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It was nice weekend, and a safe weekend, in Baltimore. Only three shootings to report, but one was on The Avenue in Hampden. Few details available, but it appears that two people were shot and wounded about 11 p.m. on West 36th St.
I'll share more info as it becomes available. There were at least five other minor shootings early Sunday into Monday. Some details are available on the Baltimore Police Department's Twitter page.
I got duped.
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon does not have a Twitter page and did not respond to Britain's Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling's rebuke of the city by referencing The Wire. It was a hoax, I learned this morning, and City Hall is trying to figure how a fake Internet page with the mayor's seal was born.
It all started earlier this week when Grayling made comments about the city of Manchester, the one across the Atlantic, and said a few dozen murders there made it just like way Baltimore is portrayed in The Wire. That got a whole bunch of people in Britain upset and set off a mini-media frenzy there.
Of course, the British media sought comment from Baltimore; I was contacted by a newspaper in Manchester and by the BBC. Then I got a call from a Baltimore official pointing out that Dixon had started a Twitter page and her very first comment defended Baltimore against the British pol.
I should've realized some of the only-in-Britain terms, and put a call into the mayor's office, but I went ahead and posted it. The mayor's spokesman, Scott Peterson, got a call from BBC at 4 a.m. hoping to get Dixon on television to repeat the statement she had purportedly Twittered.
"What statement?" Peterson replied, perplexed.
Turns out the Twitter page and mayorofbaltimore.org is fake, apparently set up by a guy known as Recess Monkey in Britain, who joked about what he had done on his web site this morning: "Churnalists made to look like monkeys."
The British Guardian posted a correction this morning on their web story that quoted the mayor's statement: "The mayor of Baltimore did not make the statements attributed to her in the story below -- we were caught by a hoax."
Peterson said he didn't bother to initially check the web sites because he's so used to fending off calls from reporters about the city and The Wire, which is playing in Britain and is a huge hit.
I got this e-mail (and confirmed it by talking with him) from the hoaxer, Alex Hilton:
I'm so sorry about drawing you into this. Being bored I mocked something up to amuse a few friends and it got passed on more than I expected. I really didn't mean to draw in any mainstream journalists. The whole piece was packed full of punchlines and on writing it, I thought the moment anyone hit "Midsomer Murders" it would be inconceivable that it was a real statement. And then I thought the video would be the belly laugh.
I hope everyone in your office is seeing the humour in this.
Editor's note: The Web site and Twitter accounts referenced by this post were not written by Mayor Sheila Dixon or her staff. Instead, they were produced by a British prankster. A fuller explanation is available here. The Sun regrets the error.
Mayor Sheila Dixon has launched her Twitter page and among her very first tweets is link to a defense of Baltimore following a disparaging statement from a British politician who compared his city of Manchester to that of The Wire.
He made his statements after riding with police there and noting that the city had 35 murders last year, none of which were committed with a gun and was reported by the Machnester Evening News. The city apparently is struggling with gang issues. He said, "It’s the world of the drama series The Wire."
To which Dixon responded:
Fellow citizens
This week I was alerted to a speech made by a Member of the British Parliament, a Mr Chris Grayling, who suggested his country should fear becoming like our city of Baltimore as portrayed in the HBO series, The Wire. We all watched The Wire and while it was sometimes a heart-breaking reflection of reality, it was in the main, merely entertaining fiction.
The television show failed to reflect the best we have in this city, our sense of community, our hospitality and our proud history and culture. To present a television show as the real Baltimore is to perpetuate a fiction that dishonours our city. It is as pointless as boasting that Baltimore has a per capita homicide rate a fraction of that in the popular UK television show Midsomer Murders.
The Baltimore Police Department is working hard to protect the people of this city and it should be remembered that The Wire was just a television show. As this video shows, there is so much more to Baltimore than The Wire.
You got to figure robbing a store called Killer Trash can lead to nothing but trouble.
And robbing it three times can lead to real trouble.
The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton takes readers today through a crime spree in which police say one robber hit 17 shops in downtown, Mount Vernon and Fells Point. At one, Killer Trash in Fells Point, a clerk's boyfriend beat him with a baseball bat. That was after police said he had robbed it for the third time.
At a place called Tuxedo Zone, the owner and former city cop said the suspect tried on pants before holding him up, and then police said the man robbed a Lutheran Mission that gives mosts of its stuff away to anyone who asks.
"It's over," Fenton reports detectives telling the man he was finally arrested.
"Thank God," a police spokesman said 39-year-old Mark Lomax answered.
Charges are pending against the suspect, who of course has a long criminal record. Of note, Justin writes, is his robbery of a Subway shop on North Charles Street in 2005. He hit it three times in eight days, and his attorney at the time tried to argue to a jury that his client had to be innocent because what person in his right robs the same place so many times in such a short period?
The jury didn't buy it and a judge put him away for 21 years. But his conviction was overturned on appeal -- a prosecutor had mentioned during opening statements that the defenant had refused to talk with police after his arrest, which is something he is of course allowed to do without it having an adverse effect on his case.
But when Lomax returned to court and got pleaded guilty, a different judge sentenced him to 15 years and suspended all but five. Judge John Addison Howard then made the sentence retroactive to 2005, and Lomax was set free. The judge had accepted a plea deal worked out between prosecutors and Lomax's attorney.
That was June.
Police said the latest robbery spree started a few weeks later.
In Baltimore, victims and suspects are often interchangeable, it just depends on the day.
That brings us to Stephen "J.R." Blackwell Jr., who police says leads a drug gang in the city and whose brothers were abducted by a rival group from their Catonsville home last year. After a police search with little help from the victim's family, the brothers were mysteriously returned through the help of an attorney. No charges were filed, but court documents later revealed a $500,000 ranson was paid.
That set off what police describe as a wave of retaliatory killings that remain unsolved. The Blackwell family was targeted at a cookout on July 26 in which a dozen people were shot, including the elder Blackwell. More shooting occurred that night, bringing the Eastside total to 18, some of which were related to the cookout attack.
It's unclear whether Blackwell was the intended target back in July; it's possible the gunmen were looking for another man who they had tried to kill a week earlier, instead killing Jerrod Reed, a 16-year-old bystander who had nothing to do with the feud.
Now, as police continue to hunt for suspects in one of the worst shootings in the city in recent memory, the cops are paying a lot of attention to Blackwell, who until Monday had a clean criminal record. As The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton reports, a cop approached him Monday night and according to court records, he became "loud and belligerent" and yelled "[Expletive] you all. I'm going to make it very hard on the police around here."
The cop arrested Blackwell, who was quickly released back onto the street on his own recognizance and has a court date scheduled Oct. 9.
This reaction is hardly surprising. Blackwell wasn't very cooperative while recovering from his gunshot wound at Johns Hopkins Hospital, reportedly refusing to tell police detectives who might have shot him.
If he indeed is going to make things difficult for police, it's only going to make it more difficult for all of us, especially the residents of East Baltimore.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agents say they found cocaine in a bra. Here's the release (photo from U.S. Customs at left):
"Women throughout the ages have used various materials to enhance their profiles, but for one traveler returning from Jamaica, her insert of choice landed her behind bars this morning.
Sophia Williams, 35, of Washington, D.C., was arrested at about 1:45 a.m. today after Customs and Border Protection officers discovered about 2 pounds, 9 ounces of cocaine stuffed inside her bra late Monday night."The cocaine, divided into two packages, was designed to blend in with her bra material. Narcotics smugglers will go to great lengths to conceal their dangerous drugs, and this is another unique concealment method,” said James Swanson, CBP Port Director for the Port of Baltimore. “Unfortunately for her, it wasn’t so unique that it fooled our highly trained officers even for a second.
"Williams arrived to Baltimore Washington International Airport from Montego Bay, Jamaica at about 11 p.m. on Monday. Williams and the cocaine were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents."
A British politician spent a night with cops in Manchester's gang unit and promptly compared what he saw to The Wire, prompting what the Brits call a row over crime and grime. I've already fielded calls from reporters at the BBC and the Manchester Evening News over the issue.
I told them that yes the fictional Wire portrays a very real problem in Baltimore of gangs, drugs and violence. And yes, the show serves as an wake up call for all of to fix the problem instead of complaining about how we're portrayed. We're to blame as much as anyone for letting this culture of violence continue to the point where Baltimore has become, with the help of a TV show, the international symbol for American violence cities.
But at the same time the comparison to Manchester seems a bit of a stretch, and says more about how politicans hype crime than anything about Baltimore. Manchester has a population of about 400,000 and roughly 35 murders a year, compared to the 230 to 250 or so in Baltimore. None of the murders this year have involved guns.
Here's what Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling had to say:
A few weeks ago, I spent one of the most illuminating evenings that I have had since entering politics out with the specialist police team in Manchester's Moss Side that works to tackle the gang issues in the area. Even as someone well aware of the gang problem in our society, it was a shocking and enlightening experience. What was going on there at the time was nothing short of an urban war.
We saw the bullet hole in the window through which the shot had passed. The previous evening the homes of two members of the gang responsible for the shooting had been smashed up by their rivals in an act of revenge. We saw the broken windows and the smashed up doors. It’s the world of the drama series The Wire."
The newspaper then sent me some counter remarks from British Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who accuxed his "Tory shadow of trying to sound 'cool' with 'glib references' to TV shows:
“Chris Grayling should be praising the police for continued reduction in gun-related offences, rather than talking Britain down. The connection between The Wire and Chris Grayling’s grasp on the problems of modern Britain is that they’re both fictional. The serious problems being tackled in our communities will not be diminished by his embarrassing habit of making glib references to television programmes that he thinks will make him sound ’cool’.”
Here are comments from readers of the Manchester Evening News:
We all come in line with the EU but we have all forgotten that most eropean police are routinely armed if you go to france,Italy,Spain and most other european cities you will see all the police are armed but if you go to any city/town in the UK the police have bits of steel called "Batons" To fight these criminals with guns? How quaint but it dosnt work in our country anymore we need all police to be armed and the red tape that the police have to abide by removing including the "PC Human rights act" this needs scrapping totally. to stop the tail wagging the dog.
Having only lived in Moss Side for 24 years, and only having seen the first season of The Wire i have to say that given my limited exposure.
Now give the cops the same hardware they get on The Wire, and start imposing the same sentances on crooks that the US does, before it gets any worse.
