This week, I visited with Maryland State Police pilots, medics and maintenance workers at the aviation unit at Martin State Airport in Middle River. This is a family still grieving the loss of two of its members, along with another paramedic and a patient, when one of the MedEvac choppers crashed in September in Prince George's County.

Investigators have not determined a cause but have criticized air traffic controllers as being sloppy for not guiding the chopper properly and for providing outdated weather information during heavy fog. Changes also have been made to ensure that medics consult more often with trauma surgeons to make sure patients are suffering from traumatic injuries before calling for the helicopter.

Medevac pilots have one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, often flying under less-than-ideal conditions, having to quickly change routes without flight plants, performing high-altitude rescues and landing on highway overpasses and areas littered with power lines.

I spoke with several people, all of whom addressed the political issues, but they also talked from the heart about their committment to saving lives. We can debate all day whether some flights are unnecessary or whether the state would be better served by privatizing the unit, but there is no doubt that the crews I met believe the money Maryland spends on this program saves lives.

"It doesnt matter if you are a homeless person hit on I-95 or Donald Trump hit in his limo, you will get a helicopter and a committment from the state of Maryland to do everything to save your life," the operations director, Bill Bernard, told me.

I was most struck by David Rosenberger, who has spent 20 years repairing and inspecting the helicopters, and he knows the pilots and the crafts inside and out. He actually flies in them after he's fixed them, ensuring they are as safe as he can make them. "It's not just pride," he said, "It's a personal investment."

I met with this crew ahead of tomorrow's Fallen Heroes Day ceremony at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, an annual event to remember law enforcement officers from Maryland who died in the line of duty.

This year's ceremony, presided over the Ravens Matt Stover, will honor Prince George's County Sgt. Richard Findley, Baltimore County Lt. Michael P. Howe, Maryland State Police Pilot Stephen Bunker, MSP Trooper Mickey C. Lippy, Waldorf Volunteer EMT Tonya Mallard, Baltimore County Firefighters Brian D. Neville and Thomas E. Rice, Frederick City Police Officer Richard Bremer, and FBI Agent Sameul Hicks (the former Baltimore police officer was fatally shot in Pittsburgh).

The ceremony begins at 1 p.m. at the cemetery, 300 East Padonia Road in Timonium and is open to the public.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Heroes
        

The fight Saturday night that left two teens stabbed at the Inner Harbor is being described by some who were there as a near-riot and by the police as a minor disturbance. It's hard to tell what exactly happened, though I'm sure that such a large crowd was menacing and scary to the people who were there.

Any incident at the Inner Harbor gets quickly blown up -- even a minor altercation can mar the tourist attraction that is supposed to be safe. Cops also overreact, sending in the troops to make sure nothing gets out of control. The hot Saturday night and discounts aimed at kids drew an unexpectedly large crowd that included packs of unsupervised teens who police say ran through the harbor.

Police did not release information Saturday night, nor Sunday, and it wasn't until Monday after reporters pressed that a report and information became available. (I'll have more on how police mishandled the information in my column on Wednesday). The miscue was described by a department spokesman as a misunderstanding that wouldn't happen again -- any disturbance at the harbor should be made public immediately.

But city police have a history of downplaying crime at the city's premier tourist attraction. In 1993, the owners of Harborplace ordered the pavilions closed early on an Easter weekend when about 4,000 teens converged at the harbor. Police made no arrests though they said the kids were running -- the closure of the stores prompted complaints that the action was racially-motivated, prompting then Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to set up an Easter Jazz festival to make sure that all city residents felt welcome downtown.

Two years later, another rowdy crowd showed up, prompting store owners again to lock doors of the pavilions. Police made no arrests and did not call in extra officers; one flower pot was reported to have been overturned.

Saturday's disturbance was far more serious, and though the cops told me they never shut down the Harbor, officers as late as 10:30 p.m. were preventing people from walking along the waterfront.

Here's an e-mail I got this morning from a visitor:

My family and I (from Kingsville, Md) enjoyed a wonderful day at the Harbor, the Raven's Football Festival and the Orioles game Saturday, April 25th. We came by boat so after the Orioles game, we had to walk through Harborplace to get back to our boatslip at Inner Harbor East Marina. What we saw at Harborplace at 9:00-9:30 was like nothing we've ever seen at the Harbor (or anywhere else for that matter). As you have described, the place was mobbed. It was jam-packed full of the most obnoxious, rude, crude, lewd, ill-behaved, disrespectful group of teenagers that we have ever seen. We had several altercations while trying to make our way through this crowd. It was unbelievable and it was disgusting. We were all completely appalled by these kids' behavior. My kids (age 13 and 11) were actually starting to get very scared.

What kind of parenting rears these kind of children? If this is what a Saturday night at the Harbor is going to be like, we will not be going there at that time ever again (it may be a while before we go back there at all). Once we were through most of the crowd, and in front of Barnes and Nobles, we talked to several people from out of town about this situation. We talked to a couple from Cleveland who asked if this was the norm. They said they have never seen anything like this where they came from and would probably not come back. They were not enjoying their stay at all.

We talked to a few other people who expressed the same opinions. I was embarrassed to say that I am from the Baltimore area. The Harbor and the City of Baltimore are going to lose a lot of tourism money if they don't find a way to curb this situation in the future. Cruise ships (like Carnival) are coming in and I know that Baltimore wants the travelers on these ships to spend time and money at the Harbor and other Baltimore attractions - I hope they don't have to come in contact with what we had to on Saturday night. They won't ever be back if they do. And word will spread quickly. Baltimore already has a bad enough reputation.
 
We have visited the Harborplace area many, many times over the years and have spent quite a bit of money there. My family has really enjoyed all that it has to offer but we have noticed the atmosphere and class of clientele going downhill with each passing year. If Saturday night is an indication of where it has sunk to, we won't be going back very often or at all (or if we do go, we will make sure we are out of there before nighttime).

David, Kingsville, Maryland

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (53)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

"It's not even summer yet."

That's the lament this morning from Richard Mosley in the aftermath of a double shooting Saturday night that left a teenager dead and another teen seriously wounded in Southwest Baltimore's Rosemont community.

The shooting occurred on Normount Avenue, just two blocks from where Mosley's son, Sean, lives, who last weekend graciously gave me a tour of his neighborhood. The Rosemont Police Athletic League Center, a block away from the shooting scene, is scheduled to close July 1 and Sean, a starter for the University of Maryland basketball team, grew up playing at the center. At left, in a photo taken by the Baltimore Sun's Chiaki Kawajiri, Sean walks by a playground near his home in Rosemont.

As I walked with Sean and his father, both talked about the importance of role models and the burden that Sean, a star in the community as well as in the state, has in mentoring young kids. Both think closing the PAL center -- along with others -- is a terrible idea. I watched Sean talk with kids on a basketball court and look at graffiti next to the court that mourned young men lost to the drug wars. "I probably know some of them," he told me.

This morning, after the shooting Saturday night, I called Richard Mosley and he told me his son knew both young men who had been shot, including Maurice Toomer, 17, who was killed. "He was distraught," the elder Mosley said. He said his son stayed on campus this past weekend and wasn't home. The shootings occurred about 8:30 p.m.

Richard Mosley said that police both on foot and in patrol cars were all over the neighborhood Saturday night and all day Sunday. He was happy to see them, but said, "Why do they always come after-the-fact? They know what goes on in this neighborhood."

With the PAL center closing, there will be even fewer cops in the community. Mosley is reaching out to nonprofits in hopes of getting money not only to keep the center open, but to hire off-duty officers to staff it.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

Today, a federal jury in Baltimore will begin deciding whether Patrick Byers deserves to die for ordering a hit on a witness in another murder he faced. He made the call from his prison cell, and Carl Lackl was killed outside his Rosedale home, highlighting two problems we face -- witness intimidation and using cell phones behind prison walls.

Over the past few days, we've seen the feds bust a large prison gang that smuggled in not just cell phones but lobster and crab, all while running prison and street gangs. And in Baltimore Circuit Court, a Bloods member is on trial in a murder case. Baltimore Sun reporter Tricia Bishop wrote a detailed story in Sunday's paper -- "Murder on Call" -- looking back on the Byers case and its implications for the future.

Maryland has all but put its death penalty on hold, but the feds haven't. Should Byers be killed for his crime? Would it stop others from reaching out and killing? I'm not sure what the answer is to stop retribution with stop snitching so ingrained in criminal society. The gang mentality is strong -- here' s just one chilling example from the recent federal gang bust:

An inmate at the city detention center had his throat slit and someone floated a rumor about a suspect, but that suspect insisted that not only did he not kill the man, he was more worried that his gang boss would think he had killed the man without getting permission. No where did it appear that the man was worried about the authorities. Of course, they're the ones who helped smuggle in lobster and crab.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

Bodies found in city parks tend to end up being the type of killing this city is, sadly, used to -- the dumped body of a drug dealer or addict or a domestic gone bad. But city cops today announced arrests in two cases -- the deaths of a blind and mentally disabled man found in Leakin Park and of a college student found dead in Herring Run Park.

Opposite sides of the city and two completely different murders. One might be implicated in another murder; the other police say might be the work of a counselor involved in an elaborate insurance scheme. One thing is clear, neither is your typical back alley, late night drug deal gone bad.

We have a team of reporters working both cases; check back here and with our Saturday newspaper for more.

I'll start first with the death of Lemeul Wallace, whose body was found Feb. 4 in West Baltimore's Leakin Park, a notorious and historic graveyard for killers. Police have charged Kevin J. Pushia, a 32-year-old pastor and counselor who worked at home for mentally ill, with hiring a hitman to kill him.

The victim was found lying face down in a bathroom and had been shot in the head and back. Less than a month later, police said an agent for Globe Life Insurance Co. contacted homicide detectives to make sure the "beneficiary was not a suspect in his death." The beneficiary was Pushia, who according to court charging documents, had taken out a $200,000 life insurance policy on the victim and claimed to be his brother.

Police then searched Pushia's Northeast Baltimore home and said they found "numerous life insurance policies in the name of Lemuel Wallace." In the counselor's day planner, police said an entry the day Wallace was killed read, "L.W. project completed."

Police said that Pushia took out as many as six life insurance policies in Wallace's name with an estimated value of $1 million. He worked as the operations manager for ARC of Baltimore and got to know the victim "while entrusted to his care."

According to police, "Mr. Pushia explained that he had taken out numerous life insurance policies on mentally challenged individuals with limited life expectancies, based upon their health conditions." He told police that he paid someone $50,000 -- stolen from Greater Faith Tabernacle Church of Deliverance" -- to have Wallace killed.

Police do not say why Wallace was killed -- whether he lived beyond expectations or grew suspicious of him.

The second case involves the death of Kiuna Jackson, 19, a college student whose body was found Aug. 15 in Herring Run Park. Police charged Ronnie Winkler, 34, with her death and with raping another woman in September. He was in jail awaiting trial on that rape case when police charged him with murder; authorities also are looking at other cases that may be linked to the suspect.

Jackson's body was found about 7 a.m. under the Harford Road bridge, on the bank of a tributary. Police noted marks on her neck and her death was ruled homicide by strangulation. Police said Jackson had met Winkler through a mutual friend. A witness told police that she saw Winkler driving Jackson's 2003 GMC Yukon after her body had been found, according to court documents.

The earlier rape for which Winkler has been charged occurred on East 31st Street on Aug. 30. Police said the 16-year-old victim had been waiting for a bus on Harford Road when she approached Winkler sitting on rowhouse steps and said hello.

Police charging documents say she asked to go inside to use the bathroom, after which a man "pulled a black stocking around her neck and began to choke her." The victim told police she was forced into a bedroom and raped. "Don't say anything and I will give you some money," the man told her, according to the police charging documents.

Police said the girl was able leave after the attack, called police and picked Winkler from a photo lineup.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Breaking crime
        

The History Channel's "Gangland" series focused Thursday night on Maryland's Dead Man Inc., a white prison gang, and the timing couldn't have been any better.

Just yesterday, the City Paper reported on its Web site that federal prosecutors said the Black Guerrilla Family offered DMI $10,000 to do hits on corrections officers and anyone else who helped with or conducted the investigation that led to 24 recent indictments that outlined how the BGF was able to carry out gang business while enjoying a decadent lifestyle behind bars.

"There’s been a hit placed out on several correctional officers named in this kite, and all others involved in this investigation, and that would include prosecutors," a federal prosecutor told U.S. District Court magistrate judge Beth Gesner, according to the City Paper. A “kite" is a letter or note sent between inmates.

Last night's special, which teetered dangerously close to glorification of the violent gang and its activities, featured interviews with members who gave their names and also provided information about the gang's origins and recent upheaval and a power struggle. I checked news clippings dating back several years and could find no real account of how the gang got started, so that special offered insight in addition to letting proud members boast and show off tattoos.

According to the members, the gang was started by a man named Perry Roark, 40, who court records show is from Bel Air and is currently being held at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center, known as Supermax. Roark, who is white, wanted to join the established Black Guerrilla Family, and though he was respected and knew BGF members, he was not allowed to join because of his race. So he started Dead Man Inc. in the late 1990s to serve as a white off-shoot of the BGF. The main beliefs were anti-government and anti-religion; homosexuals, rapists and snitches need not apply, members said.

The show also listed two other co-founders - James Sweeney and Brian Jordan - who were sent to facilities in Texas and Louisiana, respectively, to break up the gangs activities. But according to the narrator, that only served to spread DMI's influence. The show claimed that DMI has 10,000 members nationwide.

