving into Belair-Edison. On another occasion, the same figure was quoted to me over lunch at the Center Club. Forty percent of 1,100 is a far cry from 35, unless 35 families are comprised of 440 people.
 
It appears both EBDI and the Baltimore Sun are running the risk of portraying the community's "fight to reclaim itself" as a battle among the people. It must be noted that this is absolutely not the case, as many families from Belair-Edison and East Baltimore are related and subsequently bear no biases against one another.
 
We understand how hardworking and fine our families in Belair-Edison and East Baltimore are. Some of us even understand how it feels to be sold out and later kicked out. The Belair-Edison community has graciously welcomed its family members into the community.
 
The community's charge isn't unlike that of any family faced with the question of "How do we make things better for everyone?" No one can deny that the problems that plagued the former east baltimore community now plague Belair-Edison. The "harshest" crimes the Belair-Edison had to contend with were 'car thefts'. For the past 2 years, homicides have occured all too frequently.
 
"The State of Belair-Edison: Voices of the Community" report highlighted these very same concerns in 2006. Now, in 2008, we find the problem has substantially escalated.
 
The blog also claims to focus on "a small segment of the Belair-Edison community known as the 4 x 4." It is also critical to note that these problems exist across the community at large. Simply visit the Sun's blog, or refer to the Sun's "Reason to Worry" article, or the Afro's "Belair-Edison: A Living Hell" article. The body found near the school two nights ago wasn't found in the 4 x 4. The October 1st homicide occured on our main street.
 
The Belair-Edison community must be certain to focus on the facts and root causes of our community's problems. The massive influx of involuntary residents represents one significant piece. After we've acknowledged the root causes and begin to be honest about the data, we can collaborate on solutions.
 
I applaud EBDI for providing relocation assistance to its families, including job training, employment assistance, etc. I simply wish that EBDI would have worked closer with community organizations and provided resources in the receiving communities to ensure a smoother transition.
 
Again, we implore Baltimore City, Johns Hopkins and EBDI's honesty, services, resources and assistance.
 
Sincerely,
 
Ede Taylor, Founder and Executive Director
Belair-Edison Healthy Community Coalition

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, William J. Bratton, visited last night to lecture on Rebuilding America's Cities, part of a series by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies at the Evergreen Museum and Library on North Charles Street.

Bratton is the architect of one of the many policing strategies employed by the Baltimore Police Department back in 2000 when Martin O'Malley was mayor and he brought in Edward T. Norris from New York, first as a deputy and then as police commissioner.

Bratton talked for more than an hour and fielded a few questions from an audience that included police officers, including James Teare Sr., the chief of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, and Anthony Barksdale, deputy commissioner of the Baltimore force.

Back in the early 2000s, Bratton was part of a traveling road show of former NYPD officials who went around the country trying to fix policing and restore safety to city streets. Bratton was commisisoner of the police in Boston, New York and now Los Angeles. Norris also was in the group, along with John F. Timoney, who went from New York to lead the force in Philadelphia and now Miami. They all learned under the late Jack Maple, who ran a $2,000-a-day consulting company and met with his star students at Elaine's on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Maple was the consultant who turned around the corrupt New Orleans Police Department and also was hired by O'Malley.

Bratton oversaw double-digit crime descreases in Boston and in New York, where homicides tumbled from 2,300 to around 700. He's showing the same gains in Los Angeles, where he has been for the past six years. Here is what Bratton had to say last night:

Bratton told a story of being in Boston in the early 1990s. His police force had done what police forces did then (and many still do now): compiled numbers of arrests and response times and brought the stats to a community meeting, where an officer spoke to a disinterested crowd.

When it came time for questions, it turned out people didn't care how many arrests the cops made, or even about some of the crime they hadn't even heard about. "They wanted the kids off the corners," Bratton said. They wanted the trash picked up. "It was a wake up call," said Bratton. "We didn't undersand what it was the community wanted. It was what the people saw every day -- the deterioration of their community."

Bratton used this example to talk about the need to bring back community policing. And though he didn't mention it, he also was talking about zero-tolerance, that ugly form of policing that we blame for Baltimore cops arresting tens of thousands of citizens on questionable charges, ruining their trust in authority and now undermining trials and bringing us a stop snitching culture.

It's far more complicated than that. Bratton traces the problem back to 1970, as the country emerged from the Civil Rights protests and riots and headlong into anger over Vietnam. Police departments were just moving officers off the walking posts into cars, which took them away from the people they served. With the start of the rapid response 911 system, police started to answer calls but not always patrol the way they used to. As a result, the beat cop didn't pay close attention anymore as the corners filled with young people, as they sipped beer in public, to all the little things that can make a community feel unsafe.

At the same time, the birth of suburbs took even more and more people out of cities. "Everyone wanted Leave it to Beaver," Bratton said, "to leave their problems behind. The cities were dying, they were passe, in the new world, they weren't going to be of any importance."

As the 70s turned into the 80s, the police departments started to take on a new role: that of decriminalizing and depolicing. Instead of locking up vagrants and drunks, cops took them to detox centers and homeless shelters. In Boston at that time, he said there were only 44 beds for the homeless in the city, so naturally cops didn't take them anywhere. As "cities were dying," Bratton said the cops paid less and less attention to social ills, and police forces got smaller. Boston went from 2,800 officers in the 70s to 1,500 in the 80s.

Then, in the 80s, came cocaine. First as powder, embraced by the upper middle class, and then as crack, quick, easy and cheap and highly addictive. It hit East Coast inner-cities "like a typhoon," Bratton said. "Your city of Baltimore, the reason so many neighborhoods look the way they do, is a direct result of the 80s and you haven't yet recovereed. It was like an atom bomb."

The smaller police forces were ill-equipped to deal with the violence that came with crack and the street corner markets. "In the 80s, the bad guys were carrying Tec-9s and Uzis and we were still carrying around six-shot revolvers," Bratton said. "By 1990, American cities were in a freefall." New York recorded 2,346 murders that year.

That brought in community policing. Cops went back to community meetings and formed partnerships with civic leaders. But Bratton also described a form of zero-tolerance -- not the arrest-everyone mentality but identifying problem areas and targeting law enforcement there. In New York, with 38,000 cops, he boasted he could flood nearly every problem area of the city at the same time. He described arriving in New York in the early 90s and seeing 5th Avenue "looking like a third world bazaar."

Bratton started in New York leading the transit police force. He said the subway system had been taken over by the homeless and by crooks who disabled turnstyles and stood there taking money from riders. There were 700 turnstyles on the subway and only 300 cops working at any given shift. Bratton said he decided to start by arresting turnstyle jumpers. The cops loved it because for the first time they got to wear plainclothes and make arrests. Thousands of people were arrested at first -- classic zero-tolerance on a nuisance crime -- but Bratton said one out of seven had an outstanding arrest warrant and one of 21 was carrying a weapon. It soon became clear that criminals could no longer use the subway to escape or commit crime.

"In two years, we used police to control behavior to the extent we changed it."

Bratton's point: "Cops count. Police matter."

It's what we heard back in 2000 from Norris and O'Malley. After years of city cops being told the crime and drug problem is so emmense that they are only part of the solution, and until the rest of the system gets on board little can be done, they were told, "Aren't you tired of being told you can't make a difference?" The force was reinvigorated.

But Bratton also stressed something else: Community policing, when it was first introduced, "nearly died on the vine" because "so many officers saw it as social work. ... Community policing doesn't have to be just social work."

Baltimore police are trying to get back to community policing, with some, like the commander of the Eastern District, arguing the department lost its way with the people they serve. But as Bratton points out, community policing isn't all meetings and cookouts, and zero-tolerance doesn't mean bashing heads across the city.

Baltimore had a police commissioner who called himself "a social worker with a gun." Then we went the other way, locking everybody up for everything, but will no plan or strategy. In between, we had Norris, who was praised for being fair in communities, with bringing down crime and whose favorite saying was to let the police be the police again.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Baltimore County police have found Shaquana Smith. She had been reported missing since October 18 at 9:30 p.m., from the first block of Hogarth Court in Cockeysville.

According to police: "She is mentally challenged and unfamiliar with the area."

Ms. Shaquana Smith, who was reported missing yesterday afternoon, returned safely to her home last night in the unit-block of Hogarth Court in Precinct 7/Cockeysville.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today the Baltimore Sun is launching a new crime map for Anne Arundel County, and we hope to replicate this for the city and other suburban jurisdictions. This goes far beyond our existing city homicide map, with automatic weekly feeds from Arundel police straight from their communications office.

It has been a mantra of this blog that citizens are poorly informed about crime in their neighborhoods, sparking confusion, rumor and fear. Some city neighborhood groups restrict the crime information they get for paying members, leaving out adjacent communities whose residents might both benefit from the information and help catch the criminals.

Many people feel the cops downgrade or don't report crime in order to make the city appear safer than it is. Some community groups have detailed listserves with lots of crime; others seem to struggle to report shed break-ins to their members.

The information is out there; assembling it can be quite a task. I'm of the position that the crime data should come from the police. This is public information and there is excuse in this day an age not to post it all on the Internet, almost as it comes in. I'm not talking about entire police reports or secretive investigative files. I'm talking about the break-ins and assaults, the car thefts and the drug arrests, the shootings and the vandalism.

Here's an example of what's available. This is from a source, from the Baltimore County Police Department's "Weekly Significant Events Report" dated Tuesday, Oct. 21. It includes crime from Precinct 6 from Oct. 13 through Oct. 19: It tells me that on Oct. 14, at 3:45 a.m., "The suspect entered the lobby, jumped over the counter, and pointed a handgun at the clerk. The suspect immediately went to the cash box and removed $400. The suspect then ran to a silver Nissan Maxima that was waiting on the parking lot." There are many more; this was just one example of information that is assembled but often seems so elusive to the public.