Having visited all the major American cities and worked in Moss Side for Manchester City Council for over thirty years I feel I am in a position to offer an opinion on this politician view.I find his views not only to be complete rubbish but also offensive.There is absolutely no comparison between American cities and Moss Side,I have always felt safe day or night in Moss Side, whereas in America some districts, in the large cities,are no go areas and when in Chicago, two years ago, my wife and I were picked up by the police, when we entered one of these no go areas and taken back to our hotel for our own safety.
His comments are solely to grab headlines and pander to stereotypes. Did he not get out and meet the real people of the area? Why doesn't he visit community groups, schools and local businesses trying to set the right example and the right tone for the area?
It's far easier for him to rake over sensationalist media labels from years ago than to give credit for the enormous progress made by local hardworking people.
The comments regarding the arrest on Sunday of Baltimore Ravens rookie Anthony "Tony" Fein continue to pile up, with most of the talk focused on profiling. It's important to remember, though, that Sgt. Joseph Donato (left) approached Fein at an Inner Harbor restaurant becuase a security guard thought the player had a gun, and not because of the way he was dressed.
(Fein told The Sun after Monday night's game that he wouldn't yet comment on the details of the case but that there's another side to the story that would come out. Two other players who were with Fein said essentially the same thing. Backup wide receiver Jayson Foster said: “We already gave our report to other cops. So the story will be coming out soon from our point of view and their point of view. There are two sides to every story.") See the Ravens Insider blog for more on what they had to say.
True, the sergeant in his report did note that it seemed unusual for Fein to be wearing a hooded sweat shirt on a hot day, but that was not the primary reason for the initial stop that led to a confrontation and an arrest charging the player with pushing the police officer. Fein, it turns out, was armed only with a cell phone.
Many have compared this incident to that of the black professor in Cambridge who was arrested in his own home on a disorderly charge after an officer got a call that someone might be breaking into his home. It turns out it was the professor breaking in because he had forgot his key.
The cases are similar in some respects and not similiar in others. In the case involving Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., which led to commentary from President Obama and then beers with the officer and suspect at the White House, Gates was in his own home and the dispute was over whether he had properly proven he was the owner.
In the case involving the Ravens player at the Inner Harbor, it's about a gun, which for police changes the way they approach a potential suspect. In both cases, it seems there was a communication breakdown.
Sgt. Donato is coming into the situation after getting a tip from a security guard who thinks he saw one man pass a gun to Fein (at left). The sergeant, believing the man might be armed, approaches the player, who is sitting at a stool at Johnny Rockets, from behind, according to his own report. He notices that Fein is wearing a "loose gray hooded sweatshirt" which "did not seem weather appropriate" and "based on time of year and temperature, could readily be used to conceal [a] handgun."
This is the line people are seizing on to cry profiling. But the sergeant already has probable cause to stop and frisk Fein, based on the account from the security guard (who is, like Fein, African American). The sweat shirt is an added clue for the sergeant but not the reason he is confronting the player.
When a gun is involved, police act first and ask questions later. They want the element of surprise and don't want the suspect to have a chance to go for the weapon. The first thing Donato notices is the silverwear on the counter. To him, that's also a potential weapon, and he orders Fein to stand up "and to keep his hands in sight, for officer safety concerns."
This obviously startles Fein who knows of no reason for being detained, and naturally his first response is to object. Donato writes: "Fein looked over his shoule directly at SGT Donato, made eye contact with SGT Donato , frowned, then turned back around and reached for the silver wear."
It may have been an innocent move, a reaction to being startled by a cop, or just plain misinterpreted. But for an officer who thinks a suspect is armed to even gesture to another weapon prompts a reaction. According to the report, the sergeant orders Donato to get up and again to "keep your hands where I can see them." The officer then says the player pushed him; the player's agent denies this.
That led to a forceful takedown of the player and his arrest in a public restaurant frequented by tourists.
Should the officer have more fully explained why he was detaining Fein, and would that have prompted him to be more cooperative? Maybe, but the officer first wanted to make sure the player wasn't armed and was away from other weapons. Fein was naturally upset and wanted to know why he was being stopped before he consented to the officer's demands. The officer needed to secure him before he expained why he was doing what he was doing.
It's simple to say that Fein should've immediately followed the officer's orders, and had he done so, the matter probably would've been resolved in a matter of minutes and the player could've returned to his food. This is where the mistrust comes of police plays a role. Based on past history, fair or not, African Americans don't trust police enough to believe that if they follow an officer's orders, everything is going to turn out just fine. In Fein's mind, he was being jacked up for no reason, he was angry and he felt he deserved an explanation before he consented to anything, an explanation the officer was not yet prepared to give.
So after waiting months for Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Kaye Allison to rule on whether Suite Ultraloung, a controversial bottle club in the basement of the Belvedere Hotel, can stay open, we finally get what amounts to a non-ruling.
The judge, in essence, decided that Baltimore's liquor board needs to formulate standard rules to shut the club before it shuts the club. The board had thought existing rules for closing troublesome night spots were good enough, but until late last year, the bottle club had been running under antiquated rules that allowed it to escape the scrutiny of the board. The city changed that because of complaints, and the judge said those changes require new standards before the lock can go on.
This means the club can stay open until the liquor board completes its new regulations for revoking licenses and then have another hearing on Suite Ultralounge. The easiest way for that to happen is November, when the club has its license up for renewal. That's a full year from when the board revoked its license, citing the club as a danger to the community.
Mayor Sheila Dixon had this to say in a statement:
“Today’s ruling was very disappointing news with respect to the Suites Ultralounge, which has not been a good neighbor. Unfortunately, this decision does not bring closure to the residents of Mt. Vernon, an area where we have seen too many violent incidents linked to this nightclub.
The Liquor Board should act quickly to address the concerns raised in the judge's opinion. We are hopeful that bureaucracy and red tape will not prevent the board from finally shutting down this nuisance club.”
There's a good chance this whole episode could be prolonged even further. If the liquor board, as expected, yanks the club's license again in November, its owners will most certainly appeal to Circuit Court again. A judge could again take months to rule, find the board's new regulations inadequate and send it back yet again or decide it can or cannot be shuttered. Either way, more appeals are likely.
The only reprieve residents have is that because Allison took so long to rule in this case, liquor board chairman Stepan Fogleman has told me he would no longer grant shuttered bars a stay pending their appeal to court, as they did with Club Ultralounge. Fogleman said he had expected a ruling within 30 days, not three months. That would mean club owners would have to make an extra trip to court to seek a stay from a judge if they want to remain open pending appeal.
For now, Club Ultralounge, linked to several violence acts including shootings and maurading youths in Mount Vernon and Mid-Town Belvedere, will get to stay open. It's attorney, Peter A. Prevas, told The Sun's Julie Bykowicz and Sam Sessa (see his nightlife blog, Midnight Sun, for yet another story about violence in the area), "It's certainly a victory. We won the battle but not necessarily the war."
The firestorm over the arrest of a Ravens rookie by a Baltimore police officer continues as readers debate whether this was profiling gone amok or good police work that ended in the arrest of a man who refused to cooperate.
A few thoughts. This isn't "profiling" in its truest since because the police officer was reacting to a complaint by a security guard who thought he saw one man pass a gun to another man. It turned out to be a cell phone.
It should be noted that the Ravens player, Anthony "Tony" Fein, is black; the arresting officer is white; the security guard who initially made the complaint is black. Much is being made of the fact the officer noted in his report that the player was wearing a hooded sweat shirt which raised suspicion because it was a hot day outside, and that such shirts can easily conceal a gun. These are things cops look for to determine whether somone is hiding drugs or guns. If that was the lone criteria for searching the player, then we could better debate the profiling issue. But as police note, it wasn't. The arresting officer was acting on a complaint by a securty guard who saw something (it also should be noted that the player's agent told the Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton that his client wears the sweat shirt to cover tattoos to avoid being profiled).
And when cops are dealing with someone who might have a gun, they make sure the person is secured and search him before they tell him why they are taking such action. Maybe the officer could've said, "Sir, we have a report that you might have a gun ..." but they usually don't do that. They confront the person, issue orders and if the person doesn't comply, then they put on handcuffs to ensure everyone is safe.
The arrest of the Ravens player comes days after a double shooting in the very same pavilion
Sunday's arrest occurred, and after the mayor ordered her police to be more aggressive in confronting suspected gang members at the harbor. I've heard Dixon was angry upon visiting the harbor after the shooting and not finding any private security guards, who patrol inside the privately-owned shopping pavilions, and reacted angrily to the owner, General Growth Properties. Dixon knew her comments would spark concern, but she didn't care.
"People might not like it," Dixon said told the Baltimore Sun's Annie Linskey. "Some radicals are going to speak out about it. Our officers are going to have to be more aggressive."
Here is a copy of the police charging document:
RavensAfter violence and shootings at the Inner Harbor, followed by the mayor saying she wants cops to be more aggressive and the city's top cop saying that officers need to be more vigilent, it should come as no surprise that we'd end up with a confrontation between police and citizen.
And the first such confrontation involves a Ravens rookie and allegations of racial profiling after a security guard apparently mistook a cell phone for a gun. The player's agent is quoted by Associated Press saying his client was stopped because he is a black male and was wearing a hooded shirt.
It happened Sunday evening at Johnny Rockets in the Light Street pavilion, the very same place where last week two suspected gang members were shot during an altercation with rivals.
More details have surfaced this morning with the release of the police charging documents filed in court against Anthony "Tony" Fein (at left, in a photo by The Sun's Amy Davis),an Iraqi war veteran fighting for a spot on the Ravens who was arrested after a Harbor security guard saw "a white male among the group" pass "a large silver object to a black male among the group."
That security officer, identified in court documents only by his last name Trayam, then called city police. Baltimore Police Officer Joseph M. Donato responded. The court document says:
"Sgt. Donato observed four males seated at the counter of this restaurant, all with their backs to the officers. The male seated at the far right was wearing a large, loose gray hooded sweatshirt. This attired did not seem weather appropriate to Sgt. Donato, based on time of year and temperature, and could readily be used to conceal a handgun. Sgt. Donato approached this male, later identified as Anthony Fein M/B DOB -7/13/82, from behind.