Among those interviewed on camera from behind prison walls were Ricky Tolson, 30, who said he is an "elder" in the gang, and a man named Kristopher "Little Kris" Horner. According to the state's inmate locator, Horner is being held at the Maryland Correctional Institute in Hagerstown, while Tolson has apparently been released since his interview.

Tolson said DMI was in a recent "downward spiral because of infiltration by a lot of people who shouldn't be involved." Tolson, Horner and another member named William Kern said the gang was being overrun by new members who didn't share the group's core values and wouldn't back up others in fights. Members were committing acts of violence against fellow members, and no one knew who to trust. Tolson displayed scars from a stabbing carried out by a fellow member.

Roark, the narrator said, handed down an edict that members not abiding by the rules, or those who illegitimately claimed membership, had until April 13, 2009 to get out or face consequences.

The numbers are significant - the date, 4/13/09, represents the letters DMI in the alphabet. So if the information is accurate, the gang just last week had a major membership purge.

Law enforcement officers interviewed for the special, whose faces were darkened and voices disguised, said the gang is headed for a turning point. Roark wants to keep the status quo and keep the gang affiliated with the BGF. But Sweeney, who is being held in Texas, wants the gang to move more toward white extremism.

A gang investigator from Anne Arundel County said law enforcement is cautiously monitoring Roark's status, as he is eligible to be released from prison in 2010. Though the gang has been predominately prison-based, the officer speculated that Roark's release could lead to increased presence on the street.

"When the main member gets out and can organize them, that's when people should be worried," the officer said.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (27)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

A reader raised a good question yesterday about why city prosecutors went after a man accused of forging a parking pass and selling it on the Internet under what seemed an obscure state law when the city statute appears to be much clearer and more on point.

Prosecutors worked out a plea deal in which the suspect agreed to 100 hours of community service and forfeit his parking rights in South Baltimore's Otterbein neighborhood in exchange for getting the charges dropped.

His lawyer had been prepared to argue that the state law didn't apply because it covered the forging of "tokens" that needed to be inserted into the box, which doesn't seem to cover passes put on dashboards or affixed to windshields. Prosecutors disagreed, but the plea agreement allowed both sides to avoid the argument. I wrote in my column that the law should be clearer and Bob Harkum, the chair of the Residential Parking Permit Board, pointed out that the city statue is indeed clear:

"No person may copy, create, or otherwise produce any counterfeit or facsimile of a residential area parking permit."

So why, Harkum asked, didn't prosecutors charge under this statute instead of the state one?

I got an answer today. Prosecutors told me they still believe the state statute applies but could've easily charged the suspect with violating the city code as well. Either way, a spokeswoman told me they believe the deal they struck was appropriate.

Assistant State's Attorney Lauren Poke wrote: "I could have added the the city code charge and I may have done so if it had gone to trial. However I believed the best resolution for the defendant with no prior record of arrests or convictions was to have him forfeit his privileges and serve the community he was defrauding."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

The Elkton newlywed who police say shot her husband just 17 days after they were married and then turned the gun on herself had been beaten by the man last summer, according to court documents from Cecil County.

This information sheds new light on what authorities had at first described as a shooting "out of the blue" with the wife pulling the trigger on a stolen .38 caliber handgun as her husband sat calmly on the living room couch on Monday. Police said the man, Michael Schary, 45, staggered outside the couple's house on East Old Philadelphia Road and told officers and neighbors he had no idea why his wife had shot him in the head.

The wife, Viktoria Albright, 34, then went into the kitchen and fatally shot herself. Schary survived and remains in critical condition at a Delaware hospital. Lt. Bernard Chiominto of the Cecil County Sheriff's Office told me on Wednesday that detectives were investigating "reports that there may have been some domestic violence" between the couple.

Court records show that Maryland State Police responded to the house on July 26 about 10 a.m. and were told by Albright that her then-boyfriend had punched her the night before. The trooper noted in a charging document that Albright had "a swollen black and dark red in color abrasion to her right eye."

According to the report, Albright said Schary "was drinking heavily and was being verbally and physically abusive to her. Schary was yelling at Albright stating 'she was a piece of [expletive] and he could do much better.' Schary followed Albright around the house and wouldn't get away from her. In defense and an attempt to leave the house, she pushed Schary away from her. Schary then punched her in the face two times and then took the keys to her car and left the residence."

Albright told the trooper she had been living with Schary at that point for about one year. "She advised that Schary has physically abused her in the past, however this was the first time she had reported it."

Schary was charged with one count of second-degree assault, pleaded guilty on Feb. 12 and was sentenced to two years in jail, with all the time suspended. The couple married April 3.

During that time, Albright was still confronting her ex-husband, John M. Sweeney Sr., whom she divorced in 2006. The former couple was fighting over custody rights of their children and child support payments, according to court records. They were in and out of court and even had a hearing date scheduled for today to modify the child support payments.

Chiominto told me this morning investigators are still looking into the couple's past but have not determined a motive for the shootings. Chiominto told me that in the past year deputies had been called to the apartment building 10 times, twice to the victim's apartment. But in both those cases, he said children playing with the phone had called 911 and hung up.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

Today's column on a plea deal in a forged parking pass case raised an interesting question: Why did the State's Attorney's Office charge a man accused of trying to sell a fake pass on the Internet under a seemingly obtuse state statute when they could've used a more clearly written city law?

The attorney for the suspect argued that his client was charged under the wrong law because it made illegal the use of fake "tokens" that need to be inserted into a box. That obviously isn't the way parking passes put on dashboards or attached to windshields work. His client agreed to community service and to forfeit his parking rights in exchange for criminal charges being dropped.

Bob Harkum, the chair of the Residential Parking Permit Board, wrote me this about the city law, and I'm awaiting an answer from prosecutors:

§ 10-42.  Counterfeiting or altering permit.
 
 No person may:
 
  (1) copy, create, or otherwise produce any counterfeit or facsimile of a residential area parking permit; or
 
  (2) alter any permit issued under this subtitle to change its expiration date or any condition of its use.
 
You also may not show an invalid permit, sell or require use of a valid one, falsify information or help someone falsify information or get a permit to which they are not entitled. I was expecting, on this Craigslist caper, the $500 Civil Citation, as criminal charges on first time, etc. seemed stiff, BUT is doable under CITY Law:
 
§ 10-52.  Prohibited conduct – Criminal penalties.
 
 Any person who violates any provision of Part VII {"Prohibited Conduct"} of this subtitle is guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction, is subject to fine of not more than $1,000 or to imprisonment for not more than 12 months or to both fine and imprisonment for each offense.
(Ord. 06-316,)
 
The Civil Citation:
 
§ 10-51.  Prohibited conduct – Enforcement by citation.
 
 (a)  In general.
 
  In addition to any other civil or criminal remedy or enforcement procedure, Part VII {"Prohibited Conduct"} of this subtitle may be enforced by issuance of a civil citation under City Code Article 1, Subtitle 41 {"Civil Citations"}.
 
 (b)  Process not exclusive.
 
  The issuance of a citation to enforce Part VII of this subtitle does not preclude pursuing any other civil or criminal remedy or enforcement action authorized by law.
(Ord. 06-316,)
 
We  worked very hard to make all the element that naturally follow out of your "common sense tells you..." a reality in the City Law. I checked RPP Laws all around the country (check how stiff LA's "Preferred Parking" -- their RPP- fines and rules are) before presenting to Council a request to add sections to RPP re: Prohibited Conduct and Penalties.
 
Why States Attys decided to use that section of code to charge Foster is beyond me. 
 
We had hoped that compliance with the law really would rely on the stiff Civil fines that were put in place.
 
Be nice if you added a follow up: "For those of you cranking up the Printer/Scanners because of Foster case"..., know that CITY law does prohibit "screwing with the program."  PCA's are now testing marking the 2 hour window via computer-equipped vehicles with OTR and GPS.  We are working on the link to MOIT/PA for updates re: who has moved out and no longer has valid decal/permits. 
 
City residents who live in RPP areas should have as much a right to expect a possible parking space on their return from 8 hours as much as anyone who lives with a 20' foot curb cut giving them exclusive street space rights to a driveway to pull in right next to his house.
 
We're trying to make that happen.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

The old cat-and-mouse game between police and suspected drug suspect ended this week with a mark against the the cops. Prosecutors dropped charges against a man who was arrested last month and charged with two counts of drug possession that had been filed against a passenger in a car driven by the vice president of the Baltimore NAACP chapter.

Prosecutors had already refused to pursue a case against the NAACP official, Ellis L. Staten Jr., 44, who police also arrested on Pennsylvania Avenue and Dolphin Street, a strip known for drugs. A police officer had said he saw a man walk from a large crowd and get into a car and then watched a back-seat passenger hand cash to a man standing at his window in exchange for suspected drugs. The man in the back seat was identified as Kevin Logan.

From an article we published in the Baltimore Sun last month: Officers approached the vehicle and found a folded-up dollar bill containing suspected heroin and two pills of suboxone, also known as buprenorphine, a medication used to treat heroin addiction, in the possession of the back-seat passenger, police said.

Police said they found Staten in possession of additional suboxone pills inside a case, and in the driver's side door. Police also said they recovered a half-smoked marijuana cigarette. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said a passenger told officers that Staten had brought him to the area to buy heroin.

But it turns out, according to city prosecutors, the officer couldn't see what was being passed through the window and the officer wrote in his statement of charges, "Based on the area he was in and the history of the area, the officer believed it was a drug transaction..."

Assistant State's Attorney Shawn Essien told the Baltimore Sun's Melissa Harris: "Being in a high-drug area is not enough to search a car."

Pennsylvania Avenue has been singled out by the mayor -- at an NAACP rally to stop the violence, no less -- as a notorious open-air drug market and cops have flooded the street in recent months. One can argue that they know a drug deal when they see one, and in this case they did find drugs, but knowing it in your heart and proving it in court are two different things. And that this bust involved a leader of the NAACP only brings more attention to a common police tactic. Had this not involved a high-profile figure, would this case still have been tossed? 

After the arrests were made public, Staten said he had been in the area to solicit cab drivers to come to a meeting and that he was targeted by police because of his work with the NAACP. I don't think the cop even knew who he was before he slapped on the handcuffs and I don't buy the conspiracy theory.

But the sheer lack of probable cause on behalf of the cop only lends credibility to the NAACP's rhetoric. They're now free to bash the police for shoddy work. It's hard to see a drug deal go down and you cops need some leeway to use their experience to know what's going on. See a man circling your block repeatedly and talking to scantily-clad women standing on the corner, you know there's a prostitution deal going down, but to prove it you need to hear the negotiations. And even then they're often talking in code (even the feds have a hard time understanding mob-talk captured on hidden microphones).

Discerning out drug transactions are just as difficult. A number of years ago after a police officer was caught in a department sting charging an innocent man with drugs he had planted, dealers and users in the neighborhood told me the game doesn't involve catching people red-handed, but finding the drugs and charging the person closest to them. I talked to several people who admitted to being drug users and sellers but who insisted they had no drugs on them when they were arrested.

The cops goofed on this one, if only in that they used a common tactic to bust someone whose complaint would be heard, and the NAACP now has cover to spread its story of being unfairly targeted by a rogue police agency. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle -- and what is not being talked about is why the NAACP official really was up in that area with drugs in his car. The organization could elevate the debate of police conduct by addressing this with more candor, but the cops unfortunately gave them an easy way out.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

New details of possible domestic abuse are emerging this morning as police in Elkton continue to investigate Monday's shooting of a man, apparently by his wife less than three weeks after they got married.

According to Lt. Bernard Chiominto of the Cecil County Sheriff's Office, investigators are now learning of "reports that there may have been some domestic violence issues in the past, but these are just coming to light." He had no other details, but the information does help shed some light as to what happened inside this home on Monday.

Police said Michael Schary, 45, was talking with his wife, Viktoria Albright, 34, whom he married April 3. Chiominto said they were "just sitting on the couch having a conversation when she went into the kitchen. The next thing he felt hit in the head. He staggered outside and he heard another gunshot."

Chiominto said Schary was able to tell this to police and neighbors who rushed to help. He remains in critical condition at Christiana Hospital in Delaware; his wife apparently killed herself in the kitchen using a .38 caliber handgun she had stolen from a relative's house. Chiominto said Schary told police the two had not been arguing, but he also said police are trying to determine whether they were ever called to that address.

But Chiominto told me this morning that investigators are learning of past abuse in the family. In July 2008, Schary was arrested by a Maryland State Police trooper and charged with second-degree assault. He pleaded guilty in February and was sentenced to two years' probation. I couldn't learn other details of the case but I have calls out to police, prosecutors and the public defender who represented Schary. What I don't know is whether the wife was the victim.

Viktoria Albright also was involved in a divorce proceeding that ended shortly before she got married and according to court records the couple was arguing over custody and child support issues. Chiominto said the wife had children from a previous relationship.

It's hard to imagine a shooting like this "just out of the blue" as police had originally stated. But these past few days have been filled with shocking violence. We learn today that the man who police say shot his wife and three children to death in Western Maryland -- putting two bullets into each of their heads and then slashing their throats, only to leave a note by each of the bodies -- might have been prompted by financial stress.

And we're still trying to figure out what happened inside a 10th floor hotel room in Towson where a family of four was slain, including a promising Loyola College student. We're grieving from Frederick to Towson to Elkton today, stymied by too many questions and not enough answers.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Breaking crime
        

A recent survey of crime victims had found that 63 percent of the people who needed help were satisfied with the help they got. But the cops do a poor job of following up later, such as by sending the crime lab or getting detectives involved.