That's the kind of information people would love to have about each and every crime. The Arundel map might not have that kind of detailed information, but will allow readers to get a comprehensive look at crime in their county, their neighborhood and their street. And the good news is that after months of talking with departments, Baltimore County and Baltimore City might join this effort.

Some departments, such as Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Harford counties, already give out crime information to a private web site that charges the government to collect and map the crime. The Baltimore Sun does it for free, as a public service, and because we feel that having the information is better than not having it. Citizens should soon be able to map out crime trends as they see fit, with the data coming from a single, reliable source.

This endeavor has not been easy. Many departments are reluctant to share this data. Some are worried about opening computer lines between the newspaper and their secure servers. But we overcame that with Arundel -- they dump to us. This also could help the departments where officials are inundated with requests for crime stats. Most people will be satisfied with the maps on line, and when they want more, will at least be able to narrow their request that will make people on both ends happy.

Enjoy the new toy, and let's hope to get other departments on line as quickly as possible.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
        

Here's a question from a Baltimore County resident:

"Hi, Peter--here's a question I've been pondering, and I thought you might want to consider it as something to explore in your blog.  How effective are citizen patrols?  In my position I've encountered many different philosophies, and I wonder if there is any hard evidence one way or another.

"Our neighborhood has only an email crime alert system, but nearby neighborhoods have organized COP groups, where people volunteer to patrol the neighborhood (typically for one day a month). Some have magnetic COP stickers you are supposed to slap on your car to make the COP presence more visible. One policeman who attended a neighborhood gathering said that patrolling incognito might actually be more effective. Some neighborhoods take the position that "if you live here, you are automatically part of our COP," but there are no organized patrols. They ask everyone to stay alert and report anything suspicious.

"One neighborhood that does perform patrols admitted to me that they hadn't seen much in terms of results--perhaps helping up a neighbor who had fallen, or getting newspapers off the front lawn.  My feeling is that people who volunteer to patrol make themselves feel good about "doing something," particularly when there is bad news that strikes close to home."

I've been on several community crime walks and the one thing you quickly learn: you won't see any crime! In most parts of Baltimore, they're called COP walks, for Citizens on Patrol. The major in the Easten District, however, prefers to call them Good Neighbor Walks.

That's actually closer to the truth. The idea is not to confront criminals but to engage neighbors. If people see their friends and others from the community out walking with police they might be more inclined to help by calling 911 or even to stop littering. It might scare corner drug dealers away for a minute but even they might become more suspect if they know that every once in a while residents and police could be walking by. It shows them the community isn't scared to stand up to them.

Of course, it all depends on the level of organization in support. One of the best walks I went on was in Charles Village. They run a professional community group that levies taxes, and thus are far more organized than others (a paid staff certainly doesn't hurt). This walk a few months ago included not only police but the president of the city council and even more importantly, officials from the housing and zoning departments. Not top level officials, but the ones who actually can write citations. They were walking through the neighborhood listening to complaints about problem houses and alleys, and recording information on the spot. I can't think of a better way to get action and show off problems. The fact that the city council president was there no doubt ensured that the paperwork would not get lost.

It's the little things that matter in a community -- the trash, street lights, problem bars, houses allowed to rot. These walks may or may not have an impact on crime, but they certainly can prove to the city or county that the residents here care.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

There's a wonderful passage in Russell Baker's book, "The Good Times," about the New York Times reporter and columnist who got is start scouring the police districts of Baltimore for the Baltimore Sun. It's the 1940s, and Baker is in the Northern District station, trying to convince a lieutenant to give him some information. Baker went over the lieutenant's head.

"'I'm trying to get a report of a shooting, and the lieutenant says he doesn't have it,' I said."

"Inspector Koch spoke to the desk officer, 'Do you have the report?'"

"The lieutenant nodded yes."

"Let me see it."

"The lieutenant reached under the desk, drew out a single piece of paper, and handed it to the inspector. He scanned it quickly, then tossed it back on the desk."

"'Give it to him,' Inspector Koch said.

"The lieutenant started to form a mild objection. 'Are you sure we want it in the paper?'"

"'Give it to him,' the inspector repeated, and then said something to the lieutenant that was wonderfully profound: "'It happened, didn't it?"

I thought of this last night at a meeting of the Mount Vernon-Belvedere Association. Paul Warren, the vice president, was introducing the guests and noted that Central District Sgt. Charles B. Hess was present to give the crime report. Warren then did something that all reporters hate -- he introduced me to the small crowd.

Heads turned and people stared, I'm sure wondering what calamity could have brought a reporter to their humble monthly meeting (I was there, of course, for any updates over a recent shooting outside the Belvedere that stemmed from an argument in a nightclub residents of the building are trying to shut down).

Warren introduced me, and the sergeant, this way: "We can say things have never been worse and get more police patrols or we can say it's better than ever and get some positive press from The Baltimore Sun."

Warren was joking. But Hess, who has been on the force since 1973, already seemed hesitant about me being there. Before the meeting, he promised it would lack any and all excitement and seemed dismayed when I sat down anyway. He started by noting the Mount Vernon and mid-Town Belvedere area are among, if not the, safest neighborhoods in the city.

That was followed by noting a spike in serious crimes -- up from the average of 25 to 30 to 36 (he didn't specify the time period, but I think that's since the last meeting a month earlier. Break-ins to cars are up, he said, a concern for residents and visitors alike.

In the end, any reluctance to talk about crime in front of a reporter was overcome. People demand crime stats but don't want to discuss them beyond the confines of their neighborhood. I understand that, especially in Mount Vernon where the neighborhood's very lifeblood depends on visitors to the bars, theaters and museums. But I also believe that not telling people is worse.

Concentrate on fixing the problem, not the message, and remember the old Inspector Koch. "It happened, didn't it?"

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Days after a newborn was found dead in a trash bin in back of St. John's United Methodist Church in Charles Village, some group decorated the bin with notes remembering the child and, in some cases, condemning the mother.

I still don't know who put them there.

Two people involved with Charles Village associations said they had no idea. The mother was part of a service volunteer group from the Church of the Brethren, but a spokeswoman in Illinois said none of their members did the drawings. Some speculated that a group called 2640 project may be responsible. This group advertises itself as a cooperative for "radical politcs and grassroots culture" and meets at St. John's. One of the leaders e-mailed me yesterday to deny any making the posters.

The pastor of St. John's hasn't returned phone calls, and I have no idea who put them up and why, or who took them down. I'd love to know their purpose.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

In 1999, faced with an overburdoned overtime budget, the commander of Baltimore's Northeastern Police District closed the station to the public between midnight and 7 a.m. People who called got this recording: "Everyone is on the street. If is an emergency, dial 911."

Maj. Arthur Smith said he had to make a choice with the money he had: "Would you rather have someone in your neighborhood or sitting at a desk waiting for a phone to ring at 4 a.m.?" he said back then.

All nine of the city's police districts remain open today, 24 hours. But we also learn today that the police and fire departments have spent $21 million in overtime, and the Police Department now faces $6.8 million in cuts. The housing unit's 32 oficers are being shifted to the Southern and Southeastern districts; the marine unit is going from four officers to three; officers assigned to work with Hispanic and Asian communities are going back to patrol and officers who compile crime stats are also back on the streets.

The major of the southern district told The Baltimore Sun that he plans to form a new squad to patrol around public housing in Cherry Hill and Brooklyn, and with the demise of the public housing high rises years ago, disbanding the housing unit seemed a foregone conclusion. There are still concentrations of public housing, but gradually they are being scattered and incorporated into the city, rather than being isolated pockets of poverty and crime. It seems that police plan to use this new influx of officers in a smart way.

Moving officers from community programs, a seeming luxury, might have worse repercussions. Tensions involving various groups that call Baltimore home can quickly get out of control, and it sometimes takes years to build the relationships necessary to ensure there's enough goodwill to ease people's fears.

Of course, patrol cars have to be filled. Nothing angers a resident more than calling 911 and waiting for help. Just a few weeks ago, the Police Department was excited to tell me that every one of its roughly 3,100 positions were filled. That of course does not mean that there are enough officers for every shift. Take away officers out on medical leave, a vacation day, suspended, on military duty or forced to work a desk for a variety of reasons, and district commanders across the city are scrambling to fill slots.

Homicides and shootings are not only down they could reach lows not seen in Baltimore since the 1980s. But other crime, such as burglaries and thefts from cars, is up, in some districts quite a lot. The tough part will be to maintain the gains made to combat violent crime, and bring down the the numbers in other categories, during what could be difficult economic times.

Last fiscal year, the police budgeted $5 million for overtime and needed $19 million more. The previous fiscal year, police spent $29 million in overtime.

It costs money to fight crime.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Werner Kloetzli Jr., the son of the founder of Werner's restaurant on Redwood Street in downtown Baltimore, sent me an interesting e-mail over the weekend. Seems the son decided to be a civil engineer instead of work in the restaurant, and he's convinced that the grid-system that overlays much of Baltimore contributes to crime.

This "endless rectangular maze," he said, "supports crime" by providing an endless maze of streets and narrow alleys that allows criminals easy escape and makes catching them "difficult or impossible."

Kloetzli suggests that some alterations are in order.

This proves again that solving the crime problem is indeed complex. I think Mr. Kloetzli is correct -- and I've seen how city officials and police do sometimes change up our traffic patterns to frustrate the criminals.

Years ago in O'Donnell Heights in Southeast Baltimore, the city changed the direction of one-way streets to make it hard for people looking to buy drugs to continuously drive around the block. Buyers could get off of I-95 and be on a drug corner without ever having to stop a light. In South Baltimore's Pigtown neighborhood, where picking up prostitutes is subject of national Internet sites, there is a "loop" that includes Washington Boulevard that seems tailor-made for cruising.