"Upon arriving within arm's length of Fein, Sgt Donato observed that Fein had several pieces of silver wear in front of him. Sgt Donato then ordered Fein to stand up and to keep his hands in sight, for officer safety concerns. Fein looked over his shoulder directly at Sgt Donato, made eye contact with Sgt Donato, frowned, then turned back around and reached for the silver wear.
"Sgt Donato then loudly stated, 'Stand up, turn around and keep your hands where I can see them.' Fein then reacted suddenly by pushing Sgt Donato with one hand as he turned around. For this reason, Sgt Donato grabbed Fein by the sweatshirt and forced him to the ground to place him under arrest. Fein was then handcuffed with assistance from other officers. Fein was not injured in this incident, and Sgt Donato struck his right arm below the elbow on a chair once pushed by Fein, however, he did not need medical attention at this time.
"After Fein was in custody, P/O Branham's investigation revealed that the large silver object was a large, square, metallic cell phone, NOT a handgun. Fein was then taken form the location and was transported to Central District for debriefing. Unit 100 (Major Smith) was notified as was x2284 communications].
Fein's agent disputes that his client pushed the officer. I'd be interested in knowing what the three other people sitting with Fein thought of the incident. When cops suspect someone has a gun, and this they did in this case because of a report from a security guard, they act quickly and decisively to neutralize any threat until they know exactly what is going on).
I first met Hikeen Crampton in April 2001. He was in the Baltimore Police academy, a star student who had been watched over by a veteran cop in the Western District. That cop had first met Hikeen when he was a little boy, who instead of hanging out with drug dealers hung out with the cops.
Officer Steven W. Sturm adoped the little boy and let him wear his had (at left, Sturm photographs Crampton, holding his child, at police graduation, in a photo by The Sun's Amy Davis). When Hikeen graduated from the academy, we ran a picture of him wearing the oversized had as a child and his every own hat as a new city cop. I went along with him on his first shift and watched him as he proudly reclaimed the drug turf that had so upset him as a child.
I lost touch with Hikeen over the years but did note that he made the news at least twice -- once for helping arrest suspected drug dealers who were part of the infamous Stop Snitching video that encouraged the youth to shun police, and later for getting an award for helping Baltimore County police.
But on Friday we got word that Hikeen had been charged with filing a fraudulent insurance claim on a car. He's been suspended and faces termination if convicted. A sad way to end a career that appeared to be one of the great success stories. At left, he makes his first arrest back in 2001. This photo also was taken by Davis.
Here is the article from 2001 on Hikeen:
The snapshot shows a skinny, shirtless kid from a tough neighborhood wearing an oversized police hat, his outstretched arms embracing a child's fantasy of someday becoming a cop.
More than a decade later, the grown boy strikes a nearly identical pose, youthful exuberance replaced by a confident gaze, in another photo. This time, the police hat is his own.Hikeen D. Crampton Sr., whose childhood bedroom overlooked one of the city's most notorious drug corners - Mosher and North Calhoun streets in West Baltimore - has returned home to exorcise the demons of his youth.
The 22-year-old graduated from the police academy Monday and requested assignment to the Western District, a rough slice of decaying real estate that Crampton says has only gotten worse since his days growing up at 1401 Mosher St.
His old neighborhood is pockmarked by vacant lots created by the city to rid streets of boarded rowhouses. "R.I.P." graffiti cover storefronts and dwellings - public death notices of the young men gunned down in the pursuit of drug profits.
"Everywhere you turn you see `Rest In Peace,'" Crampton said on his first day patrolling his old neighborhood, standing in front of his childhood home. "It reminds you of a cemetery - it just doesn't have any tombstones."
He is an adult now, living in the suburbs. But he has returned to the Western District with a gun and a badge and a uniform - power to arrest the very people who once tried to lure him into the deadly drug game with promises of flashy sneakers, fast cash and lots of women.
"Some people ask me, `Why do you want to come back?'" Crampton said. "I want to help my community."
Crampton, the youngest of 10 children, grew up listening to the sounds of the drug trade. Lying on his bed perched above the bustling corner, he watched the dealers and the addicts and heard the pops from guns. Classmates were arrested, shot or killed.
Each time a siren blared, Hikeen ran to his window. And on slow, hot summer days, he and his friends wandered over to the Harlem Park Elementary School parking lot, where officers from the "mighty" Western District parked to eat their lunch and write their reports.
It was there he befriended Officer Steven W. Sturm, who had been on the force about two years, and was a proud member of a group who called themselves "Big Tough Cops."
Each youngster adopted an officer. "He picked me," Sturm said.
Lunch turned into full-time mentoring. Sturm kept a constant eye out for his new friend, and when he wasn't working, he drafted colleagues to do the same. If Hikeen was hanging with the wrong crowd, or in the wrong place, Sturm made sure he got home to mom.
The kids would imitate the officers. Hikeen always pretended to be Sturm, and he relished every chance to wear the officer's hat.
"If some other kid had the hat on his head, he would throw a fit," said Sturm, who snapped the photograph of the shirtless Hikeen about 14 years ago and is now an officer in the police dog unit. "To see him today, it's wild. The big joke is that he'll make major before I'm a sergeant."
Crampton's mother, Carolee Boyer, said it was difficult to raise a family at Mosher and Calhoun.
"If parents don't keep behind their kids," she said, "the kids will go buck wild. Hikeen never dealt with a lot of kids on that block. He used to say, `They up to no good.'"
Boyer's other children include a security guard, a printing press supervisor, a mover and a church deacon. Her children now grown, she has moved from Mosher Street to another part of West Baltimore. "There was so much drugs and crime," she said.
Crampton graduated from Douglass High School, managed a McDonald's on Liberty Road and then went to the police academy.
His mother and Sturm, holding Crampton's 2-year-old son, Hikeen Jr., came to the graduation ceremony at the War Memorial Building across from City Hall.
There, the day's featured speaker, Circuit Judge David B. Mitchell, spoke of a recent survey of elementary school students in which few put police officers high on a list of people they could trust.
"This is terrible," Mitchell told the class. "And it is something only you can correct. This is done one child, and one officer, at a time."
Crampton now patrols the streets of his youth, keeps a sharp eye on the people he once feared and protects children much like himself a decade ago.
The officer returned to his old rowhouse the day after graduation. A handwritten sign in the new occupants' window states: "Please do not sit on steps!" He knows but a handful of neighbors, and many homes have either been boarded up or torn down - replaced by empty lots used as open-air trash receptacles.
As a child, Crampton was sometimes frightened by his own street. Now, as he pulls up in a police cruiser, the block quickly empties - community deference for the man in uniform.
"I would like to see big changes here," Crampton said. "But what I want to do I can't do myself. We need the community's help."
Crampton is teamed with Officer David J. Maynard, who himself grew up in a tough neighborhood - East 20th and Kennedy streets in East Baltimore.
The lure of the drug corner was hard to ignore for him as well. "Everybody you know is out there," Maynard said as he and Crampton cruised the west-side streets. "It was cool, and it was what all the ladies liked. I had my temptations. It was a struggle."
Crampton said classmates called him a snitch and a rat for befriending police officers and tried to lure him into their fold by showing off fancy footwear purchased by selling cocaine.
"It was easy money, but it wasn't honest money," Crampton said, as he and his new partner headed to a drug call. An anonymous 911 caller complained that a man wearing a tan coat was selling drugs at Wheeler Avenue and West Baltimore Street.
Maynard slowed at the corner and eyed the stragglers near a graffiti wall that proclaimed "Soldiers never forgotten," followed by the nicknames of the dead, honoring casualties of the drug war.
This call would end with Maynard spotting a man in a tan coat. "Let's get him," he cried out, stopping the cruiser.
One arrest, one small amount of suspected heroin worth $10 on the street. One small battle won.
The day before, Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris told Crampton and his fellow graduates that "we are the good guys" in the fight for a safer city.
Mayor Martin O'Malley reminded them that they are not an occupying army.
"The most important shield that you have against the dealers, the death and drugs that have too often occupied our neighborhoods," he said, "are the good, decent, hard-working and holy people that live in every single block of this city."
No one knows that more than Crampton. Back at his old Harlem Park rowhouse, the young officer simply shook his head at the despair around him. Three families he grew up with remain, but none was outside.
A drifter approached - he insisted his first name had a dollar sign among the collection of letters - and wanted to pose with Crampton for a picture.
The two sat on the officer's old steps, chatting and laughing about nothing in particular.
"This is not a bad neighborhood," Crampton said. Then he stood, glanced up the street, relieved and satisfied, and said with renewed confidence:
"I made it."
Anne Arundel County police have released some great pics of a robbery in Crofton and information on a man they are looking for:
09 Paceway
My colleague Justin Fenton got this e-mail from an owner of Charm City Roller Girls about helping the fisherman who was attacked in a hate crime at Fort Armistead Park this week:
Hi, Justin.
My name is Tara Gebhardt (aka, Cindy Lop-her). I'm one of the owners of the Charm City Roller Girls, and I'm writing to you in reference to the article you wrote about the beating of Mr. James Privott.
This morning as I watching the news, I was yet again disgusted by the local story about Mr. Privott having been beaten by 3 white supremacists while he was packing up from a fishing trip earlier this week. I couldn't help but think, "Man, I wish there was something I could do for him and his wife." Then it hit me - we own/run/play in a roller derby league with a bout happening tomorrow.
We have a bout at DuBurns Arena tomorrow night, and it's sure to be sold out (around 1,500 people) because our All-Star team is playing Philly's All-Star team, and we are both top-10 teams in the national landscape. Anyhow... I got on email first thing this morning and got things moving.
Tomorrow night we're going to hold a collection for Mr. Privott and donate 5% of our beer profits to him and his family. We're hoping this can help with his medical bills and any legal fees he may have to deal with. Additionally, we'd like to give him and his family season tickets to our remaining games in the 2009 season.
We'd also like to give Mr. Privott a $150 gift certificate for Sports Authority or Dick's, so he can get some new fishing equipment.
We want to encourage Mr. Privott to continue his sport (fishing) and show him he has the support of a young community (even though he was beaten by 3 young people). Our girls feel terrible about what happened to him, and we really want to be able to use the draw we have to help him out.
My question to you is, can you help us get these items to him??? If not, do you know who could?
Thank you for your time!
Regards,
Tara Gebhardt
The head of communications for the Baltimore Community Foundation has let me know that people can donate money to the city police Mounted Unit online. He also notes that a contact person I've included in numerous postings is on vacation, so calls to her might be piling up in her voicemail.