That pretty much follows what I hear across the city -- cops come quickly to 911 calls but people wait forever for investigations to be completed or even started. The Patrol Response Survey interviewed 600 crime victims of robberies and burglaries "due to their encompassing nature of transcending all types of socio-economical neighborhoods and these crimes are often the catalyst for a community's perception of crime."

An overwhelming number of victims, in most cases more than 90 percent, reported that officers listened to what they had to say, showed concern, treated them politely and made an effort to understand what was happening. But more than 60 percent reported they were never told whether anyone had been arrested in their crime, were not told if their personal property was recovered and were unsure if their cases were even still being investigated.

The results are interesting but not unexpected. People often feel their cases have fallen into a black hole and trying to reach someone who knows something can be an exasperating task. Here are the complete results of the survey.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Top brass
        

Baltimore County police are now calling the deaths of four people found in a room at the Sheraton Baltimore North Hotel in Towson a murder-suicide. Authorities released the names of the victims but have not yet said how they died.

And once again, a family tragedy has occurred on the 10th floor of a Baltimore area hotel room. In March 2008, three children were drowned in a bathtub in a 10th floor room at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor and Camden Yards. The latest deaths on Monday also occurred in a 10th floor room. And just days after another family was slain Western Maryland, police say by a man who left notes by the bodies of his wife and three children before killing himself.

And in Elkton on Monday, police said a newlywed shot her husband, critically wounding him, and then took her own life in their home on East Philadelphia Road.

I've been covering cops a long time and I haven't seen this many families wiped out in such a short period of time. Maybe it's the economy, but I suspect that's too simple an answer, though stress has never been higher. I hope authorities in Frederick, Baltimore and Cecil counties come up with some answers, and I'm sure as in all these cases we'll learn of signs we missed that might've prevented these deaths.

We'll have more information after a news conference planned by Baltimore County police later this morning. Here is the latest from police:

Police Release Identifications in Precinct 6/Towson Murder/Suicide

Four Bodies Found in Room at Towson Sheraton

Baltimore County Police have identified the four bodies found in a hotel room at the Sheraton in Towson, MD. Their bodies were discovered by hotel staff at approximately 3 p.m. on Monday, April 20. They are identified as William Parente, 59, Betty Parente, 58, Stephanie Parente, 19, and Catherine Parente, 11, of the unit-block of First Street, Garden City, NY, 11530.

Detectives are continuing their investigation as a murder/suicide. The bodies of the Parente family have been taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore where autopsies will be conducted of the bodies some time today. Investigators are not releasing the causes or manner of deaths until after the completion of the autopsies.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Breaking crime
        

When Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III told the City Council a few months ago that detectives had DNA evidence in the killing of one of their former colleagues, Kenneth N. Harris Sr., he pleaded for help in identifying a suspect that DNA evidence could be compared with.

A tip led police to one man and led them to Charles Y. McGaney. But the needed evidence, and when detective learned that McGaney had once been a suspect in a 2007 killing, they got their break. A detective wrote up a warrant naming McGaney in that old homicide and a judge signed off on the request to collect McGaney's DNA. For more details, see Baltimore Sun reporter's Melissa Harris' story today.

McGaney's DNA was found on a glove, coat and bandanna discarded at the Harris killing, and McGaney was promptly charged in that case. What about the other murder? No DNA link in that one, but it appears that police had decided month earlier that McGaney wasn't responsible, and the have charged another man in that case.

So the question becomes one for a judge: did the cops deceive the judge who signed the warrant to collect DNA evidence linking McGaney to one shooting when in fact cops really wanted the DNA for another shooting?

Depending on the ruling, it's going to be either great police work or a questionable investigation. Police use all the tools at their disposal, and they were not about to give up a chance to obtain McGaney's DNA. The suspect's attorneys plan to argue this in court; should be interesting to see what the judge has to say.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Breaking crime
        

Two very different scenes in Baltimore:

On Friday, television news captured relatives of Patrick Albert Byers Jr. shouting at the family of Carl Lackl outside the federal courthouse. Byers had just been found guilty of ordering a hit -- that was carried out -- on Lackl for helping police identify Byers as a murder suspect.

On Saturday, Baltimore Sun police reporter Justin Fenton wrote about Dominic Baker, a 16-year-old who was shot and killed. His family didn't blame the police or the system or juvenile authorities or even the trigger man. They blamed Dominic -- he had chances, support, help from the state, but he also was a young man you could feel sorry for -- he lost his sister in a house fire last year and was in and out of jail for dealing drugs.

Another youth lost on another city street. But  listen to the young man's grandfather, D'Arice Wicks Sr.: "People look to the government to do everything. But our kids have to listen. We have to be an example. Just because you're poor doesn't mean you have to do wrong. ... God dealt with Dominic. He destroys the body to save the soul. You can't deal drugs and play the drums in church. He lays cold now because of his decisions."

Add a church pastor at the funeral: "Don't you dare condemn the trigger puller. Dominic could've been the trigger puller."

Personal responsibility. The family of Byers was angry because Lackl too had trouble with drugs and his being in East Baltimore when he said he saw Byers kill somebody might not have been for the best of reasons. But what does that have to do with anything? He saw an alleged crime, reported it and was willing to testify. And he got killed for it.

I spent the past several days with a news crew from the British Broadcasting Corp. and I took them to Belair Edison where we met with one of the community leaders, Anthony Dawson. He too talked about taking responsibility, of cleaning streets and owning up to what you do, to move drug dealers out of their comfort zone.

I hope Mr. D'Arice moved some people out of their comfort zone by talking so openly and honestly about his slain grandson. And I hope that Byers' family takes responsibility as well. It's not Carl Lackl's fault he's in prison and could face the death penalty; it's his own.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

It appears that the Baltimore Police Department is embarking on a test-run to text crime alerts to residents' cell phones. After saying the idea, which is used by many departments around the country including the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, was being studied, officials launched it today in the Southeastern District.

No announcement was made but for an e-mail sent out by the head of the Southeastern Police District's Community Relations Council, copying a statement from the district commander, Maj. Roger Bergeron.

I confirmed the start of this new program with the Police Department's chief spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, who told me it's a 30-day pilot run and if it works it will be implemented across the city: "If we're going to be successful in further lowering crime, the community needs to be a partner. Part of Frederick Bealefeld's strategy is not only to get cops out of cars to interact with residents and business owners, but arming the community with information so they can help us help them."

Here is the statement from Bergeron:

"I am proud to announce that the SED will be the pilot district for a community alert system. The system will go online today, Friday, April 17. We will run this pilot for 30 days and evaluate its effectiveness at the end. If successful it is anticipated that we will continue its use. This program will allow subscriber's to receive alerts via cell phone text message or email as they wish. The information put out will include information as to major crime within a quarter mile of an incident. We will include information as to significant arrests, community meetings, missing persons, and any other idea that we can think of that would benefit the community. A citizen may become a subscriber by logging on to www.nixle.com and follow the sign up instructions. This is a free program, however, costs may be incurred by their cell phone company depending on how they set up their contract with the phone provider (e.g. Pay per text message, etc...). I would encourage EVERYONE to sign up asap. Please alert as many residents as possible. I am excited about this new program and can't wait to see how it works out. Thank you!"

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Confronting crime, Mapping crime, Neighborhoods
        

So, finally, the recession hits Baltimore's drug lords.

According to the feds, one complained he couldn't get lobster and had to settle for salmon with shrimp and crab imperial. And he's is prison!

It's one of the best parts of the sweeping indictment announced Thursday by federal and local law enforcement, and one that captures both the bravado and arrogance of local drug gangs -- in this case the Black Guerrilla Family -- but also our frustrations in that it confirms our worst fears and suspicions.

But it's not the most important part of this indictment, spelled out in more than 100 chilling pages in court papers. It brings together a mind-boggling number of disparate cases, showing links to shootings big and small, and giving us a road map of drug violence that appears out of control and random but is really part of a vast and complex conspiracy that involves corruption of correctional officers who are accused of helping to smuggle in expensive food, drugs and cell phones.

The violence in recent months at the Belvedere in Mount Vernon -- authorities say the drug gang used the condo complex and its array of bars and hidden rooms to meet and plot their next moves. Any wonder why there are loud parties, fights and gunfire outside? Feds say that one meeting never occurred because the suspected dealers overheard cops talking about it on a police scanner.

Police break up a gathering of more than 100 suspected gang members at Druid Hill Park this week -- members of BGF.

The shooting death of former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. -- this week, a BGF member was arrested and charged with threatening to kill a witness in the case. In state charges filed a week ago, a security officer hired to patrol the Northwood community, where Harris was shot, reported that he was threatened by a man at a shopping center on Cold Spring Lane for helping to identify suspects in the killing of Harris. "Our guns are bigger than your guns," the man said, according to state prosecutors. "You don't want to mess with BGF."

The padlocking of Club 410 in Northeast Baltimore -- After putting up a pretty good defense of her club, saying she promoted holiday drives, but unable to prevent police from closing it down because they say it's associated with violence -- the owner was named in the BGF indictment and charged with conspiracy for allegedly using her club as a hangout for the gang.

Two separate murder cases in Baltimore Circuit Court involve BGF members.

The recent stabbing death of an inmate in a city prison -- now linked to a BGF dispute.

The violence that sometimes consumes this city is not immune from understanding, and can be prevented. But as this indictment shows, it takes more than putting more cops on the street. The drug trade and the corruption that helps fuel it -- that corrections officers allegedly catered to gang members in prison by smuggling in cigars and vodka only shows how deep the problem is -- is as sweeping as it is complex.

I found one of the most interesting aspects of this case to be Club 410. I'm not sure whether the cops that held the hearing and padlocked the club knew about the extent of the federal investigation, though one cop at the hearing did reference BGF in his testimony. Could it be the cops targeted this club to shake things up a bit in advance of more serious charges to come? Or was it two law enforcement organizations going after the same people?

Either way, if BGF is indeed trying to take over Baltimore's lucrative drug markets, this indictment could not only help end that endeavor but also answer a lot of questions about why things happen in this city. People don't shoot each other for no reason outside the Belvedere anymore than in any other neighborhood. Understanding why all this happens is just as important investigating what happens because it may help us to really stop it.

What follows are some highlights from the search warrant application filed by Detective William Nickoles, who works for the Baltimore Police Department and is assigned to a federal Drug Enforcement Administration task force. It reads more like a novel than a court document, complete with narratives of killings, drug deals, violence and sex:

"As more fully described below, BGF is attempting to take over the illegal drug trade at multiple locations in Baltimore, Maryland and is committing drug-related acts of violence and extortion as part of its efforts to expand its influence from inside the prison walls to the streets of Baltimore."

The indictment names dozens of people, including many imprisoned for murder and are accused of smuggling in contraband. They have formed a group in prison whose leaders are called the "Supreme Bush" and hold various ranks.

"BGF members are periodically tested on their knowledge of the gang's history and rules. Members who fail to demonstrate adequate familiarity with the gang's history and rules are 'sanction' or beaten." The group published "The Black Book -- Empowering Black Families and Communities" that the feds say was distributed to make the organization "appear legitimate and not involved in criminal activity."

In intercepted cell phone calls, prisoners talk about holding three-way conference calls to discuss business -- "Listen, man, we on the verge of big things, man." The answer: "Alright man, uh you know what I mean? You already know man, I'm a solid soldier. Whatever you need, whatever you need me to do man, I'm there, man."

The other man responded: "Ok, this positive movement that we are embarking on now, right, is moving at a rapid pace, right. It's happening on almost every location [all prisons and other location where BGF is active]. Revolution is the only solution brother."

A female officer in the prison system is accused of trading sex for money and even sent provocative photos of herself to inmates on smuggled cell phones. In one recorded phone conversation, the officer tells an inmate she was happy to be fired: "I'm stress free now. That damn job was stressing me out and I, I had went there last week. I took off my bag and they was stressing me out. The big boss called me back, but they didn't find anything. I left. That job was cool while it lasted. But that s--- like having a McDonald's job, I got to break the law to get money."

"During a series of calls intercepted in April 2009, Eric Brown discussed with Deitra Davenport and others the fact that he and other BGF members were smuggling champagne and Grey Goose vodka into MTC. Brown attempted to get lobster into the facility but ultimately was able to smuggle in only salmon with shrimp and crab imperial. Brown asked Davenport to smuggle a good cigar into the facility so he could enjoy a good cigar while he was drinking."

"Several guards with the Department of Corrections are assisting BGF members with an extortion scheme under which BGF offers protection while in jail to newly arrested person who are not BGF members. In exchange for this protection, an arrested person is required to pay money to BGF. Specifically, BGF supplies the person to be protected with a credit card number of a prepaid credit card (sometimes referred to as a 'Green Dot' card) and the person to be protected is required to have family members or friends place mone onto the card when periodically directed to by BGF. The credit card is often held by one of the corrections officers who are assisting BGF or by BGF members on the street. If the newly arrested inmate does not agree to pay for the protection, then he or she is targeted for violent crimes while in prison."

"On March 24, 2009, at approximately 4:40 pm, Glasscho placed an outgoing call... During the conversation, Glasscho told Scipio, 'Yea you gotta come down to the Belvedere Hotel homey." Scipio responded, 'Alright, I'm gonna call you when I'm close.' At approximately 5:11 p.m., Scipio called Glasscho and said, 'I'm outside.' Based on my training and experience and other information developed during his investigation, I believe that Glasscho and Scipio were meeting in person to discuss a drug transaction. However, at approximately 5:11 p.m., Glasscho received an incoming call from Scipio. when Glasscho answered the call Scipio said, 'You tell somebody to meet me?' Glasscho answered, 'Nah! Why you say that?' Scipio went on to explain, "Some dude just hit my phone talking about did I meet somebody at the Belvedere. Boy let me holler at you on second. Didn't you just meet somebody at the Belvedere? You feel me?'"