When the Ravens won the Superbowl (yes, that long ago) I watched with amazement at how city police directed traffic. Thousands of cars were streaming into the city and the Inner Harbor after the game, and the police had it set up so people got off I-395, drove by the Harbor and then were turned around. Before the driver realized what was happening, he was back on I-395 and leaving the city -- bad for the bar business, I suppose, but it allowed people to celebrate and prevented a mob scene downtown.

In East Baltimore, there is a two-block long street that suddenly changes from two-way to one-way. A police officer I was with last week said the community wanted to petitioned for the change to prevent drug buyers from using the road. The extra lane is used for angle parking; that and the neatly kept homes, all with outside lights, signals even in the worst part of town that this area is off-limits to people up to no good.

But I'm interested in hearing whether this also is true on a grander scale, as Mr. Kloetzli suggests. Here is what he wrote:

The inner city grid of streets and alleys, it seems, is a grid system built to support crime.  This appears evident in that, after a crime, a guilty party often makes a get-away by disappearing into that grid maze.  The drive-by shooter keeps moving and disappears.  Apprehension is difficult or impossible.  As your blog states, crime is a vexing issue. And it seems that the street and alley grid maze is a major cause of the vexing.

The word grid is used because I am not emphasizing any one individual street, but am emphasizing the overall system, a seemingly endless maze or labyrinth of streets and alleys.  The grid is what would be seen looking down from an airplane. There appears to be no logical overall pattern, just an endless rectangular maze.

The City owns and maintains the streets and the alleys.  Therefore the City is paying for the criminal get-away routes, that is, the City is subsidizing the criminal.  This indicates that the City is working against itself.  It pays for the cost of maintaining the streets and alleys, and at the same time pays for police to counter the get-aways.  Why not consider some minor alterations in the street and alley system so that, instead of the system helping crime, the streets and alleys work against crime, and help the police?

We certainly can’t rearrange all of the streets and alleys.

But perhaps there is something that could be done to make the get-away routes difficult, something to revamp a small part of the street and alley maze, so that instead of the maze working for the criminal it actually works for the police, something to help the maze make apprehension more positive, and thus something to help prevent crime in the first place.

Sincerely,

Werner Kloetzli, Jr., P.E.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

A pub crawl went by my house in South Baltimore over the weekend. Ordinarily, I don't mind these creative ways to spend a lovely Saturday afternoon -- the people are loud and usually drunk by the time they reach my bar-lined street. I'd love to hear from my buddy Sam Sessa over on the Midnight Sun on this!

The noise usually lasts only a few minutes, and this crew wearing white T-shirts (they've done this before, I think) appeared to fall into the same pattern. They stood outside one bar and everything was ok until the leader decided it was time to go someplace else. That seemed to create a problem, as some didn't want to leave. Shouting ensued, using language unfit for the children I count as neighbors. A large group stood in front of my house, bottles of beer in hand, and some thought it would be funny to tip flower pots over.

That was my first call to the Baltimore Police Department's 311 line.

The tipping over and the breaking of flower pots is a common activity in my neighborhood -- it's a fairly common site upon waking up Saturday and Sunday mornings. And again I don't mind the bar crawls and people walking around with bottles of beer in their hands. But is it too much to ask them to be responsible? These weren't kids. These were young adults. Breaking other people's property.

I called 311 about an hour later when they were still there and breaking beer bottles on the sidewalk.

Not a single police car showed up. Too bad. These are the kind of problems that drive neighborhoods crazy.

After the group moved noisely down the street, I collected beer bottles off my steps and swept broken glass into a trash bag. I went back inside and had a beer.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

The crime column on crime in Belair-Edison continues to attract interest. Here's one person who lives nearby writing about some of her neighbors:

I, like Anthony Dawson, am somewhat perplexed about the influx of people into my neighborhood who do not value community. I live in the 1600 block of Darley Avenue which is not too far from Belair-Edison.  I truly empathize with the people in that community who want a better life for themselves.   For the past nine months I’ve watched tenants in a house four doors from my house destroy what used to be a beautiful row house.  Within two months of their arrival the rail that was attached to the house was broken off.  Within four months of their arrival they were involved in a physical fight that started about 2:00 a.m.  There is a constant procession of people in and out of the house at night and early in the morning.  Loud noise, loud music, cussing is the order of the day and the night.   Trash since they arrived on the scene is a constant.  They are not homebuyers, nobody in the house has a job. The landlord does not care what they do as long as he gets his rent.  The house next door to them is not occupied so they use the windowsill as an outdoor bar with beer bottles, wine bottles, soda cups and bottles lined up on the sill.  Reefer smoke particulate matter has become a major pollutant.  So what do we do?  I filed a complaint with Eastern District police department and have not see any change whatsoever.  If anything, they’ve gotten worse.

 

I like my house, I like my location, and at the present time I am not financially able to move.  But unless you have been subjected to the neighbors from hell I don’t think you can possibly understand.  I don’t know where they came from but I really wish they would go back. 

Mary M. Thomas

 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

It's been six years since that awful fire that destroyed a rowhouse at 1401 E. Preston St., claimed seven lives of the Dawson family and thrust the issue of witness retaliation into the national spotlight. Drug dealers set the fire to send a message to family members not to cooperate with police.

The rebuilt house is now the Dawson Safe Haven Center, a place for kids to retreat from the violence and drugs that still has a lock on East Baltimore neighborhoods. Yesterday, Mayor Sheila Dixon, housing officials and others joined children on a stage in the street and remembered and mourned the fire and the family.

Dixon reminded reporters of the "tragic deaths" and that "we're making strides every day in this community." New homes are replacing vacant rowhouses, a garden now grows on one corner and more is planned. Some residents, including a woman lives in the rowhouse her father was born in back in 1928, complained that the improvements hadn't made their way to her block, and that vacant rowhouses, trash and drugs remain a threat.

Then Dixon took the stage, and it appeared she broke from her planned remarks. While sitting on the stage awaiting the event to begin, she hears some comments from residents that made her angry. She wasn't afraid to share them with her audience:

"I heard a couple comments while sitting on the stage about someone wanting to bust somebody’s head, and what we want to do, we can’t make those kind of comments in front of children. We need to begin to bring peace to their lives. So as adults, we have to watch what we say around our children. We have to show them there are other routes to resolving conflicts. I’m only saying that because I saw a little angel, probably a little frustrated, but we want to make sure we spread peace to our kids. They see enough violence. They hear enough cursing. They see enough negative things. We have to say to them in the morning, 'Good morning, have a good day in school and do your best,' and before they go to bed, tell them to say their prayers. Don’t give them our drama. We all have it. Don’t say shut up. I heard someobody over here tell a little child, 'Shut up.' Remove that."

"The Dawsons are smiling over us because we have a bigger mission to carry out."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

I spent Wednesday with Leonard A. Sipes Jr., who works for the federal government but was the spokesman for the state prison system when I knew him years ago as a reporter. He now is the spokesman for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency in Washington.

That's a federal agency that oversees people parole and probation from DC crimes. In addition to answering questions from reporters, he runs a multi-media enterprise that consists of TV and radio programs and blogs.

The radio show, which I did with Washington Post reporter Robert E. Pierre, got into many topics about how the media reports on crime and people's misperceptions about violence and what it all means.

His site goes beyond simple PR. He addresses complicated issues such as why offenders repeat crimes, how sex offenders are monitored and what happens to women when they get released from prison. He interviews people and has reporters and other experts on his shows, offering debate and opinions that you don't often see on government-sponorsed programs.

He interviewed people who voluntarily turned themselves in to DC authorities in a church as part of a program to clear old warrants. The interviews went on-line, were noticed by the media and stories were done that Sipes said prompted even more people surrender. He even did a show on why it takes a heroin addict who steals 20 times a month so long to get sober.

"Nobody else is doing it," Sipes said when asked by he goes beyond simply posting agency press releases.

I wouldn't say this site replaces the role of the traditional media, but it the topics are interesting and you certainly learn a lot about the agency and the people it works with. It's one tool for anyone to check out.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today's column on crime and establishing community norms in Belair-Edison focused on a small area of the community known as the 4X4, one of the oldest sections of what is a sprawling neighborhood in Northeast Baltimore. It's located north of North Avenue off Belair Road, across from the Lake Clifton school complex.

Our intrepid reporter and columnist of all things neighborhoods, Jacques Kelly, showed me an old map in our library -- the Aerial Map of Baltimore completed in 1927 -- that shows the 4X4 as the only developed plot of land in it's immediate area. There were no rowhouses until much further up Belair Road and none to well south of North Avenue. In fact, the reservoir on which the Lake Clifton schools now sit was still a really a reservoir.

Anyway, that brings me to reader John G. Egger, who took exception to the column: Here's his email, reprinted with his permission:

As a 3+ year resident and home-owner in Belair-Edison, I feel your article could have been more balanced. It paints a picture of a neighborhood quickly slipping away and does not highlight very much promise of hope, save for an exhausted pastor caught in an endless loop of lessons on neighborly manners.

I live east of Belair Road, on Dudley Ave, north of Mannasota. It has been my experience that, the farther south one heads toward the "4x4," the worse the crime gets, and that area was bad far before Hopkins displaced poor residents as it expanded. If you were to take a drive up from the south portion and cross that Mannasota line, you'll suddenly be presented with a more residential, family-oriented, well-groomed part of Belair-Edison. And for that matter, follow Herring Run Park as far south as you like, and you'll see house after house taking pride in their street.

Low income residents of Baltimore City often don't have a lot of positivity around them. Or at least that's the prevailing perception around town. The flip side is the nightly TV news and print media never have far to look to find violence and drama that reinforces what shows like The Wire and Homicide have shown the world. This includes my neighborhood, but could also hold true in Fells Point, Canton, or Federal Hill. Why not write an article about muggings or home break-ins in those neighborhoods? Is that a reversal their progress?