Here are some further instructions:
Thanks so much for including the info on how to give on your latest post about the Police Mounted Unit. We have had tons of calls this week from people who say they’ve spent way too much time calling around trying to find out where to send their contribution!
One correction, please. It is not necessary to contact Laurie Crosley – people can send a check as you’ve explained, or they can give online at www.bcf.org/police , which is the online giving page for the Baltimore Police Foundation Fund at BCF.
Poor Laurie is on vacation this week and I’m afraid she’s going to come back to the office and have dozens of phone messages about this!
I appreciate all the attention you’ve given to this story. The response has been tremendous.
Best regards,
Gigi Casey Wirtz
Director of Communications
Baltimore Community Foundation
2 East Read St., Baltimore, MD 21202
Sophia Litrenta, the 9-year-old girl who ran a lemonade stand to raise money to save the Baltimore Police Department's Mounted Unit, handed the city's police commissioner a check for $2,319 this morning at the horse stables.
Sophia's at left, petting a horse with Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, at her lemonade stand on Tuesday. The photo was taken by The Sun's Lloyd Fox.
The little girl from Lutherville served the lemonade and cookies earlier this week after seeing reports that the horse unit might be disbanded if the city can't come up with about $200,000 in private funds. Budget cuts forced the city to take away funds and the department is seeking donations through a private foundation.
Anthony Guglielmi, the city's police spokesman, said the foundation has raised nearly $60,000 so far.
Here's how to donate money to the horse unit: Contact Laurie Crosley at the Baltimore Community Foundation for the Police Foundation. Donations can be mailed to her at: Baltimore Community Foundation; 2 E Read St # 9; Baltimore, MD 21202-6903. Checks should be made out to: Baltimore Community Foundation, Police Foundation Fund. The cover letter or check should specify that the funds are to used to support the Mounted Unit. The phone number there is: (410) 332-4171.
Baltimore police have arrested two more suspects -- ages 16 and 17 -- in the brutal attack of a black fisherman at Fort Armistead Park in which a self-proclaimed white supremacist (left) has already been charged. Some in today's newspaper are suggesting there's a growing climate of anger amid the debate on health care reform, but it looks to me like this was an attack of opportunity.
The first suspect arrested, Calvin Lockner, has a tattoo of Hitler on his stomach and police said he told them the attack wouldn't have happened had the victim, 76-year-old James Privott, been white.
I did spend some time on the fishing pier at the park and was heartened to watch as three men of three different races helped each other real in a two-pound catfish. They helped each other without a second thought, a battle waged by men that transcended any and all differences.
Here is a copy of the police charging document outlining the state's case against Lockner (it contains some stronge language):
Calvin Lockner Att Mur Vic James PrivottA white member of the Aryan Brotherhood charged with beating a 76-year-old black fisherman in Baltimore's Fort Armistead Park on Tuesday is scheduled to have a bail review this morning, even as the city's police commissioner and mayor discuss the attack.
Court documents released this morning say the suspect, Calvin D. Lockner (left), a convicted sex offender and self-professed white supremacist, told police after his arrest, "I'm sorry, I did it. .... This wouldn't have happened if he was a white man."
The court documents say the 28-year-old suspect has a tattoo of Adolf Hitler on his stomach with the words "He Lives" underneath.
Lockner has been charged with attempted murder and numerous other counts. Police have classified the beating as a hate crime. The victim was in serious condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center with head injuries. Police are searching for two other men who they said helped in the attack and yelled racial slurs as they kicked and punched the man in the face.
Almost lost in the busy crime shuffle on Tuesday was neat event at the police academy building at an old school in Pimlico. Standing in the lobby, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III unveiled a cornerstone in honor of the Matricciani family.
Led by patriarch Guy Matricciani Sr., now 94 (at left) his son Guy Jr., and cousin Wil (along with son Jay who recently passed away), the family has given money and time to Baltimore Police over the years. Most recently, they helped build a new fence and redid the parking area for the academy, which not only makes it look nice for the new recruits but also gives the surrounding neighborhood a facelift.
The Matricciani's have been longtime supporters of the Signal 13 Foundation, which raises money to help police officers and their families. Bealefeld noted during his opening remarks that the foundation helped with expenses for the family of city Officer Jerome Shaurette, who was shot and wounded in the line of duty in July while handling a domestic abuse call.
Bealefeld said the officer's wife was able to remain by her husband's hospital bed 24 hours and not worry about bills or work. The officer is now out of the hospital and recovering, though the commissioner described the wounds as serious.
Bealefeld said that typically such awards are given "after the person is no longer with us" so he was happy to present Guy Matricciani with the cornerstone and a mounted espantoon, the policeman's nightstick. The commissioner said the cornerstone with the family name on it will "remind the officers who come through there that there are people behind the scenes to believe in what we do."
The Baltimore Sun's court reporter Tricia Bishop reports today that a shooting caught on a police surveillance camera in 2007 has led to a conviction and a sentence of 18 years for the shooter. The victim in this case never came forward, so the video is all prosecutors had.
Police and prosecutors have debated the usefullness of the myraiad of cameras watching over us every day; often the cameras catch part of a crime but everything, and even then the images are sometimes dramatic but not very helpful in court. Rarely do the cameras catch a crime in progress.
Here's the video that got the conviction:
It's been a rough week in Baltimore -- people shot at the Inner Harbor, cops goofing off helping a politician with his marriage proposal -- so it's time to take a mid-week timeout and visit with Sophia Litrenta of Lutherville (at left with Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, in a photo taken by Lloyd Fox).
While the politican was hiding from reporters for contributing the latest embarrassment at city police headquarters, the 9-year-old girl spent her Tuesday running a lemonade stand outside her home, and donating the proceeds to help save the embattled police mounted unit.
The unit is in trouble because of budget cuts and police are seeking private donations to keep the horses trotting on city streets. So far, they've raised a little more than $50,000. Sophia, who wrote me a letter last week that I published, got more than 100 customers and raised about $2,000 (a final tally will be available on Thursday).
Among her customers -- two mounted officers, two horses and the police commissioner. He looked happy in the pictures -- it had to be the highlight of his day that started with a hospital visit to a man beaten in a hate crime, a news conference in which he had to answer questions about Del. Jon S. Cardin's misuse of police resources and about the latest violence at the harbor.
The Southeast Police Community Relations Council is donating some of its proceeds from an upcoming crab feast to the Mounted Unit, and all of the money raised at a bull roast in May are going to the police horses. Here are some details for the crab feast:
Here's how to donate money to the horse unit: Contact Laurie Crosley at the Baltimore Community Foundation for the Police Foundation. Donations can be mailed to her at: Baltimore Community Foundation; 2 E Read St # 9; Baltimore, MD 21202-6903. Checks should be made out to: Baltimore Community Foundation, Police Foundation Fund. The cover letter or check should specify that the funds are to used to support the Mounted Unit. The phone number there is: (410) 332-4171.
Also, there is a move afoot in the City Council to ask police to tap a contingency fund to save the Mounted Unit:
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
President,
Baltimore City Council
100 N. Holliday Street, Room 400
August 14, 2009
Frederick H. Bealefeld III
Police Commissioner, Baltimore Police Department
242 West 29th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211-2908
Dear Commissioner Bealefeld:
I was troubled to learn through recent media reports that the Baltimore Police Department’s
storied Mounted Unit may be disbanded due to a lack of funding.
While a funding reduction for this activity is noted in your Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Detail, the City Council was not informed during the budget process of the possibility that the unit could be dismantled altogether.
The mounted police unit is a proud and historic symbol of the strength and professionalism of the
Baltimore Police Department. Mounted officers are critical for crowd control operations during
special events. Perhaps most importantly, the mounted unit can be very effective in supporting
your efforts to provide a “high visibility” police presence at the Inner Harbor and Downtown
where many Baltimore residents and visitors spend their leisure time.
In the event that fundraising efforts underway are insufficient, I urge you to consider using the
Police Department’s state-mandated contingent fund in order to sustain the operations of the
mounted unit for the remainder of the fiscal year. As you may know, Section 16-8 of the Code
of Public Local Laws of Baltimore City provides that there shall annually be appropriated
$100,000 which may be used during the fiscal year as a contingent fund in case of an emergency
or necessity. According to the Department of Finance, during the previous two fiscal years, less
than 20% of the allocated contingency funding was spent by the end of the fiscal year. To my
knowledge, this year’s allocation has not been spent, as you have not transmitted a report to the
Board of Estimates containing a “description of the amount of money expended and the purpose
of the expenditures…” in accordance with Section 16-8.
In truth, the requirement for the contingent fund, enacted in 1969, seems outdated and was
implemented during a time of very different circumstances. Consider the fact that it was just
before this time that the Police Commissioner was appointed by the Governor. For more than
three decades, the mandated allocation for the small fund has remained the same—never adjusted for inflation or other reasons. Also, its purpose is unclear for the fiscal needs of today’s police department, especially given that according to the same law, the contingent fund may not be used to cover overtime expenses, which today are routinely over budget, forcing the transfer of
millions of dollars from other city agencies to cover the overages. Furthermore, the small size of
the little known and outdated fund—$100,000—pales in comparison to the department’s overall
budget of $312 million and could hardly cover any serious emergency or contingency.
Moving forward, the city administration should consider working to eliminate this seemingly
arbitrary contingency fund, through General Assembly authorization this Legislative Session.
This would enable you to have a bit more flexibility in allocating scarce funding to your crime
fighting efforts, including the continued deployment of mounted officers. In the meantime, you
should begin the necessary procedures to request the Board of Estimates to approve a transfer of
funds from Police Program: 100 Administrative Direction and Control, Activity 14 “Contingency
Fund” to Police Program: 201 Field Operations Bureau, Activity 32 “Mounted Unit” in order to
help continue the operations of the mounted unit for the remainder of this fiscal year.
Thank you for your consideration of this request and for your very diligent efforts to fight crime
in Baltimore. I am very proud of the many achievements and successes of the men and women of
the Baltimore Police Department under your exceptional leadership.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, comments or concerns.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
President
Baltimore City Council
It should come as little surprise that the two young men who were shot on Saturday at the Inner Harbor are not helping cops find the shooters. "We have two young men who to put it mildly are uncooperative in assisting us in who may have shot them," Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said.