"Glasscho responded, 'Ahh!' Scipio then spoke with two individuals in the background. Scipio then returned to the conversation and said, 'KG, get the [expletive] away from there. They, they just told me the peoples [a reference to law enforcement] is on you. You hear what I said!?' Glasscho responded, 'Alright.' Scipio continued, 'My man just hit me, it's on the scanner [police scanner].'"

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

In discussing the Baltimore police commissioner's firing of the prosecutor who runs disciplinary hearings called trial boards, Mayor Sheila Dixon said the ability of the department to investigate itself has been a "longtime issue" and a "weak link."

The mayor told the Baltimore Sun's Annie Linskey: “I think that this is a good opportunity to revamp that whole department and deal with those weaknesses and strengthen that effort. I think that everyone from the commissioner on down wants to see that happen."

That's funny because when police officials were called to the City Council to defend not naming officers who fire their weapons they assured lawmakers that they could be trusted because of the department's good track record in holding its own accountable.

So which is it?

Just something else to remember as the police commissioner revises this controversial policy amid a mess at the top of the office in charge of disciplining cops. Already, one official there is in trouble for moonlighting and representing some of the very criminals cops are arresting and a trial that just concluded with the acquittal of an officer in an assault case spanned six days and included testimony of infighting and back-stabbing worthy of a soap opera, not a professional police department.

This comes as city homicide detectives investigate yet another police shooting, this one by a city school police officer who may have accidentally shot a 13-year-old boy being arrested for breaking into a West Baltimore school. City school officials are refusing to name the victim and the officer. After being pressed, I got this response from spokeswoman Edie House: "Once the investigation is completed we will provide more detailed information as permitted under the law."

City police are investigating but a spokesman there referred questions to the school system. In the past, city cops have released the names of officers from other agencies that they are investigating in terms of shootings. Sending questions back and forth may delay answers, but it won't help either agency regain the credibility and accountability it needs, now more than ever.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Top brass
        

Early Tuesday, a 13-year-old boy was shot in the ankle while being arrested by a Baltimore school system police officer. The cops were at the Harlem Park complex in West Baltimore checking on a report that some kids had broken into the school.

The school system issued a news release but did not identify either the officer or the child who was struck (it appears the officer's gun accidentally discharged through his pants and hit the youth). Baltimore police are reviewing their policy on withholding the names of officers who fire their weapons and have not yet made a final determination.

I asked the department's chief spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, for the names of the child and the officer, and he referred me to the school system. A spokeswoman for city schools, Edie House, told me they would definitely not release the name of the young victim citing confidentiality laws. City police have been sporadic about naming victims because of witness intimidation issues, but in the past they routinely released the names of all victims, child and adult.

As I hold Baltimore police accountable, I'm calling on authorities to release the name of the officer who fired his weapon and say more about the shooting -- was his weapon drawn or how did it discharge? And without the name of the child, we have no way of determining whether he was a student at the school and what his defense might be.

House told me she would check on whether they can release the name of the officer, but she said it  probably wouldn't be done until after Baltimore police conclude their investigation. City police are running the investigation, and in the past, when they routinely released names of police officers who shot people, they also released names of officers from other agencies who discharged their weapons:

In 1990, city police told us that Officer Kenneth M. Dean III of the now defunct Housing Authority police shot and killed Eli McCoy, a 17-year-old youth.

In 1997, city police identified Armis Paul Strickland, 46, a police officer with the University of Maryland at Baltimore who fatally shot a mentally disturbed woman who had just been released from the hospital.

Here is the statement issued by the Baltimore school system of the shooting:

MEDIA STATEMENT
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, April 14, 2009

At 12:15 a.m. on April 14, 2009 school police responded to an alarm at the Harlem Park complex. Upon arrival, officers observed four individuals inside the building. A perimeter was established with the assistance of Baltimore Police. Four juvenile suspects were apprehended by school police personnel. During the apprehension, one individual was injured when the officer’s service weapon discharged through the officer’s pant leg and struck the suspect in the ankle.  This individual was transported to Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment. The remaining three individuals were processed and transported to the Department of Juvenile Services. 
The discharge of the weapon is presently being investigated by Baltimore Police. The officer, a 36-year veteran of school police, has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation by Baltimore Police. Further details will be provided at the conclusion of the investigation.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Police shootings
        

A new study coming out today from the Sentencing Project shows that for the first time since the War on Drugs began many years ago, the number of African-Americans jailed for drug offenses has declined.

The study found:

21.6% reduction in state imprisonment of black drug offenders, 1999-2005
White drug offender imprisonment increases 42.6% over same period
Overall state drug offense population stabilizes, federal continues rise

The study attributes the drop to an end of sentencing guidelines and changing arrest patterns. Looking through the document I didn't see any breakout for individual states, and I'd love to find out what Maryland's numbers are. I'll try to find out and report back.

Baltimore Sun reporter Matthew Dolan wrote about the effort to end mandatory sentencing guidelines back in 2007. Federal judges complained that they were forced to send people to prison without taking into account their personal stories and background, stripping them of exerting any judgment and resulting in unfairly long sentences.

Here is part of his story published in May 2007

WASHINGTON -- A day after the Supreme Court restored substantial power to federal judges to hand down sentences below recommended guidelines, the U.S. Sentencing Commission gave them additional authority to reduce prison terms for those already locked up for crack cocaine- related crimes.

The commission's unanimous vote yesterday was viewed by many legal experts as a belated turning point in the often fractious, two-decade-old debate over how best to deal with defendants who violate federal drug laws. The decision could reopen almost 20,000 cases, and several members of the commission - which first urged a change in the guidelines for crack-related crimes a dozen years ago - called it the most important during their tenure.Beginning in March, almost 10 percent of federal inmates nationwide could be eligible for a reduction in their prison terms, including as many as 279 from Maryland, according to the commission's analysis. The measure does not apply to state courts and prisons where the vast majority of defendants convicted of drug crimes reside.

Sentencing Commission Chairman Ricardo H. Hinojosa, who is also a federal judge in Texas, described the change as a "modest, partial step" toward addressing inequities in federal drug sentencing. He and other members called on Congress to revisit the issue and rectify the overall disparity in sentencing guidelines for crack and powder cocaine- related offenses in a more comprehensive way.

"It is the right thing to do. There is just no way to justify the ratio" of crack cocaine crimes being penalized much more harshly than those involving an equal amount of powder cocaine, said U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo, a vice chair of the commission and former federal prosecutor who handled cocaine cases in Chicago.

At yesterday's meeting of the presidentially appointed commission in Washington, the Bush administration renewed its opposition to revisiting crack-involved cases. Administration officials argued yesterday that the potential release of thousands of inmates could pose a public safety risk.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

I'm out with the British Broadcasting Corp. Monday and tomorrow looking for crime and of course Baltimore comes through. A man was fatally shot in Southwest Baltimore near a school this morning. This picture by Baltimore Sun reporter Gus Sentementes shows the gun in the alley, next to a yellow evidence marker put there by police (it is hard to see).

It was a typical Baltimore homicide -- a man shot on a street, a gun dropped in an alley, plenty of police tape hanging from door knobs and attached a school fence. At least city schools are closed this week so there were no kids at the adjacent playground. Still, a sad scene in a neighborhood that needs help. We did manage to find a heroin needle in the gutter near the shooting scene.

The BBC cameraman and the producer got a chance to watch crime lab technician bag a pair of pants and shoes and chat briefly with Baltimore Police Maj. Terrence McLarney, the commander of the homicide unit. A deputy police major also stopped by and noted with some disdain that lack of witnesses, another all-to-common part of a city crime scene.

We talked with a man named David Hamilton, who sells sodas from the sidewalk in front of his house across the street from the shooting. He told me he saw four men run out of the alley after the shooting but he also complained that police detectives pressed him for more information. He either refused to give it or insisted he had said all that he knew. As we left, he was taking down his stand, saying the cops warned him about not having a permit.

The shooting on Christian Street will help the BBC show city crime and I took them to a few neighborhoods. On Friday, they will meet some community leaders to talk about what's going on in their neighborhoods. We're filming downtown as well, so yes it's about crime but about the city as well; they're seeing what this city has to offer, and it's not all crime scene tape and shootings in all-but-forgotten parts of Baltimore.

The producer tells me this could run in a week or so, and I'll post a link to the finished product.

Later Monday night, in a steadily increasing rain, we headed to Milton and Monument in East Baltimore where a man had been shot in the back. There wasn't much there when we arrived, cops on the scene laughed as we walked to yellow tape blocking what was essentially a wet street. Police said a man had been shot a few blocks away and either drove was driving to the corner in a minivan, where he got out and collapsed. He had been hit in the back. BBC did get an arrest -- a woman driving south on Milton hit one of the marked police cruisers and was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Breaking crime
        

The federal judge wasn't the only person amazed when prosecutors revealed last month that man awaiting trial in jail on a murder charge allegedly used a cell phone to put a hit on a witness. Others, including radio talk-show host and former Baltimore Police Commissioner Eddie Norris wondered as well.

That sparked a back and forth on this blog, with people asking why something so simple as a jamming device can't be installed in jails and prisons and state prison officials firing back that such an initiative would be costly and illegal, under a 1934 law (at left, corrections officials look at confiscated cell phones at the Baltimore City Correctional Center in a photo by The Sun's Karl Merton Ferron).

Baltimore Sun reporter Tricia Bishop reveals today that there are bills before Congress to allow jamming of signals to prevent prisoners from calling out but that a trade groups and lobbyists representing the cell phone industry oppose the bills, arguing that signals outside prison walls, and emergency lines, could also be effected.

The article reveals that the wireless industry gets about $4 billion in illegal calls made annually from prisons around the country. And the state says jamming phones from just the Baltimore City Correctional Center would cost $127,000.

It's an interesting debate but it's not merely words. The trial continues in U.S. District Court in Baltimore for the man accused of ordering the killing of Carl Lackl, who prosecutors say witnessed a murder in Baltimore and was killed before he got a chance to testify against the alleged shooter. Witness intimidation is a big problem in the city -- State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy recently teamed up with U.S. Elijah E. Cummings to get help from the U.S. Marshal's Office.

Ordering hits from prison is not new. In the late 1990s, Anthony Aneyi Jones, then one of the city's most murderous gang leaders, used a secret language decoded by a federal prosecutor that he made up to order hits on three witnesses using prison phones. Jones is serving four life sentences in federal prison in Colorado and has had his phone and mail privileges revoked.

And  I'm sure the family of Carl Lackl doesn't care how much money companies are making off the illegal use of their products.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

Consider it a victory for the little person.

Ever since Baltimore's police commissioner and recreation and parks director announced that the Police Athletic League centers would close, with most of them taken over by the rec department, it had sounded like a done deal.

There was a news conference and officials talked about how this was good for the city, a way of consolidating centers under one department and putting more cops on the street. The news took residents by surprise.

Robert Hunt, the head of the Rosemont Improvement Association, found out his center was on the chopping block when he saw television cameras outside. Even at a forum at Rosemont Thursday night, residents said  they were not properly informed. Hunt called me just a few hours before the hearing to tell me about it -- the city gave me a schedule of 17 hearings but didn't give him one. City Councilwoman Agnes Welch said she too learned of the closures from the media.

Now, many people felt Thursday's forum was a waste of time, that their input was only sought after the decision had been made. "If you take it out, take it out," Rosemont resident Robert Brunt said at the hearing. "But don't do it behind our backs."

Recreation officials said they informed the public as quickly as they could but on Thursday night in the gym at the Rosemont PAL, Rec and Parks director Wanda S. Durden backpedaled. In her opening remarks to a hostile crowd, she nodded to Leticia Fitts, who helps run a nonprofit that is parterning with a PAL Center on Pennsylvania Avenue, Robert C. Marshal, and is fighting city bureaucracy. She is monitoring the hearings.

"This is not a done deal," Durden emphasized, noting Fitts' victorious smile.

Is the very point Fitts has been trying to make. She's flooded city officials with e-mails demanding they announce scheduled votes and stop talking as if these cuts due to budget constraints are in fact set in stone. She is distributing a pamphlet explaining the city's budget process noting exactly where we are in, and on her chart we are no where near the end. She's titled her presentation, "It's not a 'Done Deal.'"

At least on this point it appears she has beaten City Hall. Whether this means she can save PAL is another matter. Rec and Parks is holding a series of hearings this month and next -- one at each PAL Center -- and if they go as the last three have, and resemble the e-mails I'm getting -- the city will have a mound of testimony supporting PAL and decrying the cuts.

But the City Council is not voting on PAL in June. Lawmakers are voting on the entire budget, and whether opposition to this one issue will be enough to hold up the budget remains to be seen. But at least the discussion is where it should be -- with the residents. And their words can still mean something. Here is a complete schedule of hearings on PAL centers:

Center Visitations 3.26.09

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

The rumor, and rumbling in the Baltimore Police Department, was that a top commander had denied a request for city cops to attend Thursday's funeral for three Pittsburgh police officers who were killed in the line of duty last week.

The outrage is tempered by a review of the facts. Office Nicole Monroe, a department spokeswoman, told me that a request from the Honor Guard that they attend was denied, but that the department sent a contingent of motorcycle officers to Pittsburgh. She said that decision was made during discussion with Pittsburgh police, who needed not just a ceremonial presence, but practical help escorting three funeral processions to three different cemeteries, and with traffic control given an estimated 20,000 people were expected to pay their respects.