30 kids trying to take over the corners in a neighborhood of 14,000 hardly constitutes such a reversal. For every kid on a corner, there is surely a low-to-middle class family (or two or three families) buying a solid, reasonably priced home. My feeling, it could be fruitful to dig a little deeper. Belair-Edison is a fairly diverse neighborhood, with many unique stories. You would be doing the city a service by reporting both sides of the tale.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Thanks guest blogger and Baltimore Sun reporter Julie Bykowicz, an expert on juvenile crime, who attended a meeting on gangs last night:

The usual array of law enforcement officers gathered in West Baltimore last night to talk about gangs and youth violence. What's often missing from community meetings about kids is ... kids. This one was different. After local gang experts spouted interesting -- but predictable -- statistics (see below), two 17-year-old students at New Era Academy in South Baltimore stepped forward to share their experiences.
 
Soft-spoken Christian warned the crowd of about 100 in the University of Maryland BioPark auditorium that this was his first big speech. But his tale tumbled out easily: His brother, a gang member in New York City, "blessed" him into the Bloods just after he was born. Urged on by his brother, Christian grew up fighting to prove himself to the gang. After one tussle, his victim came back with his own gang and burned down Christian's house. He said that fight changed his life. Now he stays off the streets, keeping busy with programs like Community Law in Action, a group that prepares young people to be leaders.
 
Next up was Donovan, who, as a boy, watched his drug-addicted father regularly hauled away in handcuffs. He allowed that these early images of officers -- bad guys taking away Dad -- have left him unable to trust the police. Many of his relatives and friends are Crips. Gang members are everywhere, he said, adding that he resisted joining one because he likes to think for himself. To the community leaders in the room, he offered up his philosophy on gangs:
 
"Gangs are like an incurable disease. You need to let go of the 11th and 12th graders. The disease got them. Quarantine them. Get to the young ones before they get too sick."
 
Some Baltimore Gang Statistics:
 
* Number of students last year positively identified as gang members: 456. (Akil Hamm, Baltimore School Police)
* Number of identified gang members in Baltimore, the majority of whom are juveniles: 1,800. (Marlon Mosely, Baltimore Police Department)
* Of the dozens of gangs in Baltimore, number of "sets" of Bloods: 15. (Mosely)
* Since 2007, number of juvenile criminal cases involving members of a gang: 242 (Jennifer Rallo, Baltimore State's Attorney's Office)
* Number of those cases that were violent charges: 76 (Rallo)
* Number of concerned parents who showed up at an emergency meeting to discuss a major gang problem at a public school: 6 (Frank Clark, Department of Juvenile Services)
 
Last night's community meeting was hosted by Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy as part of her fall community justice series on juvenile delinquency. The next meeting, focusing on resources available for kids and their families, will be held Nov. 12 at the BioPark auditorium. 
 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today's column on adhering to community norms got two responses that were particularly good. One came from a city resident who talks about neighbors who moved in, broke glass on a sidewalk and refused to mow their lawn until people complained and the city starting handing out fines.

Here are parts of the email:
 

Thanks for your recent article on 'Newcomers to the Neighborhood'.  I thought it was very appropriate.  General upkeep of your home isn't a comment on rich or poor but on the image of the neighborhood and is important to everyone.
 
There are things in a single family neighborhood that we don't worry about:  them hanging up laundry outside as long as it's in the backyard (we, in fact, do this too on nice summer days to save energy).
 
People shouldn't hesitate to use '311' - this will prevent them from a direct confrontation with people who many not be receptive to their new neighbors telling them how to keep their property.  But I've often told our neighbors after they mowed how nice their lawn looks (positive reinforcement).  And people should not be afraid to e-mail or call their city counselperson and bug them.  If they are involved, some kind of resolution can be reached even if it's not 100% to your liking.
 
There are things we haven't been able to accomplish that frustrate us but overall things (5-years later) are MUCH better.  So there's hope. 

 

In my column, I used an example of new neighbors checking to make sure it's ok to hang out the laundry. A reader responded with this:

In your column published today, you imply that hanging clothes on the line to dry is behavior that some might judge unacceptable.  I only wish my neighborhood were safe enough for me to hang clothes out without fear that they would disappear. Because it isn't, I have to hang them in the basement in order to reduce my dependence on fossil fuels.

What a wonderful thing it would be if every house in Baltimore City had an outdoor clothes line in regular use.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today's story by Baltimore Sun police reporter Justin Fenton on two cousins who were shot and killed, possibly because they were present when a friend of theirs was shot in June, brought back some memories. Their 31-year-old cousin, Mark Tilley, was killed back in March of 2000 during an apparent break-in at his apartment on St. Paul Street, across from Penn Statiion.

Tilley had been an assistant chef at the Country Club of Maryland on Stevenson Lane in Towson, and was known for his baggy white pants decorated with jalapenos and his own version of the classic crab cake that got rave reviews.

It was one of those killings in a then up-and-coming neighborhood that stunned his family and renewed concerns about safety north of downtown. It was the city's 56th homicide in a year that finished with 261 -- the first time Baltimore had fewer than 300 homicides in a decade.

That, of course, was of small comfort to Tilley's family, who now mourns the loss of two more family members. Tilley was a 1986 graduate of Randallstown High School and later from Baltimore International Culinary College,

His grandmother, Hortense Grant, said she used to follow Tilley from restaurant to restaurant -- he worked at Harvey's at Greenspring Station before the country club -- to sample his food. She said "seafood was his specialty. He made the best crab cakes in Maryland." Asked how he did that, Grant paused and then said: "I don't know. He wouldn't tell me."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The crime in a small area of lower Belair-Edison continues to draw comments. Here are some recollections of the way the neighborhood once was, reprinted with the writer's permission:

I was saddened to read your article in the Baltimore Sun titled “One man’s difficult campaign to clean up Belair-Edison” I grew up at the corner of St. Cloud Ave and Elmora Ave.  There used to be a family owned store on the corner called “Shicks”, whether the owners were named Shick or not is a mystery, but they used to provide us with candy to quit playing curb ball or bouncing our ball against the side of their building.  The hours of constant bouncing would drive them crazy.  I remember going into the store and getting a loaf of bread or a quart of milk on the books until payday, no questions asked.

The biggest harassment the police ever gave us was either for playing too close to the railroad tracks near Ravenwood Ave or for sitting on the church wall at the other end of the block from Shicks.  The police foot patrol would sneak up the alley behind us and whack us on the ass with their night sticks. We would set a lookout, but the lookout would get tired or bored and leave, along came the cop and his ever present night stick and if you could not run fast enough, whack, got you again.  

I remember the young high school girls leaving the Catholic High School for Girls. They would walk down Elmora Ave on the way to the 15 streetcar on Belair Road; gosh they were beautiful to a 10 year old.  I remember the trees along the streets and my mother climbing one, 7 months pregnant trying to get her pet parakeet back after we had left the front door open.  I remember the old people sitting on their porch swings in the summer and paying a young boy to shovel the snow from their walks in the winter. I especially remember the guys I hung out with that died in Vietnam, Bob Twist, Gerry Wernsdorfer, Bob Johnson, and others, their faces forever etched in my mind. I remember my first crush, a girl named Linda who lived up the block; I wonder whatever happened to her.

What has become of the neighborhoods that we grew up in? Is this what the future holds for us?  I left the neighborhood in 1963 to begin my 20 U.S. Navy career, only to return to visit my mother and friends years later, all who have moved now. 

As I said earlier, it saddens me to see my old neighborhood and my memories tarnished by the needless deaths that happen there now. 

Sincerely,

Jim Farrow

 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today's print column focuses on Anthony Dawson, a board member of the Belair-Edison Community Association who is trying to clean up a small section of his community off Belair Road just north of North Avenue.

A Baltimore Sun colleague met him at a community meeting to discuss crime in the Northeastern police district in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of former City Councilman Kenneth Harris. He had talked about printing 200 no trespassing signs for people to hang in their windows in hopes of at least motivating police officers to clear the streets of loiterers. When I met him yesterday, he read from a list that included the good things (community walks) and the bad things (shootings and a homicide).

I also met Robert L. Haynes, the pastor of the New Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church. He had been up late the night before and and couldn't come out, but I listened to him on a cellphone. By the time I got back to the office, I realized I need to talk with him some more. Tomorrow's print column will feature him as well, but here is some of what he had to say:

He is worried about a group of 25 to 30 youths who he said are trying to take over the community. He wants more policing, but also wants a new influx of renters and more transient residents to take responsibility, and he wants landlords to treat their properties as if they lived there.

"If everybody does what they are supposed to, the situation will improve. We have a group of kids, and the neighborhood is being terrorized. They're out there on the corners. They work in shifts, like an organized gang. The police all know their names. I try to teach people not to give up. I don't want the mayor and other officials to give up on a community that people have lived in for 40 years."

The pastor talked about his church's outreach programs, including a group that scours the street for youngsters for Bible study. "They go out and grab these children while they are still tender, bring them into the church on Thursday nights and teach values." Another group of women called Ladies in the Hood help young, single pregnant teens.
 
He complained that long-time homeowners are being replaced by renters, and that means lessons taught one year don't stick the next. "I'm constantly starting all over again, telling the kids, 'Don't throw paper in the street. Don't cuss. Don't leave your bicycle here. Every year, I'm getting older. It's training and teaching, training and teaching."

Of the kids hanging out at night: "They are a hostile, violent group of boys. They meander from street to street doing drugs. I know them. They know I know what they do. They see me, they respect me enough tha they don't do it in front of the church or my office."