Here are the commissioner's comments on the topic.
The victims are suspected gang members shot by other suspected gang members and the violence again is raising questions about safety at the Inner Harbor. We had a respite from crime at the tourist attraction after a spate of stabbing, robberies and beating that started in April, some of which involved gangs.
Bealefeld talked alot about the Harbor today in meeting with reporters at an event in Pimlico, about whether the community should debate new curfew laws whether more police is the answer:
"I think we're making progress, but as saturday's incident illustrates, we have a lot more work to do. ... it is not necessarily and issue about numbers. It is an issue of what are we doing while we're in that space. I don't just need men and women in uniform standing around twirling espantoons. I need men and women who are vigilient, proactive and engaged. I'm not certain that dumping more manpower into this situation is the answer."
Bealefeld also talked about how he wants his officers to confront suspected gang members:
I think inknowing what i know about Saturday night's incident, that perhaps one of the only entres we had to approach these two groups was they're flagging. Cops ought to know a gang banger when they see one. Some of these guys fly very overt signs or signals to do that. And when we see that, whether it's flashing gang signs or something that somoene wears or a bandana or colored beads, we should respond to that and we should engage. It doesn't mean we're going to arrest everyone we see wearing a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap."
Bloods are now wearing the Reds caps and Crips are into Colorado Rockies.
Bealefeld said that "many of these young men don't even know Colorado is a state in the union, let alone know that the Rockies is a baseball team and they're in the National League and they play in a staduim where they hit a ton of home runs. It's a sign taken up all over the country to signify Crips, all over. This isn't brain surgery. They give us clues and we should act on those clues before trouble starts. Thats what I want my cops to do. I want them to go up and say, 'Welcome to the Harbor. Don't act like a jerk here. We want you to have a good time, but leave all this gang stuff at home. Or if you can't, go back home and we'll deal with you there. You don't get to act like a fool here."
State Delegate Jon S. Cardin called Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and apologized for misuing his cops. Listen to the commissioner's news conference here.
It's a good start. Next he needs to write a check to repay the city for getting the helicopter and the marine unit to stop by his boat, conduct a mock search and "discover" a box with a ring inside it. Police are now investigating how the whole stunt went down and who authorized it.
Bealefeld had to stand before the cameras and answer a litany of questions which all but ruined a good news event -- a family honored for donating money to help spruce up the police academy building. Bealefeld took all the questions and said he had spoken to Cardin this morning. "He offered an apology for putting the Baltimore Police Department in this kind of predicament and spotlight," Bealefeld said.
Cardin needs to come clean with his constituents in Baltimore County and the residents of Baltimoire City, who had their police and pocketbooks stripped for a private political show using public servants who should be protecting them instead of helping a lawmaker. He needs to apology for what he did, not for embarassing the police.
Meanwhile, the story picks up legs, reaching across the country, including Web sites such as Wonkette, and attracting comments galore.
If you or I or anyone else walked into a police station and asked for cops to do a fake raid to help propose to your girlfriend, and then asked for the police helicopter to hover overhead, you'd be laughed out of the building.
Police officers have better things to do. Like fight crime at the Inner Harbor.
Or maybe not.
That's why this story of Baltimore County Delegate Jon S. Cardin getting police help him pop the question to his girlfriend is such a travesty. We give our elected representatives access to power not so they can use it to throw their own parties but to make lives better for us. And time and time again, they find innovative ways to abuse it.
It's not the money -- the cops who "stormed" Cardin's boat and "searched" for contraband, only to come with a box with a ring inside -- were on duty and the financial cost to the taxpayers was probably little. Sure, the chopper is expensive, but it was already up anyway.
The cost is more in the arrogance of power. Cardin now says he'll give back whatever money the city lost. That won't clean the egg off the face of police. How could even think this was OK? He said in a statement -- he refused to be interviewed -- that love blinded him. Arrogance blinded him. It was school-boy childish prank that cost the city police valuable public relations points with the public at a time when their distrust of cops runs high, they are scared of crime and the city is asking them to reach into their thinning wallets to help fund programs.
Two people were shot at the Inner Harbor over the weekend. Eighteen people were shot on a single night in East Baltimore earlier this month. A 5-year-old girl is still fighting for her life after being shot in the head.
And the city police find time to fool around with a state politician.
It's even more disturbing that members of the marine unit participated. These are the same cops who months ago complained that the city was jeopardizing the safety of residents by grounding the boats in winter and spring. Yet here we are at the height of summer and we find out this is how they spend their time.
Cardin should give back to the city what he owes. But that won't make up for proving to residents that their distrust of politicians is not misplaced.
Here's Cardin's full explanation:
On Friday, August 7th, I had the honor of asking my now fiancée for the privilege of her hand in marriage. I asked my best friend to help me plan the occasion. We decided to take her on a boat ride with a handful of our closest friends and ask the marine police to do a routine 5-minute safety check of the boat. During the “fuss”, I surprised her with my proposal and she honored me with her answer of “yes”.
Another weekend and more crime at the Inner Harbor.
I thought we had a respite after the early summer stabbings, attacks and large crowds of youths terrorizing the visitors (at left, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III patrols the downtown area after a spate of crime in June). But Saturday night, after members of a Bloods gang passed members of a Crips gang in the Light Street pavilion, at least one person took out a gun and opened fire. Another shot was fired near an outside ice cream stand.
One reader wrote to me that he was at the Harbor Friday and Saturday nights but didn't seen any police. That's a bit much, even though the heavy contingent assigned to the downtown area earlier this summer has dispersed. The city couldn't keep that going with all the other violence in the city, but now that its no longer at full strength we see what happens.
On Sunday, both the mayor and the police commissioner said they wanted cops to take a tougher stance, even rousting suspected gang members who come downtown. "Some people might not like it," Sheila Dixon told The Sun's Annie Linskey. "Some radicals are going to speak out about it. Our officers are going to have to become more aggressive."
No mayor wants to lose the Inner Harbor to crime on his or her watch.
Here is the mayor's statement from Sunday night (though it pales in comparison to what Dixon told The Sun in the interview:
“I am outraged by the shootings that occurred yesterday evening in the Pratt Street Pavilion. The Inner Harbor is for everyone. It is the premier destination for Baltimore’s families and millions of visitors. We will do everything in our power to make sure it stays that way.
We will not tolerate the Inner Harbor being a “hangout” for those who break the law, intimidate, or create a nuisance of any kind. We have a lot of police deployed in the Inner Harbor. The Commissioner and I will continue to work dilligently and swiftly to improve security.This incident is yet another reminder of the need for zero tolerance for illegal guns. We must all agree and ensure that if you carry a loaded, illegal gun in Baltimore -- you go to jail.”
Here is what a resident wrote me on Sunday:
My wife and I visited the Inner Harbor on Friday between 4PM and 8PM, and Saturday between 3PM and 6 PM. We spent all of our time between the Science Museum and the Light Street Pavillion and inside the Pavillion. During the entire time we did not see one unformed Baltimore City Police Officer or one uniformed Security Officer. The Inner Harbor was very crowded. On Friday there was a very large orderly contingent of pre teens involved in some activity at the Science Museum. On Saturday the crowd was mostly tourists and families.
Breaking news: Police say Michael Phelps was not at fault in Thursday night's accident in Baltimore's Mid-Town neighborhood.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says a woman driving a Honda Accord north on Calvert Street went through a red light and hit a Cadillac Escalade that Phelps was driving east on Biddle Street. The suffered minor injuries; it is unclear whether she will be charged with traffic offenses.
Baltimore police told me this morning that Michael Phelps was not given a Breathalyer test after the accident he was involved in Thursday night in Mid-Town Belvedere. "There as no need," spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. "He was completely coherent. He was cooperating with police. He gave a witness statement as to what had occurred."
But that hasn't stopped the paparazzi-like media from the Tabs and Web sites to jump on the latest Phelps story. One web site headlined the story Phelps' latest run-in with police. It's hardly that, it's just a traffic accident. And Gawker has a story up that is so full or errors it made my head spin.
It leads off with Phelps caught driving through Baltimore's Tranny district. Well, sorry to blow their story, but the transgendered prostitutes have moved north from the Mount Vernon area to lower Charles Village. And even if the problem still existed on Biddle and Calvert streets, the area is a main thoroughfare for thousands of citizens every day who have nothing to do with transgendered prostitution. The site shows Phelps in one of his see-through swim suits and mentions, falsely, that he's still on probation for a DUI case. He pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of driving while impaired in 2004 and has completed his probation years ago in 2005. The charge is no longer on his record.
I do like the fact that with all the instant news and technology, from Twitter to Facebook to instant text alerts on crime, it was our old-time old-fashion throwback-to-another-era of a police reporter Richard Irwin who called police spokesman Guglielmi and told him of the accident. I asked Guglielmi how the police commissioner learned of Phelps and he replied, "From Dick Irwin."
Now that's news reporting.
This is a good test for Guglielmi, who will find that his every utterance on Phelps will be closely scrutinized, parsed and repeated in media around the world. Already, he's complained about being stalked by the web site TMZ, a celebrity-gossip web site that broke the Michael Jackson death story (some say even before he had actually died). At least they got it right: their latest update says police have ruled out alcohol on the part of Phelps.
These types of stories test reporters who strive to be fair. We're now competing with other reporters who have far fewer standards in terms of reporting rumors and making stupid links, such as the one of Phelps driving through a tranny area, which raises absurd and unfair insinuations.
In an accident involving regular people, we wouldn't even ask whether the driver was drunk and report it if he wasn't even tested. It's like asking you if you beat your wife and then report you deny beating your wife. But in this case, given Phelps' history with alcohol and the picture of him with a bong, the question not only becomes legit it's the first thing on everyone's minds.
But sometimes, an accident is just an accident.
It's not a crime, but we'll be closely following the Baltimore police investigation into Thursday night's accident involving Michael Phelps at North Calvert and East Biddle streets (The Sun's Amy Davis captures Phelps' damaged car at the scene).
Thus far, it appears that Phelp's Cadillac Escalade collided with a Honda Accord at the intersection, injuring its female driver. Phelps was not hurt. It appears one of the drivers went through a red light, though we'll have to await a police report to get more news.
Our local celebrity keeps making news both in and out of the water -- gold medals, a bong, a DUI arrest in 2004, not to mention the women.