"Baltimore will be well represented," Monroe said.

The head of the police union, Robert Cherry, told me he would prefer that both members of the honor guard and motorcycle unit attend, but he didn't want to complain too much given that the city will be represented at the funeral. Four members of the Honor Guard travelled to Oakland, Calif., after the recent shootings that claimed the lives of four officers. The city gave them the time; the union paid $2,500 for their airfare and hotel rooms.

Cherry said he talked with Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III at a community walk in Southeast Baltimore on Wednesday evening but that the commissioner didn't want to intervene in the decision. "We would hope that the Police Department would continue to send the honor guard to all of these funerals," Cherry said. "In years past, when we've lost one of our own and you look up and see officers from Philadelphia and New York, its reminds us that we're all united by the badge."

But Cherry is right -- the department and city is represented, and perhaps in a way that serves Pittsburgh best.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Top brass
        

The owner of Club 410 is hopping mad that the city's police department has padlocked their Northeast Baltimore establishment, citing shootings and other crime. Police are taking a strong stance against businesses that they say tolerate crime. But Tomeka Harris, the operator and manager of Club 410, feels they countered every argument at a public hearing last month.

The padlock went on yesterday at 5 p.m.

Harris told the Baltimore Sun's police reporter, Justin Fenton, that several incidents cited by police happened outside or even blocks away, and presented evidence that the perpetrators and suspects had likely come from elsewhere. As for a fight that occurred inside the club, she said club security handled it and that extra safety measures were implemented to ensure it wouldn't happen again. The deputy major of the Northeastern District, Darryl DeSousa, testified that the club was cooperating with police and that conditions had improved.
 
But DeSousa's superior, Maj. Delmar Dickson, said things were only better because police were directing disproportionate resources to the area. On Tuesday, a hearing examiner ruled for the police department, and the club was padlocked at 5 p.m. yesterday.
 
"We addressed every situation," said Harris, of Havre de Grace. "We don't condone violence. It just shows that the cops can do whatever they want."
 
Harris claims that her club was under no pressure until a shooting occurred outside. Since then, she said, a detective has been harassing employees and patrons, seeking information. She claims that the detective told her that he would have her shut down if she did not provide a name of the shooter. Not long after, the department initiated the padlock proceedings.
 
"I told them over and over, the victim was not a patron of my business. I have no information."

Police did not counter this claim at the hearing but have taken what a department spokesman says is a "zero-tolerance" position on violence. Police say the club serves as a catalyst for violence and cited several shootings nearby as evidence. Authorities are trying to get clubs and other businesses to take more responsibility fighting violence.

Harris said she wants to fight the police's padlock powers, but is not in a financial position to do so. "I've been draining capital, just trying to survive," Harris said. "But I'm gonna fight, because it's wrong."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

I took a walk Wednesday night with residents of the Patterson Park neighborhood to look at issues of crime and grime. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and Mayor Sheila Dixon went along.

These walks are almost a nightly occurrence in Baltimore these days, and I know the mayor and police chief try to get to as many as they can. They always attract a crowd, but more importantly little things get quickly noticed and handled. Dixon, for example, spotted a mattress in an alley. She quickly turned the guy trailing her with his notebook open and made sure he made note. I'm sure someone at public works is getting an urgent call.

As with most of these walks, we didn't see crime. But that's not the point. Thirty people trailing the mayor through back alleys shows everyone else that people are concerned and willing to stand up. "Banding together is what will revitalize our neighborhood," Tyrel Mosness, the security chair for the Patterson Park Neighborhood Association, told Dixon.

This is one of the important neighborhoods in the city. North of booming Canton, large rowhouses once left for ruin have been reclaimed, as has the sprawling park. Gone are the drug dealers and prostitutes; Wednesday night, under the lights, cheers roared from soccer games and people pushing baby carriages strolled on the paths.

At the Patterson Park library, Dixon met with Kelly McPhee, who has started a new community association, United at Liberty Square, and she talked about members get out nearly every Saturday morning and clean alleys from Lakewood Avenue all the way up to Orleans Street. She handed out a sheet of paper listing various projects and concerns, such as drains being repaired, cracked sidewalks, diseased trees and graffiti.

I liked the association's new signs on trash cans: "Trash goes here. Believe it or not, not everyone seems to realize that."

Bealefeld stopped to chat with Jacquelyn Fisher who poked her head out of a side door of Horsefeathers Bar. She told him she used to head a police community council, that she used to run a talent show to get kids off the street. Bealefeld asked her, "Why is all this stuff 'used to?'"

Fisher answered: "Cause things are different now. It's not like it used to be. I stopped doing it in '94 cause a lot of things changed. But I'm ready to start back up again, in May."

Bealefeld and Dixon inspected a large brick flower pot attached to an abandoned building, the flowers replaced by mounds of trash. The commissioner then noticed a door open on the second floor of the back of a rowhouse being renovated. Scaffolding invited anyone to simply climb up and get inside.

"This is where we get smashed and your neighborhood gets smashed," Bealefeld told Mosness. "They'll leave a saw or they'll leave a miter box or some drill. Somone will climb up there and they'll steal that ... and this neighborhood will get hit with a property crime."

On that note, the most recent crime stats released by the department show a 12 percent drop in crimes that include robbery, assault, murder (though murders themselves are up about 16 percent this year) and theft. Assaults with guns are down 10 percent and robberies with guns are down 19 percent. The department should have a news conference any day announcing the first-quarter crime stats, which are down.

But it's the little things seen on Wednesday's walk that drive neighborhoods crazy. And obviously the mayor and police commissioner can't get to every walk every day. Hopefully, the aides who take note of the abandoned mattress and the open door learn why these complaints are so important, and the next time someone calls 311 to report trash piling up in an alley they respond that much faster.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

At 5 p.m. today, Baltimore police will slap a padlock on yet another city business -- Club 410 in Northeast Baltimore. The department announced on its Twitter site that a police commander, after hearing hours of testimony at a public hearing last month, has ruled that club should be closed because its owners tolerated criminal activity.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III agreed. "The commissioner has a zero-tolerance for businesses that condone criminal violations," said his spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi.

It is part of the department's effort to hold business owners accountable for what goes on in and around their establishments. Police have padlocked a liquor store on North Avenue and threatened to close a East Baltimore motel and bar (their owners are working with authorities to come up corrective action).

Police say that Club 410 requires extra patrols to keep violence down. They cited three nonfatal shootings in recent months. A law student acting as the club's attorney noted that most of the violence occurred outside the club, beyond the control, and that they use metal detectors to screen patrons.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

My in-box is still filling up fast with complaints and complements over coverage of two shootings in Fells Point over the weekend. Several people are still complaining that the fatal shooting of a woman Sunday afternoon didn't occur in Upper Fells Point and my column today arguing one or two blocks doesn't make much of a difference in terms of safety.

First off, my intent was not to say that accuracy doesn't matter and if I'm one or two blocks off in naming a correct neighborhood for a crime that I don't care. I do care, and it is necessary to be accurate. One reader who has complained several times sent me a map, with an x on it, clearly showing the shooting right where police said it occurred -- on Gough Street just before Broadway -- in Upper Fells Point:

I'll upload the relevant part of the map here, since accuracy IS important, and somehow we can't seem to agree on how to read the map. The shooting, according to this "Live Baltimore" map, occurred in a thumb of Fells Point (not Upper Fells) ... and of course even this is a technicality, since it was Perkins Homes-involved. See the green "X" on the map I've created at this link:http://www.beaumonde.net/images/shootinglocation.jpg

So now it's the "thumb" of Fells Point but not really Fells Point, or Upper Fells Point?

Christian Dunn, who works for a residential brokerage on South Broadway, wrote: The details do matter in this story... If this was drug related or street justice it does matter. The headline was of "shock and awe" value. Judging by the comments the vast majority of people paid attention to the headline and associated it with the touristy section of Fells Point. Correct me if I am wrong but this sounds a lot more like a targeting and turf thing. The driver was probably not the intended target.  But somebody was after someone in that car."

I understand the need to keep crime out of neigbhorhoods and yes this unfortunate shooting probably did, as police say, stem from some dispute or incident in neighborhing Perkins Homes, a public housing complex. But as I noted in my column, the fact that the shooting may be 'turf' thing or that the victim may not have been the intended target or even that the dispute may have began in public housing, does that somehow make the area safer?

Remember, on Saturday someone fired up to 12 bullets on Lancaster Street, in the touristy section of Fells Point, and police say the men responsible came from West Baltimore. Do the residents who woke up with bullets in their walls sigh in relief that the thugs weren't their neighbors?

Dunn continued: "The reason why this matters is something you may not completely understand.  As you can tell some communities care a great deal about what happens, Fells Point especially and has a long history doing so. This area has new and old residents that care greatly about their community. It also has negative pressures from the north and Perkins homes (local government & press historically), exactly what this article describes.

"In general, you will find that people in the area know what's going on, keep an eye out and do not tolerate crime within their borders. By the little information provided it is clear that this is not an Upper Fells Point crime. What people are taking offense to is the Headline, because Fells Point is a good and safe place to live.

"These were not Upper Fells Point residents, tourists etc... They are life long beneficiaries of taxpayer dollars in the area... The Upper Fells Point residents are taxed highly and the other tragedy of this story that isn't being covered showing a lack of empathy. You probably know that 15 shots aren't fired at a car without provocation (street, thug justice), you know this if you are crime reporter.  Perhaps you have not visited Upper Fells in a while or know how active the 6-8 nearby associations are working to improve things to invite new residents in, expand the tax base, create jobs, start new businesses, live more sustain ably, less divisive, socially and community oriented. This is all about a headline."

Do we ignore this shooting, or is it that the shooting doesn't matter, because it's "not a Fells Point crime." It's a city crime and we should all care. One reader did jump to my defense:

"I wanted to say I agree with you 100% that the concern should not be the location but the fact that someone lost their life in the broad day light on a business street on a very beautiful day. We don't know if she was the intended target as of yet and honestly it isn't going to change anything. I know most of the people in Fells Point are concerned because they don't want anything bad to be discussed about their area but it should be more of a thought that someone else in Baltimore City lost their life.

"It should be we all need to come together and work hard as a city to stop the violence that has plagued us for so long. I think if we stop putting a label on each other, oh this side is the poor black community and this side is the upper class community and realize that crime doesn't care what race you are, what income you make, or where you live. It don't even care if your male or female these days.

"You have heartless people out here who will take anyone's life and the sooner everyone realize that maybe we can all get together and make Baltimore a much safer place. Maybe the police should put the same effort in talking to the community in the poorer neighborhoods as they do in Fells Point and other communities that have no public housing or higher incomes.

"We live in a world were things are failing right in front of us and those who commit these crimes aren't going to stop and say oh I won't shot you because you live in Fells Point. Think about it, they might shoot you quicker because they feel as though you have more of what they need in this day & time and that's money. Because you live in Fells Point and other areas that's consider better & higher income areas.

"Just like all the bodies that has been found in the Inner Harbor water. They brush things like that under the rug because they don't want to stop people from coming down the Harbor to spend their money and it's a high tourist attraction but let it be 4/5 bodies in leakin park or any other low income neighborhood. You would never hear the end of how those poor people are living in such crime but we have yet to hear the real story behind those bodies floating in that water and we probably won't. You go figure. To me it's all about the money and making those who have it look good and those who don't look bad."

Nerita N. Johnson

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

They used to sell drugs out of ice cream trucks, and we had a newspaper hawker who got killed while selling cocaine along with the morning news. Now we learn that the feds are accusing the owner of an Utz potato chip stall in Lexington Market, along withhis girlfriend, of selling guns to gangs such as the Bloods, the Crips and the Hells Angels.

Seems like it's time for the market folks to update their Web site. Here's how they describe the historic attraction built on land donated by a "hero of the American Revolution" and named for the Battle of Lexington: "Without waiting for streets, sheds or stalls, outlying farmers converged on the site as soon as General Howard gave the word. They trundled up 'in great Conestoga wagons, their horses strung with bells, making their own roads. On the rolling green yard, they spread out hams, butter, eggs, turkeys and produce."

Here's how the Baltimore Police Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives describes what they allege happened at the Utz stall, using coded lingo for confidential informants (you got to love the feds stuffing $3,600 in a bag from an Utz competitor!):

On February 21, 2008 at approximately 11:30 am, D/C 1759 was given $3600.00 in Baltimore Police Department funds which was then secreted in a Doritos bag. Accompanied by a surveillance team, D/C 1759 went to the Lexington Market and directly to Papantonakis' potato chip stand where he handed the Doritos bag to Heberle. D/C 1759 told Heberle "this is for Mike." Det. Bradley observed this from a location in the Market. Det. Bradley observed Heberle remove the money from the Doritos bag ahd begin to count it. Later, at approximately 2:00 pm, ATF CI-210 received a phone call from Papantonakis who said he was on his way to pick up the guns and would be back shortly. At approximately 5:20 pm, Papantonakis called ATF CI-21 0 and told him/her the guns were available for pick up at the Market. At approximately 5:45 pm, ATF CI-210 and D/C 1759 drove to the Market, followed by a surveillance team. While in route to the Market, Papantonakis called ATF CI-210 and instructed him/her to meet him in the Market parking lot as the Market was closed.