Pastor Haynes wants to help people, but he also said there is a time for people to go to jail, and he wants the police to enforce the anti-loitering statutes, even if there's criticism that officere are targeting young black men. "We have this strong voice that continues to say we are profiling blacks, and locking them up indiscriminately. But I don't think they are addressing the problem the right way. Some of our own police officers, and lawyers and judges need to get together and make a statement. If you are caught four, five, six, seven eight or nine times with drugs, take these men away. If you have a record and have been locked up for possession and you're hanging out on the corner, you need to do some time. It's like having snakes in the community and you say we don't have enough places to put the snakes so we just let them run around. That doesn't make any sense."

He applauded efforts by the mayor to round up juveniles breaking curfew but said that's only part of the solution. "Just picking them off the street doesn't put anything into their minds."

Today, the pastor plans on being in another troubled part of the city, Spaulding Avenue in Northwest Baltimore, helping ministers up there hand out religious literature.

When I thanked him for taking so much time to be interviewed, Haynes shot back: "I preached, you listened."

He summed it all up this way: "People need God all over the place."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Saturday's shooting outside the Belvedere in Mount Vernon is already giving people second thoughts about going there. The violence has been linked to a dispute at a basement club, yet as I pointed out earlier it doesn't really matter where it started, just where it occurred.

Here's an e-mail I got from a Towson attorney, and he gave me permission to publish it:

W – was your follow-up article right on the money.  I’m a member of the UB Law School graduating class of 2002 and I’ve put together a group of about 20 former classmates for a dinner reunion on Saturday, 10/25.  My first choice was for a big gathering at the Owl Bar, where we used to hang out after night class.  After reading the articles about the violence near the Bevedere, I have serious reservations about keeping that location.  It’s a real shame…

Sincerely,

Joshua A. Glikin

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

As my editor can attest, I fumbled around with my ending to today's column on Saturday's shooting outside the storied Belvedere in Mount Vernon. I concluded that new oversight by the city's Liquor Board over so-called Bottle Clubs -- BYOB bars -- was good in that it could foster co-existence among residents, patrons and workers who share the space on East Chase Street.

It wasn't until I got home that I realized I had missed the point. Oversight is good, don't get me wrong, but what this story boils down to is fingerpointing. Condo residents are upset with the city for failing to prosecute the owners of Suite Ultralounge when they had a chance after a police raid two years ago, and now the club is open again, and again there is violence (the shooting involved someone who had been thrown out of the club). The club owner and manager say the city and Belvedere residents are unfairly singling out a night spot that attracts a younger, urban crowd. The shooting was outside, and the manager told me he has no control over what happens on a public street. True, but the dispute that led to the shooting started in his club.

Here's where I failed: it doesn't matter who is to blame. The sad fact is it's the Belvedere that suffers. I confess I have never been to the Suite Ultralounge, but I have been to the Belvedere and the Owl Bar many times, once for a wedding reception, again for work outings and even to get my father a martini. The shooting will certainly be on my mind the next time my parents visit and if it's late on a Friday night, I might not go there. As with anything, we weigh circumstances before deciding what to do. Living in the city, it means deciding the safest place to park, not walking through a park too late at night, taking a safe route to the store.

The club and store owners, and the residents, should be meeting to determine how to live together. It seems unlikely that the bottle club will be shut anytime soon and business owners shouldn't be kept out just because their places don't look like the others. On the other hand, the Belvedere is historic and it would seem that new tenants would want to at least fit in with the decor. That doesn't mean you can't open a hip hop club. It does mean that the owners should realize they are in a residential building. All sides should make concessions -- the residents might have to get along with a club they aren't particularly interested in attending; the club owners might need to police their patrons a bit more closely.

It can work. But not with such animosity swirling around. And not when people are shooting each other in the streets. True, any bar can have a bar fight. But the Ultralounge has a troubled history here, and if it wants to stay at the Belvedere, work needs to be done.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Baltimore's bakery giant John Paterakis Sr. doesn't talk much to the media. So I was surprised to get an e-mail over the weekend from a Victoria Paterakis. Like other readers, she is not happy with the way city officials report crime to the public, the subject of my column on Sunday. I wrote her back and asked if she was related, by chance, to THE PATERAKIS.

She reponded right away: "Yes, John is my father-in-law."

She also said I could post her e-mail:

Dear Peter:
 
As an avid reader on daily local crime reports and what crime trends are being reported. I also have found that our hometown of Baltimore reporting system is far outdated.  I believe it is extremely important to keep abreast on trend and location of reported crimes for the purpose of protecting ourselves from becoming a victim of crime.
 
Reporting and posting this type of information for the purpose of public safety
needs to be updated more often than it is currently be reported or updated.
 
The lack of information is not protecting the public, but setting the public up in becoming victims of crime.  
 
Since Baltimore has unfortunately inherited a crime rate which by far is nothing to be proud of and in our battles to lower the crime rate, we must also protect our hometown citizens not by lack of crime information but by providing them with information that could and can protect them from the battle of crime and violence.
 
Victoria L. Paterakis

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Sunday's column on how even minor crime news -- in this case the discharging of a weapon in Canton -- needs to be shared with the public brought several responses, one from attorney Anton J.S. Keating, Esq. He gave me permission to reprint his email:

Peter, thank you for insisting that the authorities be required to supply us with accurate information. We can never solve problems if we distort reality. Every time some jerk fires a weapon in our City it should be reported and made public. Residents should not be treated as children and be denied the facts. Yes We Can Handle The Truth!

Firing a weapon is always Disorderly Conduct, perhaps Malicious Destruction and Reckless Endangerment.

I am reminded of the Blitz in W.W.2 especially since as a baby, born in London in 1943, my family and I were lucky to survive. The satirist Tom Lehrer wrote a song about Werhner Von Braun. "Once they go up who cares where they come down?? That's not my department said Verhner Von Braun "
   Keep up the good work.
   Regards Anton.

When I asked Mr. Keating whether I could post his e-mail, he responded:

Hi,
  Please use my comments in any way that you think might be useful. Public officials and all others employed by taxpayers must understand that we do not blame them for the crime in our City. ... The causes have their origins long before all of us were born. No one is expecting some simple or immediate solution from these employees. However when they distort reality to advance their own agendas or ambitions, they actually do more damage and prevent even the possibility of any solution. When was the last time that someone was charged with misfeasance, malfeasance or non-feasance??? What about obstruction of justice? What about simply firing them or disciplining them in some other way as would happen in the private sector??

Other countries prohibit the police, as a group, from engaging in political activity, thereby removing the temptation to falsify facts and theoretically freeing them to be public servants without having to fear political retribution for being honest.
   Keep on keeping on! Anton

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Baltimore's mayor and police commissioner once again addressed upset residents of Northeast Baltimore in the wake of the fatal shooting of former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. Residents again complained about crime at the Northwood Plaza and how they want owners and others to take more responsibility in policing the shopping center. The commissioner talked about an armed robbery at the Rainbow clothing store that occurred even with this police RV parked in the lot.

Baltimore Sun reporter Melissa Harris went to the meeting last night. Here is her account;

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon last night promised community leaders in the Northeast police district that she would meet with the owners of the Northwood Plaza – the site of the killing of City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. – and pressure them to improve lighting, security and landscaping.

She also promised to begin work on a citywide redesign of the police department’s sector system to better match patrol resources with needs. Sheryl Goldstein, head of the mayor’s office on criminal justice, told neighborhood association leaders, however, that when Baltimore County redistricted its police department, it took two years.

In the interim, police commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said he had assigned three pairs of detectives to address the spike in robberies in the northeast district. He also said that district supervisors lacked "accountability."

A frustrated Bealefeld said that he was appalled that robbers – in "broad daylight" last weekend – held up the owner of a bursiness located four doors down from where Harris was killed. He said that "dumping more manpower" into the area won’t solve that problem.

"Somebody isn’t doing their job right," he said. "They made a huge commotion in broad daylight and were able to rob a business. Something is wrong, and 500 more police doesn’t account for people not doing their jobs."

Bealefeld said he had monitored unlit areas of the shopping center and witnessed cops driving through at high rates of speed who never saw him.

Bealefeld and Dixon also called on community leaders to do more. The police commissioner said that of the calls the department has received after the Harris shooting, only two have come from the neighborhood.

Bealefeld said he wasn’t "ruling out anything," but said the robbers likely live in the immediate vincinity of the shopping center. He said forensic evidence links the suspects to two robberies in the shopping center earlier this year.

"My guess is they don’t just come to do robberies," he said. "They go to the McDonald’s. They go to the BP."

"We’re asking neighbors to just put a quarter in the phone and say, ‘Look under this rock,’ and believe me, we will," he said.

Dixon called the Thursday night meeting at the Northwest District police station after receiving a letter from community leaders that called for more manpower; pressuring the owners of the shopping center to improve the property; and a call to divide the city’s largest police sector into two.

She pointed to the unique shift arrangement in northeast that increases staffing during high-crime times, and said that some additional manpower was already there and that more would come after the next academy class graduates. But she pointed out that her district, southwest, was "the worst" and didn’t have the unique shift arrangement. She also said maintenance of many shopping centers in the city, not just Northwood, needed to be addressed.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Yesterday's shooting by a Baltimore police officer of an unarmed woman at a light rail stop in Cherry Hill was the 17th this year involving a city officer. Twelve people shot by police have died, equalling last year's count.

In yesterday's incident, the woman, who survived, was unarmed. According to a department spokesman, the officer had responded to a call for drug sales and confronted the woman who apparently refused to show her hands. The officer shot her in the stomach.

This is not the first time a woman has been shot by a city police officer, and it certainly isn't the first shooting of an unarmed person. Rarely, though, does a police officer face criminal charges in such cases.

In July, Officer Tommy Sanders III was indicted on a charge of manslaughter in the shooting death of Edward Lamont Hunt at a Northeast Baltimore shopping center. Hunt was unarmed, and witnesses have said he was walking away from the officer, who had just searched him, when he was struck. The officer's attorney disputes that account, and the case is pending.