Mayor Sheila Dixon issued the challenge a month ago in Carrollton Ridge, when 200 showed for a community walk against crime. They came because a little girl, 5-year-old Raven Wyatt (at left), had been shot on Pulaski Street, and the mayor implored the people to stay involved.
The test came last night.
Only three people from Carrollton Ridge showed -- the community association president, Connie Fowler, and two of her friends. The rest were cops, City Hall reps, reporters and people who lived elsewhere.
Of the 20 people who promised a month ago to help Fowler with her association duties, she told me only one person actually followed through. The community leaders tried to put a good face on a bad situation, but Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld, who came, was clearly disappointed.
"Let's be honest," he said. "What does it take?" He added later, "It should not be a spectator sport to get involved in your community."
It was only June when Raven was shot and now we got all sorts of controversy with an arrest of a junvenile who was on the street despite a long record, issues over whether he was properly monitored by a tracking device, and now a video that shows a gunmen firing at a man he's chasing up the street, a video that ends with little Raven lying alone in the middle of Pulaski Street.
I'll have more on Bealefeld's outrage in Friday's Crime Scene's article in the paper. The commissioner walked for more than an hour, imploring people to help with information or by just talking with people and encouraging them to do better. He asked everyone why they didn't join the walk and got back a steady stream of, "Next time" and "next month."
On one corner, he came upon a couple he thinks was selling marijuana on their front steps, even as the woman's young son sat next to him. Bealefeld lectured but the man laughed and texted on his cell phone rather than pay attention. Around the corner, man shouted into his cell phone, "Clean the corners," and it wasn't a call for people to come out with brooms.
A frustrating evening. For too many residents in Carrollton Ridge, the walk was sadly just a spectator sport.
A fund raising drive to save the Baltimore Police Department's Mounted Unit has brought in $54,000 so far, according to Sheryl Goldstein, who heads the Mayor's Office on Criminal Justice.
The department needs about $200,000 and is negotiating with private companies and individuals for either a sponsor or a one-time donation to cover all the expenses. Today I wrote about a 9-year-old girl from Lutherville who is opening a lemonade stand next week to raise money.
Here is information for anyone who wishes to donate:
Laurie Crosley is the main point of contact at the Baltimore Community Foundation for the Police Foundation. Donations can be mailed to her at:
Baltimore Community Foundation
2 E Read St # 9
Baltimore, MD 21202-6903
Checks should be made out to: Baltimore Community Foundation, Police Foundation Fund. The cover letter or check should specify that the funds are to used to support the Mounted Unit. The phone number there is: (410) 332-4171.
The woman hit by a stray bullet inside her Cherry Hill home Tuesday night is a community activist and has headed the Cherry Hill Tenant Council for the past five years. She's well known in her community, and when I stopped by this morning, two police cars were parked out front and neighbors slowed as they drove by and waved and made sure she's ok.
"I'm blessed," Shirley Foulks (in photo next to the bullet hole) shouted back, pausing between conversations on the phone, with the officers and with me. A crime lab tech came to the house to photograph a bullet casing found on her walkway.
Shirley had spent most of Tuesday visiting businesses to make sure they will donate back-to-school items for a fair on Saturday at the community center on Spellman Road. It is the kind of work that Shirely does tirelessly for her community.
Jack Baker, the head of the Southern District Police Community Relations Council, sent me this e-mail:
The wonderful lady who was hit is Ms. Shirley Foulks, President of the Cherry Hill Homes Tenant Council. Shirley has worked tirelessly for many years for all of the tenants of Cherry Hill Homes but especially the children. I have worked with Shirley for over five years on safety issues along with my teammates, the Southern District Police officers. I have been blessed to know Shirley, but working with her is an even greater blessing. The woman gives not just her time, but anything she owns, especially her love, to anyone who needs it. Let's all pray for her speedy recovery.
I'll have more on this shooting in Thursday's Crime Scene article.
Two strange bits of crime news in today's newspaper.
First, a woman watching TV in her house in South Baltimore's Cherry Hill is struck by a stray bullet and police in Northwest Baltimore are investigating whether one cop cuffed another cop at a crime scene.
The first item is just plain sad, but not all that unusual. The second is just pitiful, and is yet another distraction for cops trying to prevent bullets from flying into people's homes. It certainly leaves the average citizen wondering what is going on in our city.
The suspect in the shooting earlier this year of a 5-year-old girl in Carrollton Ridge pleaded not guilty today but the real interesting part is video that shows the incident. A screen grab here shows the shooter opening fire (the victim has already run out of view)
It is a haunting video (we're not showing all of it, including one section that shows the little girl lying in the street after she'd been shot. It shows her all alone, before a mob of people race to help her). The video does show a man opening fire and chasing his target up the street.
Most of the letters I find in my mail slot start with a prison ID number. So it was refreshing to open one today from Sophia Litrenta, a 9-year-old girl who is donating proceeds from her lemonade stand to the Baltimore Police Department's Mounted Unit.
As we've reported, the city cut the budget for the six police horses and it needs at least $150,000 in private donations to make it another year. Police are trying to find a corporate sponsor to pick up the tab, but regular citizens, and now even children, are doing what they can.
The event is Tuesday, Aug. 18, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 8609 Countrybrooke Way, Lutherville, 21093.
Sophia's letter is priceless:
Lemon Dad Est And
Catch me this afternoon starting at 1 p.m. on WYPR, where I'll be the guest of Karen Hosler, an old colleague of mine at The Sun who is filling in for Dan Rodricks. You can even listen live on your comupter or tune to 88.1 on your radio dial.
Call 410-662-8780 or 1-866-661-9309 with questions.
I'll be discussing the Baltimore Police Department's horse unit, which is searching for donations to stay afloat, but I'm sure other topics will come up, such as the two gun-toting young men arrested by the city's police commissioner who escaped jail time and crime in general in Baltimore.
I look forward to your calls.
Even a gun bust made by Baltimore's top cop can't buy jail time.
Two men arrested by Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III on New Years in a dramatic encounter has ended with plea agreements that don't result in prison for either defendant. The commish isn't talking, and so far neither is the mayor, both of whom have been making gun arrests a priority of fighting crime.
So here we have the city's top cop coming face to face with two guys with guns -- a rifle and a shotgun -- and for all practical matters they walk. If these aren't bad guys with guns, I don't know what it is (Here's an audio clip of Bealefeld's confrontation from police radio).
Getting bad guys with guns is the new police slogan. At left, Maj. Terrence McLarney talks about a gun seizure in December, in a picture by Kim Hairston.
Prosecutors note that the charges were misdemanors, not felonies, and Mayor Shelia Dixon offered tipid criticism, issuing a statement that says: “I am disappointed by this outcome. This is why I have been pushing for legislation that would require mandatory minimum jail time for people who possess illegal loaded guns.”
The public deserves some answers because if this bust doesn't lead to jail time, what will?
City officials keep talking about sending gun offenders to prison for five years and Dixon has testified in Annapolis to strip good-time credits away from people serving time for illegal firearms possession, to ensure they stay in prison the maximum amount of time. So what happened in this case?
Hopefully we'll have more ansers for tomorrow's paper.
An important community cop walk is coming up Wednesday in Carrollton Ridge. Lest we forget, this is the neighbhorhood where the 5-year-old was shot and critically wounded, and where hundreds came for a walk to join the mayor and just about every other public official (Gene Sweeney Jr. captures the walk, with Mayor Sheila Dixon chatting with community activist Steve Herlth).
That was the easy one.
Now comes the test. Do the people the mayor and the police commissioner and the longtime community president, Connie Fowler, implored to help out actually show up? Or will this be another example of how we react to crime only to forget and move on a few weeks later.
Community activist Steve Herlth put out this e-mail as a challenge:
Carrollton Ridge, Wednesday, Wednesday, August 12 at 6:30 PM. Meet up will be at the Recreation Parking lot, S. Pulaski and Ashton Streets.
Now, this Carrollton Ride walk will be an interesting walk, for some of us who participated in the Mega walk last month. We all know how hard the Carrollton Ride Connie Fowler, The Mayor, the City employee's, the various community Walkers, and our fantastic Southwestern and Southern Officers were in participating in that walk to get the community residents out. Now is their chance to come out and join us in making their community safe and clean.
All who participated in the last walk threw out the challenge to the community residents. Many of the residents promised to be there on this Wednesday. This is where I say, "We must have faith in the community" so let us back that faith up with a little pray that they keep their word.
Yes, Twitter was down for a while and that slowed up some breaking news posts from the Baltimore Police Department. So maybe that's why their Facebook page now looks like an unending list of shootings that had piled up.
We have a story on some of them here. The picture by Jed Kirschbaum is from the latest shooting, on Herring Court in the Perkins Homes public housing complex in Southeast Baltimore, between Harbor East and Fells Point.
Another busy and wild weekend in the city.
What would you buy with a stolen debit card?
Here's how Maryland State Police say a 19-year-old teen splurged on a weekend in May: "The accused paid for a vehicle emissions test, bought two female wigs, obtained a meal at a popular restaurant, purchased a guitar, some underwear and finished up with a $650 tab at a nightclub where he had partied with friends."
I'm dying to know what the wigs are for. Maybe we'll ge an answer at trial.
The suspect was caught after a woman walked into the Forestville barrack in Prince George's County and complained that someone was using her debit card. The bank had called her to cancel the card after noticing a high number of unusual transactions.
A young trooper, Douglas Reiner, jumped on the case and found video surveillance tape that led him to a 19-year-old man named Rasheed A. Adedokum of Upshur Drive in Bladensburg. He's been charged with unlawful use of the card and theft.
But the trooper got more than thanks from the victim and her bank. He searched the suspect's house on Wednesday and police said he found a computer with a magnetic reader/writer, more than 80 credit cards and electronic files containing names, social security numbers and other personal information. Troopers also said they found other items they believe were purchased with other stolen cards, including a large flat-screen television, a DVD player, a Honda lawn mower and a weed-trimmer.
People walk into police stations all the time with complaints but this woman got help from a resourceful trooper whose hard work uncovered an alleged scheme that was far broader than one victim.
As state police spokesman Gregory M. Shipley told me, "We can see how much fun this guy had with one card over one weekend."
Here's the full state police press release:
Maryland State Police have charged a Prince George’s County teenager with using a stolen debit card number to purchase items ranging from wigs to a night on the town, in an ongoing investigation that has turned up scores of credit cards and a computer with a magnetic reader and writer in the teen’s home.