In one case, authorities say the suspects wanted to send a message to the market's manager:

"Once at the potato chip stand VIC 1759 was advised by Sharon Horn that Papantonakis was sitting in his truck in the loading dock area waiting for VIC 1759. Horn then directed VIC 1759 to the loading dock area. Once VIC 1759 exited the Lexington Market into the loading dock area, s/he found Papantonakis sitting in a red sport utility vehicle. VIC 1759 approached the vehicle and entered same sitting in the front passenger seat. Once in the vehicle, Papantonakis told VIC 1759 that he was looking for someone to "take care" of the manager that runs the Lexington Market, Casper Genco. Papantonakis told VIC 1759 that he knew everything there was toknow about GENCO - what time he comes to work, what time he leaves work, etc. Papantonakis told VIC 1759 that he even knew where all the security cameras were. VIC 1759 asked Papantonakis ifhe wanted Genco killed and Papantonakis stated that he didn't want him killed, he just wanted him beaten.

The suspects deny the charges. The accusations, reported earlier this week in City Paper, got me wondering about other interesting places serve as conduits for gun and drug exchanges? I'm thinking of places we all go to day in and day out and never stop to think about what nefarious deals might be happening right under our noses.

Let's try for a Top 10 list of unexpected places to buy drugs and guns in and around Baltimore.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Leave it to Maryland's highest court to invoke Goldilocks into one of its opinions. Yep, that very same tale you remember as a kid in which the girl visits the three bears and tries the porridge and find one bowl too hot, one too cold and other just right.

The esteemed panel of the Court of Appeals found two Court of Special Appeals judges "just right" to uphold the conviction of a man of robbing a convenience store in Kent County, despite the fact that one of the judges died after arguments but before the opinion was issued.

"With the filing of this opinion, this Court will have completed a "Goldilocks" trilogy," the appeals panel wrote in its opening line of Brandon Justin Jackson v. State of Maryland.

The court noted, unanimously I might add, that they had previously determined that "more than 13 judges" deciding a case "was too much." In another case, they concluded that on a three-judge panel, when one dies but the remaining judges are split, "the number of judges are too few."

But in the most recent case, the death of the judge left two judges who concurred, so it didn't matter what the late judge thought. "In the present case, we shall fight that two judges in agreement are just right."

I wonder if in some clerk's drawer there is a draft of a dissent?

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Crime humor
        

Today's column on crime in Fells Point and whether the boundaries make a difference got several responses, mostly from people who understand what truly matters is the shooting and the victim:

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to express my support for your most recent column. The fact that the concern stems from whether or not the shooting occurred in Fells Point sickens me. Not only does it demonstrate abject disregard for human life, specifically a life which appears to have belonged to a loving mother and honest citizen, but it also exposes one of the nastiest by-products of gentrification: class-based racism. Invisibile lines which carve out distinct social stratas make it possible that Ms. Wright could be murdered "just a few feet" outside of the Fells Point limit.

I am appalled.
 
I accept that Baltimore is a city of neighborhoods. I am a citizen of one of them, and a born-and-bred child of another. But lord knows that we can be something more. We can be one city. I know that in my heart. But it can't happen until we stop promoting these racist attitudes through inequitable, government-sponsored gentrification and redevelopment.
 
Thank you for this column, and the many others you produce. They mean something to me.
 
Very respectfully,
Dennis Robinson
J.D./M.B.A. Candidate, 2010
University of Maryland

Thank you for writing what you did today!!! I have live in Fells Point ... or fells Prospect ... or whatever the "name of the day" is - and have been here for about 12 years. It is appalling that people are responding to you about what part of the city she was actually killed in rather than responding to how she died.  Unfortunately it represents the classism and racism that is pervasive in this city. I am just as concerned as the next person - I have a young son in school a block from where Ms. Wright was shot - but to focus on where it happened (and to whom) rather than the fact that it DID happen at all is alrming to say the least.  Thank you again. Lauri

Dear Mr. Herman,

I totally agree with the point of your article today about the shooting of an innocent lady driving down Broadway in Fells Point.

I was riding my bicycle that very afternoon across that very intersection just about an hour before the shooting happened.  The irony is that I was riding back from a truly "bad" neighborhood over on Pulaski and Pratt streets in West Baltimore. I was helping a friend pack and move her apartment.  I was a bit concerned to be bicycling through her rather seedy neighborhood, but she needed my help.

I bicycle through the Perkins Homes neighborhood on Gough St. every morning and every evening on my commute to and from work. I think about all the crimes I read about there (the discovery of that poor young girl who ran away from Alexandria, VA behind a dumpster, for instance), and I search the faces of the people I see on the streets there, wondering if any of them are murderers.  But to be honest, they all seem just like family and friends, living their lives. In fact, I see a lot more human interaction (of the positive kind) on those streets than I do on my own street (I live on "Washington Hill" at S. Ann and Lombard streets.)

So your point is right on the money. No matter on whose street someone is being shot, it is everybody's problem. If President Obama can go to Turkey and proclaim, "We are not at war with Islam," then surely Baltimoreans can understand that everyone who lives here is part of the same community, no matter how hard we try not to recognize that we are all neighbors.

Sincerely,

Joanne Stato
"Fells Point"

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

The Los Angeles Times published a great story on Sunday on errors on crime maps, which are proliferating not only there but throughout the country and in Baltimore. Police agencies have complained about various maps, such as CrimeReports.com, which has marked wrong spots for crime in and around Baltimore.

We've had our own problems at the Baltimore Sun. We get calls about our homicide map showing murders in impossible locations, and even in different countries, and attempts to put up a map for Baltimore County crime has been thwarted because of bad locations. Every department gives us crime locations differently, and the computer has trouble matching them up with actual spots on the map. Earlier, a mistake put an inordinate number of plane crashes (zero would've been closer to the truth) in Essex.

The maps are fun and popular -- the Baltimore Sun has one showing homicides in the city and crime in Anne Arundel County -- but as with anything you have to be careful. The LA Times story is interesting -- the Police Department's map put too much crime in front of the newspaper building and its own headquarters.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

At first, even the cops thought a man had been shot in the head on Lancaster Street in the heart of Fells Point, on a narrow street lined with rowhouses. Then came the clarification -- shots were fired but no one was hit -- a man twisted his ankle, fell and hit his head on the pavement. But now residents are worried that the police are downplaying the incident.

First, police had said it occurred about 11 p.m. on Friday, but in fact it happened a few hours later, 1:50 a.m. on Saturday, just shy of closing times for the bars. Two groups of men were arguing after leaving nearby Moby's bar. Police officers told them to quiet down and moments later gunshots erupted. One man fell down bleeding.

That's all police would say about the shooting -- a woman was shot and killed on Sunday afternoon in Upper Fells Point, an unrelated attack, but the back-to-back shootings have enraged a neighbhorhood where residents are more used to battling tourists for parking spaces than gunmen.

Residents of Lancaster Street have bombarded my blog with vivid accounts of this shooting, which police don't classify as a shooting at all, but rather a discharging, or an aggravated assault. The major of the Southeastern District, Roger Bergeron, did post several items about the shootings on Southeast District's Community Relations Council blog, but they didn't go into a lot of detail. That has sparked accusations of a coverup.

Residents describe more than a gunshot fired into the air in anger, but an attack that makes you wonder how no one was actually hit:

The most easterly bullet hole circled with white-out is in the west lower stoop of 1604. This was found on Saturday morning at around 10am. The next bullet, going west is in the gray wood basement covering. The next one went throught the upper right corner of the door of 1602 and into the living room wall of that resident. Take the tour for the other bullets.

I'd like to clarify a few points about the early Saturday shooting in Fells Point.
The 1600 block of Lancaster St. has no bars. It is a residential side street with virtually no crime. At 1:50 am Saturday morning my neighbors and I were awoken to the sound of 10 rapid gun shots. The police conducted their investigation until 3:30. The next day we found eight bullets had pierced the houses on the north side of the street. One couple has a baby.  A bullet had gone through their door and was lodged in their hall wall. With the large amount of foot traffic on Lancaster St. on the weekends it is a miracle no one was killed. Minimizing the seriousness of the crime because the shooter missed his intended target only delays any real action by the city to protect one of it's last great neighborhoods (and tax bases). We need real resources and we need them now.

I have no idea why the Friday night incident on Lancaster Street should be downplayed as "not a shooting."  Someone was shooting a gun wildly while running down the street, endangering residents and visitors. That the shooter missed his intended target (and hit doors and a vehicle) doesn't make me feel much better about walking through the neighborhood late at night.

I talked with Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi this morning and he confirmed that 8 to 12 shots were fired but that no one was arrested. He also said Bergeron has redeployed officers to address concerns from both shootings. Here are two of Bergeron's blog postings:

"Allow me to address the incident on Lancaster. Officers were working on foot around 0150 last night. A crowd of men were arguing with another crowd of men as they had just left Moby's. The officers approached the crowd and advised them to quiet down and behave orderly. The crowds were apologetic and walked quietly away. Approximately 2 mins later the officers heard gunshots coming from 1600 Lancaster.

It was there that the officers found a victim who they thought may have been grazed in the head. This wound turned out to be a result of him twisting his ankle, falling to the ground and hitting his head. Investigation shows that the individuals involved were from the west side of Baltimore. The police will be placing a unit out of service on Broadway every Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Sun nights from 2300 to 0230 hrs. They will stay in the area of Broadway and Lancaster walking foot and challenging those creating problems. We have had a foot officer assigned to this area during the course of the last year. We have had the drug unit do some work in the area."

After the second shooting in Upper Fells Point, Bergeron wrote:

I will be making contact with some more of the community leaders. I am also sending some officers out door to door to speak with as many community members as possible. The incident Fri night was an aggravated assault in which a gun was used. Investigation reveals that no one was shot. The homicide yesterday is not related directly to Fells Point. The incident stems from Perkins Housing. I have already increased patrols in the area. I am dedicating the bicycle officer strictly to Fells Point in order to create a higher level of safety. I am placing officers out of service and on foot Thurs, Fri, and Sat night begining at 11pm and staying there until the crowds clear out. Again, please pass along that the incident on Lancaster did not result in anyone being shot, but it is being taken EXTREMELY serious by this command. The homicide on Sun evening is an event that is directly connected to Perkins Housing. Fells Point is safe, and we will certainly make life unhappy for any criminal element that makes an appearence there.
 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

I knew as soon I came to work this morning and saw there had been a shooting on Sunday in Fells Point that somebody would contest the location. Sure enough, I got this e-mail Monday afternoon:

Peter, if this was west of Broadway, as the story indicates, the shooting was not in Upper Fells Point, which begins EAST of Broadway. The neighborhood was either Fells Point proper (if this was in the 1600 block of Gough, most likely) or Perkins Homes if in the 1500 or 1400 block.

I thought some earlier blogs by not only myself but the Baltimore Sun's copy desk chief, John McIntyre, author of You Don't Say, written after a reader took Elizabeth Large of Dining@Large to task over putting a restaurant in the wrong neighborhood, would be the end of this discussion.

But sensitivities are hard to suppress.

First off, I want to say that does it really matter if someone gets killed in Fells Point or Upper Fells Point or in neighboring Perkins Homes? Are you really that much safer? It's not like there are fences around our communities. If you live on Broadway and Gough in Upper Fells Point and someone gets shot on Gough Street in Perkins Homes, you are at best two blocks away! That's too close in my book. But I also understand that a shooting at Gough and Broadway in Upper Fells Point seems a world away from a shooting at Lancaster Street in lower Fells Point, which is where the tourists go.

But we at this newspaper need to be correct. And both the map the reader provided and the city neighborhood map we use in the newsroom show that Broadway at Gough Street is not the boundary separating Upper Fells Point from Perkins Homes (public housing). It's actually a block further to the west, Bethel Street, and that puts Sunday's shooting on Gough Street near Broadway in Upper Fells Point.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and Doreatha Wright packed up her white Toyota Camry with two of her sons, one of their girlfriends and a little baby and went to pick up another son, Bobby Beasley, who was visiting his girlfriend's grandmother's house in Upper Fells Point.

As they drove east on Gough Street toward Broadway, 20-year-old Beasley told me he looked to his left. "I saw a dude shooting. I told my mother, 'Don't stop, don't stop" but then I saw blood coming out of her head." The car rolled to a stop in the middle of Broadway, one of the girls jumped out and scraped her arm, and the gunman disappeared.

Beasley said his mother got hit three times in the neck and head. She was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, apparently, according to her family, caught in the middle of a gunfight on a warm Sunday afternoon just a few blocks from of the city's premiere tourist districts and in one of the growing Hispanic centers of town.

Officer Troy Harris, a Baltimore police spokesman, told me that detectives have not yet determined a reason for the unusual shooting in Fells Point and won't say yet whether Wright was hit by a stray bullet. It is possible that one one of the people in the car was the target, but detectives haven't yet gotten that far.

Beasley, who I talked to briefly inside his mother's house in Washington Hill on North Bond Street, just a few blocks from the shooting and near the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus, said his family of five -- four boys and one girl now between the ages of 19 and 25 -- grew up in Flag House Courts, a public-housing high-rise that was torn down many years ago to make way for single-family townhouses north of what is now Harbor East.

Beasley told me his mother moved out of Flag House just before it was torn down and lived in several places in Northeast and East Baltimore before settling into one of the new town houses on North Bond Street, built in 2003 to replace a strip of long-abandoned row houses. He said his mother was disabled and couldn't work, though in the past she held a job at a city Dollar Store. She enjoyed playing backgammon and her house was tidy, with a to-do list on the fridge and a pantry stocked with food.

"She was a nice lady," Beasley told me, sitting next to his girlfriend, moments after the manager for the town house developer left. "She was just out enjoying a beautiful day and she got shot," her son told me. He said relatives are still making funeral arrangements.

Other Fells Point violence:

On Friday night, police reported that a man was shot in the head in the 1600 block of Lancaster St., outside a bar near the more heavily traveled Broadway. It occurred shortly before midnight, and that along with the shooting of Dorthea Wright would've made two on a weekend in an area where violence is uncommon.