Before that, however, you have to go all the way back to 1996 when Sgt. Stephen R. Pagotto shot Preston E. Barnes during a traffic stop to find an officer criminally charged in an on-duty shooting. Pagotto argued that he accidentally fired his gun when Barnes backed his vehicle and hit the officer's arm. He was convicted of manslaughter but the Court of Appeals overturned the case, concluding that the placement of the officer's fingers above the trigger of his gun showed that he didn't intend to fire, and therefore the case didn't meet the legal standards of criminal negligence.

Back in 1999, I covered a case in which a man who had skipped his court date on drug charges was shot and killed by a city officer in East Baltimore who mistook a the man's cellphone for a gun. Officers had chased the man through several alleys, and twice police said the man reached into his pants, a common place to hide a gun. But when the suspect lay in the middle of a crowded intersection, angry onlookers could only see a black flip-up phone in the dead man's hands. The shooting was ruled justified.

Police officers aren't only considering what happens in front of them when they open fire. They also take into consideration the nature of the call. In the case of the cellphone, officers were chasing a man on trial for allegedly being involved in a dangerous drug gang linked to four homicides and being tried in federal court. DEA agents also were involved in the chase, and the man was considered dangerous. So when he reached into his pants, they assumed he had a gun. 

Perhaps the city's most well known shooting was in 1993 when Officer Edward T. Gorwell shot and killed 14-year-old Simmont D. Thomas, who was running from a stolen car in Gwynns Falls Park and was hit in the back in the dark. Gorwell insisted he heard a gunshot and opened fire, even though he didn't have a specific target.

He was charged with manslaughter but the case never got to a jury. His first trial ended in a mistrial when a juror failed to show up for deliberations, and it was to be retried in 1999 after appeals that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. But on the eve of the new trial, prosecutors using technology unavailable at the time revealed that the youngster had gunshot residue on his left hand, bolstering Gorwell's long-held contention that he had heard a gunshot that night.

Prosecutors dropped the case and in 2002 reached an agreement with Gorwell that spared him his job. The officer received a reprimand, had his gun and badge taken away and was assigned to the communications division. He was allowed to keep his salary and pension.

These cases are never easy. In 2000, Housing Authority Officer Kenneth M. Dean III shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old. Witnesses insisted the teen's hands were in the area and he was surrendering when he was shot twice. Dean insisted, "His hands weren't up."

An autopsy showed that one of the youth's hands was in his left pants pocket when he was shot, helping the officer's story. A Grand Jury declined to indict.

Here is the Baltimore Police Department's guidelines for guns and the use of deadly force:

Section 1:

All sworn members of the Department shall be suitably armed at all times when on-duty. Sworn members, off-duty, within the City of Baltimore, shall be suitably armed, except at such times, or under such circumstances, or when engaged in such activities as a prudent person would reasonably conclude the wearing of a firearm to be inappropriate. Sworn members when offduty, outside the jurisdiction of the City of Baltimore, within the State of Maryland, are authorized to carry an issued or approved handgun. There is, however, no requirement to be armed when off-duty outside the City limits. While sworn members are authorized to wear, carry or transport a handgun off-duty, they are reminded that their manner of doing so must be in conformance with existing State law and Departmental General Orders. Members of this Department shall not use firearms in the discharge of their duty, except in the following cases:

• In self-defense, or to defend another person (unlawfully attacked) from death or serious injury.

• To effect the arrest or to prevent the escape, when other means are insufficient, of a
person whom the officer has probable cause to believe: o Has committed a felony involving the use or threat of deadly force or serious physical injury; and o Who poses an imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.

NOTE: Where feasible, the officer should give verbal warning prior to shooting at the felon. There are, however, situations where the issuance of a warning would be detrimental to the safety of the officer or others. In such a case, an officer need not give warning if to do so would increase the risk to himself/herself or others.

• To kill a dangerous animal, or an animal so badly injured that humanity requires its relief from further suffering. o Permission from the Shift Commander is necessary before putting down an injured
animal.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

Yesterday, I posted some Baltimore crime statistics that show homicides and shooting down so far this year, but both larcenies from cars and burglaries up. City police spokesman Sterling Clifford has some observations about the numbers.

Of burglaries and larcenies, he said: "The crime numbers certainly are a concern. We've been talking about the spikes for several months. It's somewhat localized."

One reason, he said, is the poor economic situation of the country. "It's common accross the country to see that type of crime going up when you see people experiencing job losses. But that's not to say that police are throwing up their hands and saying until the economy improves, deal with it."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The head of North Baltimore's Homeland Association wrote to me today to take issue with my column on Sunday on how his group distributes information about crime. Some residents of Homeland and others living in neighboring communities object to the association limiting its distribution list to dues-paying members.

They argue that the information should be more broadly published to help both keep people safe and catch those responsible. Amber Elburn, who refuses to join the Homeland Association, is taking information she gets from friends and reposting items on an alternative web site. That prompted Homeland to seek out attorneys regarding possible copyright violations.

I argue that crime information should be better distributed by the city to avoid each community posting separate blogs and email lists. But that would require a fundamental shift in the approach the city takes to giving out such information.

Here is the response from Homeland's president, Robert Fiore, reprinted with his permission:

I was sorry to see that your column has yet another article chastising Homeland for what is a voluntary service provided to its Association members.  Also, I am surprised to see the statement you attributed to me in the October 5, 2008 article.  I never told you that Homeland is “contacting attorneys to protect proprietary information”.  What I actually told you was that Homeland’s e-mails were copyrighted, and that I had asked legal counsel for advice on how the enforce this right against those who repost or distribute Homeland e-mail content elsewhere without permission, using Homeland’s name. 

Your blog and the Sun claim the same copyrights on the content of information they publish.  Your own blog’s Terms of Service state:  “You may not republish any portion of the Content on any Internet, Intranet or extranet site or incorporate the content in any database, compilation, archive or cache.  You may not distribute any Content to others…and you may not reproduce, sell, publish, transmit, display or otherwise use any portion of the Content”.

Neither Amber Elburn, the Homeland resident who “steadfastly refuses” to join our Association as you wrote, nor Scott Vincent, who runs the Beeswax information exchange internet site giving Ms. Elburn a forum, are elected representatives of the Homeland Association, nor are they authorized to speak for the Association, not are they accountable to the Association Members for their actions.  Mr. Vincent does not even live in the Homeland community.  Yet both use Homeland’s name without permission.  Like your blog and the Sun, Homeland has an interest in what is published using its name, holds an interest in the content it creates, and has an obligation to object to actions which may compromise either.

The simple fact is an Association member may call our office, (and the police, and the Sun, and their homeowners insurance company, and whomever else they chose), to report a crime or suspicious activity in our community.  This information, (not “crime statistics” as your articles have labeled it), is distributed by e-mail as a courtesy to those Association members who choose to provide us with their e-mail addresses.  Not all dues paying Association members elect to participate in the e-mail alert program, and a very few residents declining to pay the modest dues to join our Association likewise elect not to participate.  Amber Elburn is one of those very few.  The bald allegations in your articles that Homeland is “hoarding” crime statistics, or is concealing them to “keep property values from falling” as Ms. Elburn speculates, or “is making crime worse for everyone” as Mr. Vincent dramatically opines are regrettable.  To the contrary, our Association is voluntarily publishing the crime information it receives and verifies from those who volunteer it to us. 

Providing this information is not free.  Some of the dues paid by our Association Members employ an Operations Manager whose myriad duties include receiving this information and verifying it, as well as compiling, maintaining and updating an ever-changing list of hundreds of  Homeland e-mail addresses.  A rather cavalier suggestion in your October 5th article is that our Association can “easily” gather and publish reports, and that Homeland should make its e-mails “widely available”.  Who is to pay and be accountable for the person(s) Homeland must hire to do this daily work, on a large scale, and in perpetuity as is apparently being demanded?  Certainly we cannot look to Ms. Elburn or Mr. Vincent for such financial help; neither of them even pay dues here. 

Constructively working together to address complex community concerns such as crime is a difficult task, and we will always work together in that endeavor, to the best of our abilities.  But appropriation of Homeland’s name and information content by unauthorized and unaccountable individuals is not a solution to the crime problem, and the imposition of time-consuming and financially unrealistic reporting requirements on our community Association is not a solution either.  In response to the unfavorable light the Sun articles have attempted to cast on our Association, I couldn’t neglect this opportunity to set the record straight, and to tell you how proud we are of our City, our Association and its Members, and the constructive work we do.

Robert Graham Fiore

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

The latest weekly crime statistics (for the week ending Oct. 4) have crossed my desk, and the news appears mixed. The goods new is that homicides and shootings are down 29 percent and 13 percent respectively. But crime overall is up 1 percent, driven by a 10 percent increase in larcenies from cars and a 4 percent increase in burglaries.

Burglaries are up 14 percent (319 this year compared with 280 last year) in the Central District, 26 percent (371 to 294) in the Eastern, 20 percent (635 to 528) in the Southwestern and 19 percent (830 to 698) in the Southern.

Haven't had time to go over these numbers with police yet, and the above is a small sampling of statistical updates we get nearly every week. I'll post more information as I get it.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

For the past couple days and nights, I've spotted two empty Baltimore police cars parked at the Inner Harbor -- one off Key Highway across from Federal Hill Park and another on the sidewalk to the west of Light Street, across from the Light Street pavilion.

I'm assuming the vehicles aren't abandoned. I'm trying to get a response from city police, but I gather they're parked there to help deter crime, like putting dummy police cars on the side of highways to get people to slow down.

Anyone else see these and wonder what's going on?

From Baltimore Police spokesman Sterling Clifford:

The police cars have not been abandoned. They have been there for a few weeks and serve a dual purpose. One is to help deter crime, and slow vehicles, by making people think an officer is present or at least nearby.