The accused is identified as Rasheed A. Adedokun, 19, of the 5100-block of Upshur Drive, Bladensburg, Md. He is charged at this time with five counts of unlawful use of a payment device number and one count of theft over $500. He is currently being held in the Prince George’s County Detention Center on $250,000 bond.
The investigation began in mid-May 2009, when a woman contacted a trooper at the Forestville Barracks and said her debit card had been cancelled by her bank due to a high number of weekend transactions that were unusual for her. Her debit card number had been used at the emissions testing station, a restaurant, a beauty shop, a nightclub and a department store.
The road patrol trooper from the Forestville Barracks began in immediate investigation that led to witness and video identification of the accused as the individual using the victim’s debit card number during that weekend in May. The accused paid for a vehicle emissions test, bought two female wigs, obtained a meal at a popular restaurant, purchased a guitar, some underwear, and finished up with a $650 tab at a nightclub where he had partied with friends.
Evidence obtained during the investigation led to troopers obtaining an arrest warrant for the
accused and a search warrant for the residence where he lives with other tenants. Troopers served the warrants yesterday and arrested Adedokun at his home. Troopers recovered a computer with a magnetic reader/writer, more than 80 credit cards, and electronic files believed to contain names, social security numbers and other information about individuals that would be used to produce additional fraudulent credit/debit cards.
Troopers also recovered a number of new items that are believed to have been purchased with other fraudulent cards. Items included two large flat-screen televisions, a DVD player, a Honda lawn mower, and a weed-trimmer.
This investigation is continuing. Troopers have already been in contact with the U.S. Postal Service Inspector’s Office and other law enforcement agencies about this ongoing case.
In Baltimore, you can already get text messages from cops about crime (so far they're testing this only in Southeast) and you can send text messages with tips on criminals. Now, the Associated Press says a Police Department in Waterloo, Iowa is accepting texts for breaking 911 calls:
An emergency call center in the basement of the county jail in Waterloo, Iowa, became the first in the country to accept text messages sent to "911," starting Wednesday. Call centers around the country are looking at following in its footsteps, as phone calls are now just one of many things phones can do. "I think there's a need to get out front and get this technology available," Black Hawk County police chief Thomas Jennings said.
Baltimore police commander John Dodson, who is retiring, wants to make it clear that he is leaving of his own volition.
He told The Sun's Justin Fenton today that he’s going to miss the contacts he’s made in the department and outside. He spent more than three years as the Eastern District commander before becoming overseeing patrol operations for the East Side.
He invited community leaders from East Baltimore to his daughter’s wedding, and he often brought his son to those Friday night prayer vigils. Dodson said he’ll be taking cell phone numbers with him.
“I’m going to keep in contact with as many people as possible," he said. "My career could not have been better – the people I’ve met, the people I’ve worked with couldn’t have been better.”
Some breaking news from the Baltimore Sun's police reporter Justin Fenton:
Baltimore police patrol commander John Dodson, a 27-year veteran, submitted his retirement papers Tuesday. His retirement is effective Nov. 1. Dodson oversaw the East Side patrol deployment, and his announcement comes after an unprecedented explosion of violence July 26 that saw 18 people shot in a span of five hours in the Northeastern, Eastern and Southeastern Districts.
Word around the police department was that Dodson was forced out (One officer described him as the “19th casualty” of last week’s violence), but police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Dodson is leaving on his own terms.“
He put in 27 years with the Baltimore Police Department – there’s not much more anyone can ask of someone,” Guglielmi said. Dodson was appointed to his post in 2007 when Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III assumed control of the department.
The Sun's Julie Bykowicz tells me that when he was Eastern District commander, Dodson would hold prayer every Friday at Ashland and Luzerne, according to Elroy Christopher, who lives on Luzerne.
“He participated in everything around here,” said Christopher, a community leader for two decades. Christopher and another longtime Luzerne resident, R.B. Smith, told stories about how Dodson and the prayer group would play music and use speakers to project to the community. Occasionally, the men said, even the drug dealers who frequented Ashland would come join the group.
“It was our Friday evening ritual,” Smith said.
All across the Baltimore last night, community groups held events to mark National Night Out. At Easterwood Park and Stadium Place, residents chatted and ate food. Near the Gilmore Homes housing project, rap and R&B acts performed on a big stage as part of an event promoted on radio station 92Q and sponsored by the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice.
But in Highlandtown, one Baltimore Police Commander took National Night Out to new heights, as The Sun's police reporter, Justin Fenton, reports:
More than 100 residents rocked out to a band made up of city police officers, including Southeastern District Maj. Roger Bergeron and his brother, Mark, who is a sergeant in the southern district.
The band, named “Damn Shame,” was making its first public appearance and the event was outside, on the property of the Abbott Memorial Presbyterian Church on Bank Street, so the concert attracted a fair amount of curious cops. They were treated to a full light show, a fog machine and plenty of rock poses.
“There’s a lot of thugs in the neighborhood, who think these streets are theirs. Well I don’t know about y’all, but we’re not going to take it anymore,” Roger Bergeron yelled before the band launched into Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
The set list for the first half of the show also included Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle,” ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man,” Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps”
Dep. Maj. William Davis was among the spectators. His review? “Not bad.”
Readers are expressing sympathy for the Baltimore Police Department's Mounted Unit, which could end its 121-year service at the end of September because of budget cuts. The department is seeking $200,000 in donations, preferably by a company, to keep the unit afloat after next month, when feed runs out (photo at left by The Sun's Barbara Haddock Taylor).
Here is a sampling of comments I got by e-mail:
Shame on Sheila Dixon and the city council for once again making a political pawn of the police's mounted unit. To cut the unit's budget to a level that it cannot survive is a crime! The unit has been representing Baltimore for well over a hundred years, bringing joy to children and adults alike, by being a pleasant surprise to downtown tourists, and in general bringing positive attention to the police department. The city can manage to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars saving a tradition like the Senator Theater, but not a crime fighting police unit? Something is very wrong with the judgment of those at city hall! I hope ways can be found to continue this wonderful part of what makes Baltimore special. And I will also remember this stupid move by our politicians next time I vote! --- Mary DeWolfe
Dear Mr. Hermann, I read your excellent article in the Sun today (page 1) about the city's possible decision to eliminate the mounted police. I live in Otterbein and there may be some interest in organizing some support for the mounted police. Do you have any idea whom we should contact to find out about making a donation? Also do you recommend writing to the City Council about this, or is there some other organization that would be more appropriate? Thank you for any help you might provide in terms of information. --- Victoria Cass
And here's a sampling from the Baltimore Police Department's Facebook page:
Ashly Alexander: What a mistake!They should double the mounted patrol unit not make cutsmounted patrol unit not make cuts! Increasing the unit is a step towards "Greening" the police force!
Ian Hall: Without the mounted unit the 4th of July and New years eve at the harbor will be a lot harder to control and harder to shut down....think it over Sheila!
Ryan Cleckley: Wow sad story. If i had the extra 150G's right now I would totally donate it.
Michael C. Davis: It's a travesty. This is one of the longest running units in the entire country. Let's be known for something else other then being number one in homicides per captia
Elliott M. Robertson: Is there a unique advantage which mounted Police have over, say, patrol car, foot, or bicycle in keeping order or fighting crime?
For anyone who wants to donate, here's how:
Laurie Crosley is the main point of contact at the Baltimore Community Foundation for the Police Foundation. Donations can be mailed to her at:
Baltimore Community Foundation
2 E Read St # 9
Baltimore, MD 21202-6903
Checks should be made out to: Baltimore Community Foundation, Police Foundation Fund. The cover letter or check should specify that the funds are to used to support the Mounted Unit. The phone number there is: (410) 332-4171.
Baltimore Police Officer Traci L. McKissick changed her story on the witness stand and a man accused of trying to wrest away her gun during an altercation that left another man dead goes free.
This is a big deal in and of itself, but it's more important because back in February city police officials tried to withhold her name from the public citing a new policy of not revealing the identities of officers who shoot their weapons. McKissick and another officer who fired during the fight that killed the suspect's 61-year-old uncle, Joseph Forrest (seen above in a picture held by his sister, Greta, in a photo taken by The Sun's Jed Kirschbaum).
Police had the charged Forrest's nephew, also named Joseph Forrest, with stepping on McKissick's hand and trying to take away her gun. One officer shot the elder Forrest in the chest and McKissick unloaded her service weapon into the man's right thigh.
Police initially refused to name the officers, then blacked McKissick's name from a public police report on a previous shooting she had in 1995 when a suspect stole her weapon. The Sun obtained the name anyway and that led us to documents that countered what police had first told us about McKissick's encounter back in 1995 (instead of being dragged by a vehicle, as police told us, the reports showed she jumped into a car and had her gun stolen by the driver).
Now, on Tuesday, prosecutors were forced to drop charges against the younger Forrest because McKissick, who had identified Forrest as the man who stepped on her, testified in court that the person who tried to get her gun was a "mystery man."
That's quite different from a steadfast identification, an identification that helped a judge back in February order the younger Forrest held in jail without bail until his trial.
The policy of not naming cops who shoot is still being reviewed (it's now been six months) and while some identities of officers have been made public, others such as the most recent shooting of a man during a burglary in Northwest Baltimore have not.
I hope this incident with McKissick shows the department how withholding basic information such as identities prompts unnecessary questions and skepticism, and now that the officer in question has changed her story under oath, that should be taken into account as police investigate the fatal shooting of the elder Forrest.
Baltimore County native and NBA star Rudy Gay (at left in an AP photo) was in apparently in the city last night, Twittering to his 19,000-plus followers as he witnessed a robbery, The Sun's Justin Fenton reports
His message: “Just now witnessed a robbery! Only in Baltimore, I need to get out of here!”
Gay was raised and attended school outside the Beltway. He commuted from Essex to the Cecil-Kirk Recreation Center in Northeast Baltimore, and played high school ball for Archbishop Spaulding. He spurned the University of Maryland for UConn and left after a stellar freshman season. He was drafted eighth overall in the 2006 NBA draft and put up 20 points and 6 rebounds per game in his second season. He averaged 18.9 points per game last year for the Memphis Grizzlies.