But the Friday shooting turned out to be not a shooting at all. A neighborhood crime blog run by the head of the Southeast Police Community Relations Council contains some comments from angry residents and a response from Southeastern District Maj. Roger Bergeron:

"Allow me to address the incident on Lancaster. Officers were working on foot around 0150 last night. A crowd of men were arguing with another crowd of men as they had just left Moby's. The officers approached the crowd and advised them to quiet down and behave orderly. The crowds were apologetic and walked quietly away. Approximately 2 mins later the officers heard gunshots coming from 1600 Lancaster. It was there that the officers found a victim who they thought may have been grazed in the head. This wound turned out to be a result of him twisting his ankle, falling to the ground and hitting his head. Investigation shows that the individuals involved were from the west side of Baltimore. The police will be placing a unit out of service on Broadway every Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Sun nights from 2300 to 0230 hrs. They will stay in the area of Broadway and Lancaster walking foot and challenging those creating problems. We have had a foot officer assigned to this area during the course of the last year. We have had the drug unit do some work in the area."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (24)
        

The new indictment filed last week against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, in addition to fun new corruption counts, contained some amusing names -- his former chief of staff Alonzo "Lon" Mark and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

I think the general rule of thumb should be if you hire anyone with a middle name in quotation marks that you ought to think how it looks atop a federal indictment. When I saw that, I thought of our own indictment against our very own mayor. But unfortunately, no names appear in quotes -- only Developer A, Developer B and Employee No. 1.

Baltimore saves its best nicknames for what we do best -- drugs. I pulled a sampling from federal indictments filed by the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office.  In the past few years, we've had Shelly "Weazy" Martin; Shelton "Little Rock" or "Hard Rock" Harris; and James Roger "Buck Shade" Shade; and Kevin "Red Eyes" Gary.

Other fun nicknames: Shirtman, Turk, Tee Tee, Big Will and Meat Ball.

I'd love to hear favorites from attorneys and prosecutors. I know there are better ones out there. I found a Web site that lists the best nicknames of the Mob. My personal favorite: Stephen "The Rifleman" Fleming.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Crime humor
        

For years, maybe forever, we've dismissed crime in our city as, 'It's Baltimore.' Well, maybe it's not Baltimore, maybe it's us.

A Parkville resident, having returned from a two-week vacation on tiny St. Simons Island on the Georgia coast, might as well have been back home. It's a spot, the reader assures me, "to relax away from the sirens and crime of our area."

But this past Wednesday, as he and his wife headed out to dinner, "we were passed by a fire engine, medic unit, and police cars with light and sirens in use." Two days later, he discovered from other Marylanders that an elderly retiree was fatally stabbed in the rest room at a park. "We have heard that it was the first murder on St. Simons Island in about  30 years," the Parkville man e-mailed. "The residents are all up in arms about this breech of their security. (I wonder what it would take to get the people in our area to become that concerned?)"

I checked the story and found it to be true. It even made the local Fox news affiliate, complete with the requisite quote from a scared homeowner who doesn't lock his doors at night. It shows that crime can happen anywhere, but it also reminded me of covering tragedies in Israel and interviewing an Israeli tourist whose plane was attacked with a missile as it took off from a vacation resort in Africa.

"Terror chases us everywhere," the man told me at the airport.

Touche.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

They steal everything in Baltimore. In the '90s, lawn furniture was all the rage -- police urged residents to tie down their plastic chairs and concrete urns. Put name tags on them even. One guy I interviewed back then had his metal fence taken, in sections, on successive days.

So I wasn't surprised when I learned that burglars broke into an old mansion in Charles Village and stole two antique marble fireplace mantels. They took one on one day; the other the next day. Jerry Dadds, the owner of the building and a well known illustrator, was flabergasted. He's renovating the huge, three-story brick building next to WYPR and already has dropped the price from $1.1 million to $500,000. Part of the allure of buying an old building is getting some old stuff.

Dadds has put out a wanted poster with pictures of the mantels which I have reproduced below. I got a copy of the police report, on the second break-in, which notes the thieves broke a lead-glass window pane, got into the vestibule and then forced open a two-inch thick wooden door. From there, they pried off the mantels and took them out a back door.

The Baltimore police officer who responded wrote a thorough report, noting he found scratches on the wood floors (they're original Georgia-pine) and scratches on the concrete sidewalk from where the mantels were probably dragged. Officer Matt Disimone even wrote that he found flecks of marble -- a virtual stone trail leading outside.

Here's the wanted poster:

Mantel

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Breaking crime
        

It's refreshing to read the decision by the U.S. Fourth Circuit's Court of Appeals decision in favor of a city police commander who leaked a document criticizing a police shooting to the Baltimore Sun several years ago. Michael J. Andrew will now  have another chance to fight for his job in federal court.

The judges in Richmond overturned a Baltimore judge's decision to throw the case out. That judge had agreed with the city that Andrew's remarks were part of his official duties and thus not protected by the First Amendment. The Fourth Circuit concluded that Andrew might have written the document outside his official duties and that would protect him from being fired for giving the memo to the newspaper.

What great timing! Just as city police rethink their misguided policy of withholding names of police who shoot people, judges on a conservative Virginia court conclude that an officer who criticized the actions of police in a standoff might be allowed to speak up after all. What a unique concept in a free society.

But the best part is the concurring opinion from Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee, who briefly concurred with his colleague's legal decision and then launched into to an essay about how how cutbacks in the media are harming the First Amendment and that we actually need more government insiders to talk to reporters. With all that has been written about the demise of the press, this is one of the best arguments I have seen on behalf of traditional media. He writes:

While the Internet has produced information in vast quantities, speedy access to breaking news, more interactive discussion of public affairs and a healthy surfeit
of unabashed opinion, much of its content remains derivative and dependent on mainstream media reportage. It likewise remains to be seen whether the web — or other forms of modern media — can replicate the deep sourcing and accumulated
insights of the seasoned beat reporter and whether niche publications and proliferating sites and outlets can provide the community focus on governmental shortcomings that professional and independent metropolitan dailies have historically brought to bear.

There are pros and cons to the changing media landscape, and I do not pretend to know what assets and debits the future media mix will bring. But this I do know—that the First Amendment should never countenance the gamble that informed scrutiny of the workings of government will be left to wither on the vine. That scrutiny is impossible without some assistance from inside sources such as Michael Andrew. Indeed, it may be more important than ever that such sources carry the story to the reporter, because there are, sad to say, fewer shoeleather journalists to ferret the story out.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Baltimore County police have announced that the next installment of their cable television show, Channel 25, will begin airing Thursday and will focus on victims' rights. The shows can also be viewed on-line.

Here are more details:

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

The Maryland State Police are having a soccer tournament in Western Maryland this weekend to raise money for charity. Here are the details:

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

As the Baltimore Police Athletic League prepares to end because of budget cuts and transfer centers to the city's Department of Recreation and Parks, community activists, residents and others are starting to rise up. I got this e-mail from retired Baltimore police Lt. Osborne B. McCarter:

It has been quite some time since I talked to someone from the media, but after reading your article and reflecting on my 32.5 years as a public servant with the Baltimore Police Department, connecting with the present situations that are occurring, I can only conclude that the powers to be has finally gotten their wish.

Peter, as the last Operation Lieutenant running The PAL program and in furtherance of my professional career I elected to become a commander as a Deputy Mayor, I have been either directly or indirectly involved in four youth programs that have met some form of demised because of politics within the City of Baltimore.

First was the Boys Club, then The Explorer Program, followed by the Walbrook Academy, now the P.A.L.  Each program fostered a partnership between cops and kids, it was an investment being made in our youth and the feature of our city. I challenge anyone who has been involved with any of the youth programs to state different.

For example, let's look at the Northeast District. But first let look back to the inner parts of the city where thousand of residents were displaced, like the construction of a highway to no-where, built from Pulaski Street to M L K Blvd. so that workers at SS building could get into the city faster and get out at the end of the tour of duty quickly, then there was the implosion of the High Rises all of those residents were displaced through out the city some into areas we officers used to call "Country Club Districts."

But as the displacement occurred so did the crime, crimes such as vandalism and graffiti, were all to common in areas once consider crime free, compared to some districts where a part one crime was expected at least one per day if not one per shift per sector.

The Goodnow area of the Northeast soon fell victim of the vandalism and graffiti followed by street robbers, gang and drug activities. The Goodnow PAL center which started off being a 7-Eleven closed not too long after opening, because of the crime in and around the store. Mrs Army Mock, Sgt. R. Gibbson, Officers Lorie & Creg dedications and support from the community soon turned that area around from one of blight, to being one of the premier centers in the city. Thanks to the partnership between Mrs. Mock, Police Commissioner Thomas Frazier, Officer Lorie, and Officer Creg.

But who really benefited form what when on at the center? first were the kids from the community, then the community, its citizens and the city benefited from the partnership that had been fostered between kids and cops. Well O'Malley finally got his wish. Hermann, I pray that the youth of the city become enlighten as to the over all goals of the political official who are eliminating avenues for kids to avoid at-risk behavior and that voters see that as programs are being eliminated for the youth that there are more detention facilities being build and slated to be built. One can only conclude that the youth of the city are being targeted. I am thankful for having touched thousand of lives positively in one way or another over the 32 1/2 years of service within the Police department.

In Memory to Police Officer Troy Lewis Jr. who was a true and dedicated PAL officer died March 28, 2009. 

Retired
Ob-X-50

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

Gregory M. Mussmacher is back in the news, to everyone's surprise. He's a Baltimore police officer who in June 2005 was sentenced to a suspended two-year prison term after being convicted of hitting a handcuffed and shackled 17-year-old juvenile in the face and back with an expandable baton in the Northwest District station.

At the time, Mussmacher was suspended without pay. On Wednesday, we got word from the U.S. Department of Justice that Mussmacher (described as a current officer) and two now-retired officers have been indicted in connection with the same case. Mussmacher, former Officer Guy Gerstel and and former Sgt. Wayne Thompson face civil rights and obstruction of justice charges.

Federal prosecutors took over the case after the Mussmacher's conviction was overturned on appeal. The U.S. Attorney's Office alleges that Mussmacher and Gerstel assaulted the youth with a pool stick and that Thompson wrote a false statement and "corruptly" persuaded the other officers "not to fill out required reports about the incident."

A spokesman told The Baltimore Sun that Mussmacher has been suspended with pay for the past five years.

We don't have a full explanation yet but typically the department waits until the criminal case, including appeals, is complete before moving forward with administrative sanctions. In this case, it is probable that they couldn't take disciplinary action until the feds had finished their work. Still, this seems an unusually long time.

The victim in the case sued the city in federal court and won a settlement that has not been disclosed. The complaint filed in the civil division says the youth, Benjamin Ruben Rowland, had an argument with his sister on April 27, 2004, in their apartment. The sister called police and Mussbacher was one of several who responded.

The complaint says Mussmacher found Rowland at a nearby street corner on Reisterstown Road in Northwest Baltimore and arrested him. After the young man complained that the handcuffs wree too tight and talked back to the officer, the complaint says "Mussmacher removed his handcuffs, removed his own gun belt, and offered to fight." The youth declined.

When the boy complained again, the civil complaint says Mussmacher "balled up his fist and violently and maliciously struck plaintiff in the face, as well as spraying mace in his face." At the station, the complaint says Mussmacher hit him again with his nightstick and that Gertsel hit him with a baton or pool cue, "causing even more injuries."

Here is the indictment from federal prosecutors:

MussmacherEtAlIndictment

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Breaking crime
        

Baltimore officials announced last month that budget cuts are forcing them to shutter the popular Police Athletic League centers and that the Department of Recreation and Parks would take over most of them starting July 1. The closings are part of the mayor's budget proposal that doesn't get voted on until June.

So community activists who are trying to rally support to save the centers are angry that the city is making the closing look like a done deal. Rec and Parks has announced a series of visits to the soon-to-be-theirs PAL Centers starting April 6 to assess needs. And letters from the head of Rec and Parks to residents calling or e-mailing in complaints do indeed indicate the decision has been made.

It is an uphill battle. The activists would have to convince the City Council to hold up the entire budget to save one program, and that's doubtful. And I think the city could decide to shut PAL with or without a budget. But still, the tone of the letter bothers people who believe there's still a chance to keep the PALs open. Leticia Fitts, who runs a nonprofit that is partnering with the Robert C. Marshal PAL Center on Pennsylvania Avenue, which I visited last week, sent me a letter another community resident received from the director of Recreation and Parks, Wanda S. Durden.

The name of the receiver was deleted, Fitts said to protect the person protesting, but Michele Speaks, a rec and parks spokeswoman, confirmed the letter is from Durden and is a form sent out to people who are protesting the closures. She said aout 10 people have called thus far. "We understand how painful this is," Speaks told me.

Here is the letter Durden is sending out (it references Cruspus Attucks but Speaks told me they change the name depending on the center being referred to in the complaint): 

Dear Mr. Xxxx:

Mayor Dixon has asked me to respond to your letter in which you expressed concerns about the future of the Cruspus Attucks PAL Center. Thank you for your interest in the youth of Baltimore City.

As you may know, beginning July 1, 2009 the Department of Recreation and Parks will assume operational responsibility and leadership for 13 of the 17 currently operating PAL centers. At that time, two facilities will be returned to Baltimore City Public School System for their use and all programming will be discontinued in the other two locations. The new configuration of facilities will result in a total of 56 Recreation Centers operating strategically throughout Baltimore City. You will be glad to know that the Crispus Attucks PAL Center will be among those being taken over by this Department..