But the cars can be driven. "They are functioning police vehicles," Clifford said. Turns out they can be used by foot-patrol officers working the Inner Harbor. Just in case the need arises for them to quickly need a car.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The 21-year-old half-brother of Darion Sawyer e-mailed me today about Darion's death last month. He was shot and killed on the front porch of a home in Northeast Baltimore.

Andrew Wilson offered some new details and raised objections to the contention by the suspect's attorneys that the shooting was in self-defense. They said Sawyer, angry that the suspect was with his ex-girlfriend, confronted him at his home. The precise details of what happened next remain unclear, but Sawyer ended up dead and the suspect called the police and confessed, according to police charging documents.

Prosecutors have charged Jeffrey L. Brown with first-degree murder.

Here is part of what Mr. Wilson wrote (reprinted with his permission):

He was not only a promising artist drawing, but also a superiorly talented singer. I don’t believe this assault thing at all. I believe it’s just a way for (the woman) to feel some sort of comfort or justification for my brother’s death. He was still living in her house and we just recently had to get the landlord to let us in to attain his clothing.

If they were no longer together and he was obsessed why would she claim she was in VA for two weeks and send texts to my Darion via my younger brother’s phone, as late as 09/02/08, saying she loved him and couldn’t wait to see him when she returned?

There were also witnesses that said my bro caused no physical harm to Jeffrey on his porch and was just standing there as Jeffrey went back in the house grabbed his gun and shot him twice. That to me sounds like premeditated murder. One witness even told my friend, "I don’t care what anyone says, that guy didn’t deserve to get shot. He wasn’t doing anything but standing there." I’m sorry to boast on about it, but it’s a sensitive subject in my heart and I’m glad someone’s decided to take an interest in my brother’s case. Thank you!

He was just seen by a record producer the day before he was killed and the producer wanted to create some tracks with my brother. He was truly talented. He often did karaoke with me, a few other family members, and friends. We’d usually do this at places like The Greene Turtle, Tully’s, Delis’, Milton’s Grille, and The Cheerleader, the spot where he was spotted by the record producer.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Today's crime column in the Baltimore Sun had started as a tribute to another victim of homicide in the city -- this time a comic book artist whose death prompted more than 900 tributes on his MySpace page. The story turned out more complicated -- a fight over a girl led to a confrontation led to a murder, and the suspect's attorney says the victim, Darion Sawyer, threatened her client who shot him in self-defense.

Either way this case turns out, the outpouring of grief on the MySpace page should be shared. Here are some samples:

darion..... i sat on this page, watching my cursor blink trying to figure out what to type in this box. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with anything to lessen the blow. I learned a lesson today, and that was that life is short, and that we need to let the people that we love, know that we love them. We love you D... you were so talented, so funny. I'll miss hearing you sing the most.
RIP

Darion,
Decorate Heaven with your beautiful art and fill it with your angelic voice. You will be missed. I wish I would have put your singing voicemails to tape, then I would have them forever. You are truly the star you always wanted to be...the brightest one you see when we look up. R.I.P.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Prominent local defense attorney Warren A. Brown's ex-wife was killed over the weekend in Prince George's County, the apparent victim of domestic violence. Donna Brown's boyfriend, Joseph Coleman, 44, of Forestville has been charged with her murder.
 
Prince George's County police said she had suffered from "apparent trauma to the upper body."
 
Warren Brown said he had to deliver the news to Donna Brown's 10-year-old son -- a boy he says he helped raise almost from birth. "It's something I've never had do do before, and something I never want to be a part of again," he said this afternoon.
 
Donna Brown, 40, of Pikesville, also had an older daughter who lives in California, Warren Brown said. The couple's four-year marriage ended in 2001, he said. Her family is arranging services.
 
-- From guest blogger Julie Bykowicz

Posted by Peter Hermann at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)
        

Yesterday I posted a news release from the Baltimore County Police Department promoting an awards ceremony tonight. One name on the long list jumped out -- Baltimore City Police Officer Hikeen Crampton.

I wrote about Hikeen in 2001 when he graduated from the police academy. He grew up on a crime-infested drug corner in West Baltimore, but instead of turning to drugs as many of his friends did, he befriended a city police officer. He then grew up to become one. Here is the beginning of that story:

The snapshot shows a skinny, shirtless kid from a tough neighborhood wearing an oversized police hat, his outstretched arms embracing a child's fantasy of someday becoming a cop.

    More than a decade later, the grown boy strikes a nearly identical pose, youthful exuberance replaced by a confident gaze, in another photo. This time, the police hat is his own. Hikeen D. Crampton Sr., whose childhood bedroom overlooked one of the city's most notorious drug corners - Mosher and North Calhoun streets in West Baltimore - has returned home to exorcise the demons of his youth.

    The 22-year-old graduated from the police academy Monday and requested assignment to the Western District, a rough slice of decaying real estate that Crampton says has only gotten worse since his days growing up at 1401 Mosher St.

    His old neighborhood is pockmarked by vacant lots created by the city to rid streets of boarded rowhouses. "R.I.P." graffiti cover storefronts and dwellings - public death notices of the young men gunned down in the pursuit of drug profits.

    "Everywhere you turn you see `Rest In Peace,'" Crampton said on his first day patrolling his old neighborhood, standing in front of his childhood home. "It reminds you of a cemetery - it just doesn't have any tombstones."

I lost track of Crampton over the years but often wondered what had happened to him. He's made the paper a few times -- he got hurt when he was hit by a car in 2002 while making a drug arrest, and in 2005 he arrested one of the men in the Stop Snitching video.

Seeing his name on the Baltimore County commendation list, I called the department and got an advanced copy of a speech that will be delivered tonight by Maj. Joseph Burris. Here's the part on Crampton:

On September 26, 2007, Baltimore City Police Officer Hikeen Crampton was off-duty traveling in his personal vehicle when he observed an armored car robbery in progress at a bank in Baltimore County. Officer Crampton observed a guard being assaulted and the subject fleeing the scene. With shots being fired by the victim guard, Officer Crampton gave chase and successfully apprehended the suspect and held him until  Baltimore County Police Officers arrived on the scene. The exemplary actions of Officer Crampton resulted in the apprehension of a suspect and the development of at least two additional suspects in this case.  The Department thanks Officer Crampton for showing exceptional courage and commitment in apprehending this suspect and hereby awards the Commendation to Officer Hikeen Crampton.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

This morning, five members of the group 1 Mind Ministries, which Baltimore police have called a cult, were arraigned in Baltimore Circuit Court by Judge Sylvester Cox. They are each charged with first-degree murder and other crimes in connection with the death of Javon Thompson, the 15-month-old baby was found in a suit case in Philadelphia.

This is a particularly horrible case. Authorities say the baby was killed in Baltimore at the hands of the religious group after being denied food and water because he wouldn't say amen after meals. After some inquiries by police and social service agencies, the group left Baltimore, allegedly with the suitcase containing the boy's remains. It was only after one boy's grandmother persisted in getting the attention of police in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York that the body was discovered and charges filed.

Most of the suspects pleaded not guilty this morning and had what most people charged wiith serious crirmes have when show up in court: lawyers.

But two women, Queen Antoinette, 40, the alleged leader, and Trevia Williams, 21, still have their legal representation in doubt. I wish I had been in court for this one, but I'll have to let you hear what happened from a good source:

Joe Sviatko, a spokesman for the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office, told me of this exchange between Antoinette, Williams and Judge Cox:

"Queen told the judge that she is represented. The judge asked by who and she said, 'I don't want to say.'"

Sviatko added: "Nobody has officially entered an appearance on behalf of these two."

That will no doubt change soon. The court will order attorneys to oversee the case and to hear what probably will be numerous challenges and motions about evidence and statements. The trial is scheduled for Jan. 28, plenty of time to get back on track. Declining to identify your attorney to the judge presiding over your murder trial is generally not considered a wise strategy.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Baltimore County Police are having an awards ceremony tomorrow. Here are the details:

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

My column on Sunday about North Baltimore's Homeland Association distributing crime statistics only to dues-paying members struck a nerve. I heard from representatives and members from other groups and a former police commander.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that people want crime statistics. Police and City Hall administrations rise and fall over crime numbers and people who live in the city (and elsewhere) want to know how safe their street and block really is.

Numerous Web entrepreneurs make money off crime stats and the Baltimore Sun's police blotter by Richard Irwin remains one of the most constantly popular features in the newspaper. Now, communities in Baltimore are fighting over who has the right to read and distribute similiar information.

One company, www.crimereports.com, works with local police departments to map crime statistics, and charges the public agencies to do so. I understand smaller departments who can't afford mapping programs working with them, but I have a problem with a private company getting information that should be freely available to the public and getting our money for it! The Harford County Sheriff's Department is just one local agency using this company.

I have a possible answer. Police departments should provide the information, free and online. All do to some extent. Some don't allow you to search for individual crimes but give the average for certain neighborhoods. That doesn't help much. Others limit the time or the types of crimes. Baltimore police, for example, allow you to search only for two weeks at a time in the previous 90 days. It's a pity, considering they have one of the most advanced crime mapping tools available (though for internal use). I find the site nearly useless for any real information.

Take a look at the Metropolitan Police Department's crime mapping program to get an idea of what can be done. It's a bit cumbersome, but it allows you to plot crime (up to the previous day) by street, neighborhood or police district. You can break the numbers done in almost every conceivable way. And not only can you plot crime, but also map arrests, charges, construction permits, vacant properties, etc...