He hasn’t forgotten his Baltimore roots, returning to the city several times for fellow native Carmelo Anthony’s three-on-three basketball tournament and family day.
We’re not immediately sure which robbery Gay witnessed, but the time stamp on the posts puts it at “about 16 hours ago,” which would be about 10 p.m. Monday. He even posted cell phone pictures of police cars and Foxtrot, the police department helicopter, as it swarmed overhead.
Lucky for Gay, the robber apparently didn’t target the NBA star, who made $2.5 million last year and is seeking a contract extension in the neighborhood of $68 million.
At her news conference last week after a dozen people had been shot at a party (18 overall on the city's Eastside), Mayor Shelia Dixon clearly had enough. She didn't want to talk about programs, and certainly not stop snitching, and she even got into it on prayer vigils (topic seems appropriate on the eve of National Night Out:
"People hae to be outrage, you know. Standing on a corner and having a candlelight vigil, that's fine and good. But what happens to those families in the midst of what happened? What are they going to do for those children so they don't get exposed? It comes down to personal responsibility. My concern, what are we going to do, how are we going to beef up that effort? What are we going to do if they (gunmen) decide to come over to the west side? I don't want innocent bystanders to be involved. If they want to take it out between themselves, fine and good, but that shouldn't impact our communities."
I mention this because on Monday, Marvin 'Doc' Cheatham, the head of Baltimore's NAACP branch, sent out a plea for a vigil and for men to meet children when they come home from their first day of school this fall. That brought an interesting response from City Councilam James B. Kraft (which follows Mr. Cheatham's request:
Dear Mayor Dixon, President Rawlings Blake & City Council Members:
Yes, we are in a crisis situation as it relates to crime in our community. We are asking for and seeking out support and leadership from each and every member of the Baltimore City Council.
As you may know we have asked for the faith based community to significantly increase their community involvement. It has come to our attention that the faith based community has met and has also scheduled a significant meeting.
We are now asking our Baltimore City Council members, along with the Mayor and Faith Based Community to hold a city-wide, simultaneous in each council district.
James, Nicholas, Robert, Bill, ‘Rikki’, Sharon, Belinda, Helen, Agnes, Edward, William, ‘Jack’, Warren and Mary Pat.
The date of August 28th has been selected as it is the Anniversary Date of the 1963 March on Washington. If each of our council people were to bring together leaders in each of our city council districts we could have a significant impact on Baltimore City. Churches, Mosques and Synagogues can be asked to adopt at least one elementary school, middle school and high school. Community groups can be encouraged to significantly increase their activities and parents can be strongly encouraged to support their local school/parent group. Businesses can be encouraged to financially help as much as they can.
On Monday, August 31, 2009 we are encouraging men of Baltimore to welcome the children back to school, but as a strong precaution we have advised them not to endanger the children by going in. Just welcome them back. We will be encouraging school supply drives in the next few days.
The Paul Robeson Institute, headed up by Executive Director Michael Johnson, will be coordinating the training that men will get to proactive deal with crime in our neighborhoods. ‘The Men In Black’ will be recruiting David Muhammad and Imam Earl El Amin for they are experts in getting men in the communities.
We need every city agency involved in some what to help us make August 28th come to fruition. Our community is crying-out for leadership as it relates to crime in our neighborhood and we are reaching out to those elected and paid to do such. Let’s make August 28th the real beginning of Stopping the Killing and Ending the Violence.
Larry Young, Michael Johnson and I would appreciate from each of you immediately. We will share with the media what responses we get on Thursday, August 6, 2009.
Here is Mr. Kraft's response:
Doc,
Today's story on the possible demise of the Baltimore Police Department's Mounted Unit is generating lots of calls from people who want to donate. Keep in mind, police are seeking corporate sponsors and the lieutenant who heads the unit tried to keep people from sending in their own money during these hard economic times.
That said, here is how to give money:
Laurie Crosley is the main point of contact at the Baltimore Community Foundation for the Police Foundation. Donations can be mailed to her at:
Baltimore Community Foundation
2 E Read St # 9
Baltimore, MD 21202-6903
Checks should be made out to: Baltimore Community Foundation, Police Foundation Fund. The cover letter or check should specify that the funds are to used to support the Mounted Unit. The phone number there is: (410) 332-4171.
Is this really the latest last gasp for the vaunted Baltimore Police Mounted Unit (seen at left in a photo by The Sun's Barbara Haddock Taylor)?
It's been on the chopping block before, cut back and called an unnecessary throwback in the age of modern policing. Now, the unit's budget has been hacked and the horses Blacky, Butch, Barney, Buster, Binx and Bell, could find themselves in somebody elses stables by the end of September.
The money has run out and when the food runs out so does the mounted unit, unless private donations of at least $200,000 can keep it going for at least one more year. The unit is regarded at one of if not the oldest continuously operated police horseback programs in the country, having been formed in 1888.
For a complete history, see W.M. Hackley's history of the Baltimore Police Department, called "Ever on the Watch." He has a 66-page section on the mounted unit.
The Baltimore Sun has reported on the unit for decades, reporting on its history, its officers and various efforts to save the much loved horses from demise. Police love the horses because it gives officers a unique perspective on the street, enables them to clear crowds (such as ones that form downtown on Friday and Saturday nights) and they can't be beat as public relations tool.
Lawmakers spared the unit in 2004, though just barely. In 2000, then Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris, who ias a member of the NYPD was once pulled out of a hostile crowd by a mounted cop, tried to expand the program when he arrived here. He assigned them to some of the busiest drug corridors in the city.
In 1995 (the year The Sun's Algerina Perna took the photo at left), Officer Janis West retired, the first female mounted officer in Baltimore and, based on research by the city cops, she also was the first female mounted officer in the country. She rode a former thoroughbred race horse named Cady. At that time, the unit was being scaled back, from 23 officers to eight. That same year saw the departure of another longtime police rider, Officer Robert J. Petza hung up his spurs after spending 29 years on horseback.
A sad moment came in 1994 when a police horse helping chase a burglarly suspect in East Baltimore hit a park car and died on an East Baltimore street. The horse's body had to be dragged onto a flat-bed truck, the first line-of-duty death of a horse since 1990.
Baltimore paramedics prematurely pronounced a patient dead over the weekend while at the scene of a police involved shooting in Northwest Baltimore. The Sun's Richard Irwin reports that an investigation is underway by the Baltimore Fire Department (at left, din a photo by The Sun's Glenn Fawcett, detectives stand over a body at a homicide scene in West Baltimore).
This comes just a few months after we heard complaints from homicide detectives that paramedics were following new rules and taking even obviously dead patients to hospitals, marring crime scenes. Detectives like having their scenes untouched, including bodies, so they can learn as much as they can.
This case stems from a shooting by a city officer of a burglarly suspect at a grocery store. Cops say the man lunged at officers with what appeared to a knife but turned out to be a screwdriver. The man was hit in the head and paramedics prounced him dead at the scene and left.
But later, homicide detectives noticed that man either moved or made a sound and called the paramedics back. The man was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma where he remains in critical condition.
Fire commanders are investigating what went wrong. We had heard from cops and paramedics that they are quick to transport at even the slightest sign of life. One paramedic told me that "if we see life, we do something." Even obviously dead patients sometimes get treatment, the paramedic told me, such as when a man has been shot in public and his friends and family are around. The paramedics want to make sure the family sees that everything possible has been done. The paramedic told me that in one case, an elderly woman died in a nursing home and she was instructed to take the victim to the hospital anyway.
"If it was my son up there, I'd want somebody to do something," the paramedic told me. "If they guy is lying on the porch and his relatives and family are all around, I want them to know that I worked him."
Some homicide detectives have complained that bodies are being moved unnecessarily, complicating their efforts at scenes. But Robert Cherry, the president of the police union and a former homicide detective himself, said he hasn't heard any grumbling.
"A lot of our detectives want to spend a little more time at crime scenes looking at it the way it was," Cherry said. "But I can see a paramedic saying, 'I'd rather have Shock Trauma pronounce the person dead.' If there is even the slightest chance of survival, EMS has to do their duty and protect life. Where a body is there or not, we'll still do our jobs."
Tuesday is National Night Out to fight crime, a night of community walks and turning on porch lights. I'd like to hear from communities around the area as to what is planned. I have a few I'll list here and I'll put more up as they come in.
In the city, Better Waverly is meeting at the Youth Art Center at 901 Montpelier St. from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The Charles Village Civic Association is meeting in the 2900 block of Guilford Ave. and at 2746 Maryland Ave. from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. There will be hotdogs and hamburgers, along with potlock drinks. For more information, email: walter@charlesvillage.org
Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello is meeting on the Martin Luther hillside overlooking Lake Montebello at Hillen Road and East 33rd Street from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. There will be a cookout.
Ednor Gardens/Lakeside will be meeting (for all of Northeast Baltimore) at Stadium Place on East 33rd Street. A Citizens on Patrol group will caravan from there for a districtwide tour starting at 6:30 p.m. and return for BBQ.
The Greater Homewood Community Corp. and the C-Safe Neighborhoods of Better Waverly, Pen Lucy and Waverly Improvement Association will meet a the Chestnut Hill Natural Lodge i the 600 block of Chestnut Hill Ave., between Old York Road and Ellerslie, just off East 37th Street, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
In Howard County, police will announce the grand opening of a new Wilde Lake office in the Wilde Lake Village Center at 6 p.m. Police Chief William McMahon, County Executive Ken Ulman and Fire Chief William Goddard will be there, along with McGruff the crime dog. The new community police resource officer, Anthony Nigro, also will be there.
Police in Howard also will open another new office in Owen Brown and Officer Sarah Miller will be at a party at Dasher Green pool from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. There also will be parties at the four other existing police offices in Harper's Choice, Long Reach, North Laurel and Oakland Mills starting at 6 p.m. More 20 communities in Howard are having their own parties from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
For more details, visit www.hcpd.org
I know there are more out there. Please let me know.
Peter Hermann started covering news for The Baltimore Sun in 1990, first in Anne Arundel County and, starting in 1994, reporting on the Baltimore Police Department. In 2001, he was assigned to Jerusalem as the Baltimore Sun's Middle East correspondent. He returned in 2005 as an assistant city editor overseeing crime coverage. In 2008, Peter returned to the beat as a daily reporter and blogger. A recent BBC report featured him in a segment on the harsh realities of covering crime in Baltimore.
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