I want to assure you that the PAL personnel and our recreators share a common a goal to provide youth living in the City of Baltimore with positive learning and healthy recreational opportunities. Our programs are geared toward helping young people to expand their horizons in the best possible ways.

When we begin our programs, we are confident that participants will be pleased and engaged with the activities we will offer. Recreation and Parks staff will work with the community to get input about desired activities and we are eager to introduce some innovative alternatives.. Your email is a wonderful indication that you share our ideals. We ask that you continue your interest in the welfare of our children. You will find that our youth will be in good and caring hands.

On April 6th, 2009 our staff will began meeting with the communities to discuss the transition. I’m inserting the schedule and invite you to join us at any site you choose. Again, thank you for your concern and I hope you will support us in our efforts to serve the youth of Baltimore.

Sincerely

Wanda S. Durden

Wanda S. Durden
Director

WSD:bmw

cc: The Honorable Sheila Dixon, Mayor of Baltimore
The Honorable William H. Cole IV, Baltimore City Council

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

Today's column is about a public affairs guy named Steve Sapp who works for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency and seems to love his job. He's also a gift to journalists sick of slogging through boring press releases that clog e-mail accounts and usually end up in the electronic version of the circular file.

I mean, what would you rather read? "Just Announced: Collaboration Within Government Training Workshop" or "Dutch Goose laying Heroin Pellets" (picture at left from U.S. Customs and Border Protection).

Here's Sapp's opening paragraph: "BALTIMORE – A Dutch traveler who arrived to Baltimore-Washington International Airport on Friday from Europe wasn’t the golden goose and he wasn’t laying golden eggs, but what he did pass got him into serious trouble – about 1.2 kilograms of heroin worth of trouble."

The customs agency's web site is full of great reads -- most of them not up to Sapp's style -- but good nonetheless. There's "Cheesy Concealment Nets Border Patrol Stash of Heroin" about how somone baked 11.79 pounds of heroin into two blocks of cheese and hid it in a Mazda in California. And there's "Texas CBP Officers Find Female Hidden in Backseat Speaker Box."

That one comes with a picture of, you guessed it, a woman trying to sneak into the country by hiding in a speaker box of a Honda Odyssey in Brownsville. Even when they're not trying to be funny, they are. According to the press release: "CBP officers routinely find narcotics hidden in a vehicle but in this case it was the driver's wife."

For more like these, visit the U.S. Customs and Broder Protection website. Here is the official, unfunny, complaint from U.S. District Court in Baltimore describing the latest heroin bust at BWI Marshall Airport:

Heroin

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Crime humor
        

We know the economy is bad and people are eating less, but now we know that the quality of crime at upscale eateries also is on the decline.

Two years ago, we learned about Tommy Bromwell's visit to Ruth's Chris steakhouse in 2001 -- an undercover FBI agent posing as an Atlanta businessman secretly taped the meeting enabling us all to eavesdrop on a profane conversation that had it all: women, booze (whiskey with cherry juice, no less!), sex and bribery.

Ruth's Chris on Water Street near the Inner Harbor is back in the police reports, though lavish dinners sprinkled with recollections of infamous politicians, hob-nobbing with old Colts stars,  owning politicians and bragging about being a rainmaker appears to be out.

The new crime in these hard-times: trying to snag a free meal with an Independence card that provides government assistance to buy food. You can buy produce at the supermarket; you can't buy a steak at Ruth's Chris, as we learn from Baltimore Sun police reporter Richard Irwin in his blotter.

But that's exactly what police say a man tried to do Sunday night. He walked in to the elegant dining room at 8:50 pm. and ordered, according to court charging documents, one side of broccoli, three Budweisers, one slice of cheesecake and one filet. Probably not in that order. The bill came to $67.16.

"Upon presenting the tab to the suspect, the suspect produced an Independence card that was declined," the Baltimore police charging document states. "I then asked the suspect how he was going to pay the bill and he stated that he didn't have any money. The suspect was placed under arrest."

Michael W. Feullard, 27, was charged with one count of theft under $300. He was released from jail on personal bail but I was not able to find him. The address he gave to police, and the phone number, belonged to an old roommate who told me Feullard hadn't been there in months.

What is odd is that Feullard, or his alias, Fullard, doesn't have a single notation on his arrest record throughout Maryland. Makes me curious as to who he is. I also wanted to know what he was wearing -- suit and tie? -- whether he had any money for a tip, whether he was nice to the wait staff and why he couldn't just wash dishes (did they ever do that?), but the manager who had him arrested, Chris Allen, wasn't at work and other officials referred me to the restaurant chain's marketing department. Two calls were not returned.

Thus, I was not able to learn what each item the man ordered cost, nor was I able to determine what exactly he had for his main course. The filet, described by the restaurant's on-line menu as "the most tender cut of corn-fed Midwestern beef" or the petit filet, described as "a smaller, but equally tender filet."

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

Is Baltimore so dangerous that even the cops witness crime?

It happened yesterday in West Baltimore, according to an article by Baltimore Sun police reporter Justin Fenton. Plainclothes officers on West Fayette Street saw a man fire into a vehicle. One man died, another was injured and two men were arrested.

Back in 1995, a city police officer, in uniform and on routine patrol in a marked cruiser, saw a man shoot another from 30 feet away. Here's that old story:

Officer Martin Young has patrolled the Western District for 11 years and has responded to at least 200 homicides and 3,000 shootings. But until Monday night, he had never seen anyone get killed.Hearing a single gunshot go off while sitting in his squad car at North Mount and Laurens streets, he looked to his left. About 30 feet away, the officer said, he saw a man stand over Darryl Perry, 29, and shoot him several times as he lay face down on the sidewalk.

"At first, I didn't realize what was happening," Officer Young said. "It was like I was in the movies. It took me a second to react -- this guy is shooting another guy to death. I thought about it all night. It was hard for me to sleep."

Officer Young and two other officers captured a suspect a few minutes after the 8 p.m. shooting when the man entered a rowhouse in the 1300 block of N. Fulton Ave. and tried to escape out a back door.

Antwon Edwards, 23, of the 4300 block of Fairfax Road was charged with first-degree murder. The victim, who lived in the 1500 block of N. Carey St., was pronounced dead at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center at 9:50 p.m.

Even in the high-crime areas of Baltimore, police commanders say, there is only a slim chance that one of the department's 3,000 members will witness a slaying.

"A lot [of the] time we have officers who hear the shooting, but by the time they turn the corner, there's a guy laying there," said Capt. Harold F. Parrott, commander of the homicide unit. "This is a fortunate case where the officer hears the shots, looks over and sees a guy shooting into another guy's body. You can't get much closer than that. You don't get those very often."

For Officer Young, 32, this is not the first time he has been in the spotlight. He has earned two Bronze Stars, one for wrestling a gun away from a robbery suspect.

Two years ago, a seven-page spread in Life magazine told his life story, how he grew up in West Baltimore and returned at age 21 as a police officer. "Martin Young grew up in one of Baltimore's toughest neighborhoods," the magazine said. "Now he patrols its still mean streets."

Officer Young said he does it for his 7-year-old daughter, Brittani.

"She inspires me to do the job that I do," he said. "Supervisors can tell you what to do and how to do it. But when Brittani grows up, I want this to be a safer place. If I lock a guy up on the street, it makes a difference."

Officer Young said he nearly shot the suspect as he escaped into the rowhouse. "There is no doubt in my mind, that if the door was locked and the suspect turned back toward me, I would have had to shoot him," Officer Young said.

The crime that Officer Young sees every day does not deter him, but drives him to do a better job, he said.

"We may have lost a generation, but we can't give up the battle," he said. "As long as I wear this uniform, I'm going to war. My daughter tells me constantly, 'Daddy, be careful and catch the bad guys.' "

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Breaking crime
        

Today's column about bodies in the Harbor brought bad memories -- for me and my readers.

I too have had the experience of falling in the Inner Harbor, near Fells Point while covering a fire back in the early 1990s. It was dark and I followed a firefighter onto a pier. He turned right, I walked straight, and fell more than 20 feet into the water. Firefighters saw me go down and fished me out of the murky water. I was saved from further humiliation -- my colleagues gave me an autographed life-preserver -- given that the TV cameras were on the other side of the fire.

This morning, reader Jim Astrachan, a law school teacher, wrote me his account: 

Read your "in the water" column. Live on a pier in canton. 3 yrs ago wife jumped off pier to save our dog who fell in. There was no way out. Thankfully, neighbors heard screams and came to rescue. Wrote to city and asked for ladders along waterfront. Refused with no reason stated. Just "considered, and will not" or words to that effect. Fall in harbor in winter and it's a death sentance. That's not being dramatic. Water deep and cold. Heavy clothes. No way out. Look at canton waterfront where we live. Long expanses of bulk head. No way out. Bodies go down in winter, come up in spring. Lost client this way in 01, don baker, pres of food brokerage and resident penthouse harbor view. Disapeared jan; reappeared april. As if the city maintains what lawyers call an attractive nusance. Not a good reponse from the city re ladders or even life rings. And every year, some die for no good reason.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Neighborhoods
        

It's a familiar pattern -- the suspects of today become the victims of tomorrow. Cops have long known and studies have proved that in many cases the two groups are virtually interchangeable. Baltimore Sun's police reporter Justin Fenton sent me one more example:

The Baltimore Police Department last fall said they wanted to step up warrant service because some of those being sought might be the next perpetrator - or victim - of a violent crime.  It's not a new concept, but a recent death helps underscore the reasoning behind that philosophy, as well as its limitations.
 
Caneil Fullwood has a long rap sheet - he twice beat attempted first-degree murder charges, in 2000 and 2005. He would be found guilty of robbery and handgun charges, and several times was found guilty of violating his probation.
 
In March of 2007, he was one of three people in a vehicle with a cracked headlight that was stopped by Maj. (now Col.) Dean Palmere and another officer while the vehicle was parallel parking in West Baltimore. Inside, police found baggies of drugs and a loaded .380 Bersa handgun that later turned out to be stolen, court records show. Fullwood, also known as Cornell Ford, was found guilty in September 2006 of drug possession and sentenced to four years, with all but three years and six months suspended, followed by three years probation.
 
The conviction resulted in Fullwood being placed in the state's Violence Prevention Initiative, a state program that pushes for tighter scrutiny of violent individuals, and he would be twice charged with and found guilty of violating his probation. On March 6, 2009, another warrant was issued for a violation. Fullwood had been arrested for trespassing a month earlier, and his probation agent said he was had repeatedly failed to show proof that he was working or in an educational program. The warrant was signed by Baltimore Circuit Judge Martin P. Welch and he was taken to Central Booking.
 
The next day, Fullwood posted $50,000 corporate bond to await a hearing.
 
Police now say that less than three weeks later, Fullwood was in the 700 block of W. North Ave. on March 26, 2009 when he was shot several times and killed. Authorities believe he tried to rob a man, who responded by firing back.
 
Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III has said that serving warrants on violent individuals can help pull them off the streets for a time, perhaps preventing them from killing or getting killed. But Fullwood's situation shows police's limited ability to control those who keep slipping back onto the streets and into old ways.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Confronting crime
        

It's become a sport to scrutinize, and to criticize, plea bargains, and it's easy until you look closely at the case and can sometimes conclude that the prosecutor did the best he or she could under the circumstances. We talk about a deal with the Devil -- how about a deal with God?

But promise a mother she will be cleared of a child abuse conviction if her dead 2-year-old son is resurrected, as 22-year-old Ria Ramkissoon believes? Seems a pretty safe bet that this young woman will serve her full term (of course, she first has to cooperate with other suspects and fellow cult members).

This is one of those cases that ranks among the unbelievable -- a group led by a woman named Queen Antoinette is accused of withholding food and water from Javon Thompson because he refused to say Amen after meals. He died, and members of the group danced around his body in an East Baltimore rowhouse and then put his remains in a green suitcase and took it with them to Philadelphia. Here's a statement of facts for the plea.

The trial for the three others in the case has been postponed -- one still refuses an attorney. The mother got a 20 year prison sentence, with all but time served suspended. Her attorney said she still believes her son will come back to life. The deal was important to her, he told the Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton, because she believes if she gives up hope her son will never return.

In other crime news, Monday was a day of wrappping up old news. Kevin Gary, a member of the Bloods gang profiled by the Baltimore Sun last year and sentenced in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on Friday to 30 years in prison, got more time imposed by the state for violating the terms of his probation. We profiled Gary to put a face on the city's gang problem. He cooperated because he said he wanted to turn the Bloods into a boy's club; police and prosecutors say he never really changed his ways. A statement from State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy:

This afternoon, Kevin Gary, 27, received the maximum possible sentence after being found guilty of violation of probation in state cases 200334048 and 2003362013, and was sentenced by Judge Kaye Allison to 8 years in prison consecutive to the 30-year federal sentence he received Friday. The violation of probation was prosecuted by Mark Florsheimer and Nancy Olin in the State's Attorney's Collateral Division with support from the US Attorney's Office and state probation agent Valerie Simpson. The defendant was entitled to 386 days credit to his sentence which reduced his possible sentence of 9 years to 8 years.

And in Baltimore County, police charged a man in the fatal beating of a long-time patron of Morsberger's Tavern in Catonsville. The suspect has a history of mental problems and apparently was angry that his date was flirting with another man. This story has got some wide attention, probably because the bar is so much of a neighborhood fixture -- one of those home-away-from-homes where people drink and argue and cuss but don't beat each other up too often.

From resurrection to a gang to a bar fight. And the week has just begun.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Breaking crime