Enough from me. Here's some of the reaction to the column:

Dear Mr. Hermann,

I read with interest your article in the Sunday Sun regarding crime awareness and the Homeland community. This is a timely piece  considering what has transpired in our community which sits on the fringe of Homeland. Many neighbors have been talking about and observing the increased crime in this general area -- Belvedere, Bellona, Rosebank, and Homeland.  We are not Homeland residents, but share the concern as  crime spills out into our neighborhoods, and are working at a grassroots level to try to prevent our neighborhoods from becoming just one more statistic -- areas that are dangerous, drug-ridden, unsafe for habitation.

We are holding a meeting at the Govans Library on Bellona Avenue. The date is October 14th -- a Tuesday, at 6:15 p.m.  We are hoping that many residents will attend and voice their concerns. Mr. Bill Henry, 4th District Councilman, has agreed to meet with us and he is arranging for representatives from the Northern District to be there also. Neighboring associations have been notified and are invited. This meeting is not generated by any association, but by neighbors who have grave concerns. Some of us belong to the neighboring associations; some do not.

It is my belief and experience that if one is well-informed, a person can do much with that information and take action that is pro-active, rather than reactive. If, on the other hand, the ostrich approach is adopted, nothing can be gained. Please join us on October 14th for what promises to be a lively and interesting meeting -- if people will come out and support this effort to curb crime in their neighborhoods.

Sincerely,

Margaret C. (Connie) Harris

---

I found this Sunday's column particularly interesting: the fact that a neighborhood has begun to "hoard" their crime stats. I remember when I was a sergeant in the BPD and started to inter-act with community groups in the Central District and it was almost verboten to divulge crime statistics to the public. The Public Information Office was the only place where citizens could get this information and then only for a very good reason. When I became the District Commander of the Northern District restrictions eased up a bit, evidently, because I felt no restrictions when I routinely provided communities with their crime information. Community Policing was the key phrase then and how could one embrace that philosophy and not co-operate with the dissemination of information?? It is sad that the Homeland Association has the idea that they "own" this information. I think that the BPD has a web site where anyone can bring up the crime information in their neighborhood. You may want to check that out and let the non-members of the Homeland Association know.

Margaret (Maggie) Patten
Retired Colonel  -  BPD

 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

With the way things go over at Baltimore's police headquarters building on East Fayette Street, this blog may not be true by the time you read it. But at the moment I'm writing this, the department is fully staffed with 3,111 cops, the precise number for which it is funded.

The news was delivered with an unexpected call from Sterling Clifford, the spokesman for both the police commissioner and the mayor. These numbers could hold through the day, but most likely will fall next week. The department is large, and someone is always retiring, quitting, resigning or being fired. The numbers can change by the hour.

And as always, the statistics can be debated forever. I'm already seeing differences in the numbers given to me a few weeks ago by the police union and those given to me just a few minutes ago by Clifford. I promise to examine the figures more closely next week and get back on what I've found.

Many years ago, I always had heard the department was staffed for 3,188 officers. But Clifford told me the number is now 3,111. And as of right now, every single one of those positions is filled with 2,572 officers, 485 sergeants and lieutenants and 54 with the rank of deputy major or above.

(And yes, I know that doesn't mean there are 3,111 officers on the streets fighting crime. These numbers include officers who are hurt and on desk duty or are hurt and are at home; officers out on suspension or facing criminal charges; and those who are simply sick or on leave.) 

The high attrition rate by Baltimore police officers has always been a problem, and Clifford said stemming the tide is a top priority of the commissioner.

According to statistics provided by the police union, the department lost 1,654 officers from 2002 through July this year and hired only 1,367. Those numbers show the agency lost an average of 20 officers each month while gaining an average of only 16 a month. In 2004, the department had a net loss of 117 officers; in 2005, the net loss was 150.

Clifford provided me with the number of officers hired each year since 2003, and those differ from what the union provided. Again, I'll try to sort out the differences later. As of this year, Clifford said the department has hired, through the police academy, 208 officers (that includes a group that is to graduate in November) and has lost 162 officers. That would be the lowest loss since 2005.

The police union has complained that morale is low. But Clifford said the downturn in crime is helping make officers happy. "When the job is good and crime is down, people want to stick around," the spokesman said.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Everton Brown insists he's not crazy. I think his neighbors would disagree.

The 43-year-old charges that his Baltimore County townhouse is being searched -- repeatedly -- by the police. You name the agency, they're busting into his place at 7542 Maury Road in the Parkview Crossing development near Security Square Mall.

I could easily dismiss this as the rantings of a man who needs some help. But Brown has taken that extra step to demand attention -- he has attached a large sign covering his front door with large red lettering:

"My home & vehicle are continuously being searched by the Authorities. I have never been involved in Any Illegal activities. If you have any information, please Assist Them."

And that's not all. He displays a piece of the crawlspace floor that he says he leaves open so police who come to search don't have to break anything. He says authorities got his alarm code from the alarm company, and he knows they come in because everytime he leaves he puts tape on the door and notices the pieces are broken when he returns.

He's using Scotch tape.

It all started, Brown says, with a fire on Jan. 24. He then noticed someone following him in his car. "When I called 911, they stopped following me," he said, adding, "They come into my house every time I leave. It's real. It's not in my mind."

You might have even seen Everton Brown before. For weeks earlier this year, he stood in front of the U.S. District Court building on Lombard Street holding a sign, "Stop the harassment. 6 months of torment. No more! No more!"

I toured Brown's house and found it a mess. He says he is rebuilding after a fire; the house looks uninhabitable. He lives in two rooms upstairs -- sleeps on a sofa next to two large cages for his pit bulls and uses a cramped office to write letters to Baltimore County police complaining they aren't investigating the break-ins.

Why write about this? Well, Brown's actions are setting the stage for what could be a nasty fight with his community association and neighbors, who can't be too pleased about living next to a house that either gets raided by police every day or is occupied by a man who thinks it is. The sign alone can't help the three people who are selling their homes on his street.

His neighbors wouldn't talk to me, including one next door who is involved in several legal disputes with him. Counter charges of trespassing and harassment have been filed.

Officials with Parkview Crossing, including an attorney who handles many of its covenant claims against residents, didn't return repeated phone calls to discuss the topic.

But Brown stated the obvious: "The neighborhood, they want the signs down. They think it looks bad."

You think?

On Aug. 14, Parkview Crossing sent Brown a violation notice demanding he remove a storage container he has used since the fire, register his car and take down his banner. It's the first step toward legal proceedings.

Now, Brown says he has put a tape recorder in his attic to capture the raids by police.

Of course, he says, "I don't have any actual, real proof of seeing them."

Crazy or not, at least the neighbors have something to talk about.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

From Baltimore Sun reporter and guest blogger Gus G. Sentementes:

While seeking my daily fix of local crime news today, I noticed some discussion over at the Baltimore Crime blog about a theft at the Waverly Giant in Baltimore over the weekend, which had been documented in the Baltimore Sun's police blotter.

What stuck out is that the thief tried to run out of the store with $146 worth of seafood on Saturday night. What exactly did this guy try to steal? And why did he think he could flee the store while carrying all this seafood?

So, I called a Giant spokesman, Jamie Miller, and left him a message. He let me know I'd have to get my information from Baltimore police. My next call was to Officer Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman, who gave me the rundown on the thief's shoplifting list.

According to the police charging document, a Giant security guard spotted the suspect, Johnny Hood, 36, leaving the store with "bulges" on his back, beneath a black hooded jacket. The guard chased the shoplifter, who allegedly turned on the guard with a knife and threatened to stab him. The guard called for backup. City police arrived and arrested the man nearby in the 3200 block of York Road. Hood was charged with theft, assault and using a deadly weapon with intent to injure.

Police recovered the frozen seafood at the scene. (It wasn't clear from the report how much the food had thawed, but it was returned to Giant.)

Here's the list of stolen seafood:

* Six frozen boxes of Phillips mini crab cakes, valued at $7.99 each.
* Six frozen boxes of Phillips crab cakes, also valued at $7.99 a piece.
* Eight boxes of Phillips shrimp cakes, valued at $6.29 each.

Grand total?  $146.20.

Mr. Hood's bail at Central Booking now? $100,000.

Mugshot of suspect

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

I have returned from my vacation and I'm slowly catching up on what I missed over the past two weeks. As usual, Baltimore does not disappoint.

There was the tragic killing of former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr., followed by the State Police helicopter crash, followed by the report of the woman suspected of killing her two daughters and freezing their bodies in her Southern Maryland home.

I want to thank my colleagues for helping fill the crime blog while I was away and for readers who e-mailed me wondering what happened to the column. It's nice to be missed!

Chris Abdulghani from the Washington Village/Pigtown Neighborhood Planning Council wrote me about an emergency crime summit that was held yesterday about a new drug group called the Gang of 8 operating in the neighborhood. 

And Michael Brand wrote to update me on the case involving the attack last month on his mother-in-law outside the Spotlighter's Theatre on St. Paul Street. The suspect, Dajuan Daugherty, was indicted on robbery charges and therefore didn't have to have a preliminary hearing in District Court. Of course, Michael Brand and his wife didn't learn that information until they showed up for the hearing on North Avenue and endured what they described as "Third World hell that is Baltimore District Court." The suspect's next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 22 in Baltimore Circuit Court.

And, on a lighter note, Jean Tyson wrote to complain about my photograph that is published in the print edition column. I'm dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt. "May I offer a respectful suggestion? Get another photo of yourself dressed in a sportshirt and nice slacks. You kids don't dress up for anything. Maybe you really are unconcerned with how you look, but I'm surprised your wife or girlfriend hasn't suggested that to you."

First off, it's nice to be called a 'kid.' If anything, at least the photo makes me appear younger! Second, I'm dressed the way my bosses wanted me to dress -- to reflect the gritty nature of street crime reporting in Baltimore. Photos of columnists -- especially the full body shots -- have been one of the most talked about issues of the redesign. My good colleague Kevin Cowherd wrote about this recently and I'll refer you to that column.

Anyway, it's great to be back!

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)