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.
Coverage will focus on crime trends, problems in neighborhoods in the city and elsewhere, profiles of victims and police officers and try to offer readers a fresh perspective on one of the most vexing issues facing Baltimore and its future.
Contributing to this blog is
Justin Fenton, who joined
The Sun in 2005 and has covered the Baltimore City Police Department and the criminal justice system since 2008. His work includes an investigation into Cal Ripken Jr.’s minor league baseball stadium deal with his hometown of Aberdeen, a three-part series chronicling a ruthless con woman, coverage of the killing of five Amish children at a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., and a job swap with a British crime reporter to explore differences in crime-fighting.
A special report looking into how city police handle rape cases led to sweeping reforms that changed the way sexual assaults are investigated in Baltimore. He was recognized as the best reporter in Baltimore by the
City Paper in 2010 and by
Baltimore Magazine in 2011.
Comments
The Mayor mentioned illegal guns as an element in this case - has the weapon been found and has it been determined to, in fact, be an illegal gun? Or is it the City's view that any gun used by a juvenile is illegal?
Just another aside - I remember when, if any officer got shot, the entire department was all over it. I was going around my old haunts yesterday and officers could not even tell me the name of the officer who was shot - not because of any rule against divulging information - but because they did not know nor seem to care that much; like it happened in Kentucky or on Mars. Best response I got was "...something Harris but he's an 'I' sequence...."
It made me think of the two empty rows of benches in a courtroom for a cop killer.
The disconnect is serious within the agency.
Posted by: 2020 | September 26, 2009 12:47 PM
One more thing - I see the twitter update says the one suspect's name is Tippet. That is a typo - the correct name is Tillet.
Is this another example of the sloppiness within the Department that allows hoodlum police to thrive? Allows others to ignore court? Allows evidence to be lost, forgotten or misplaced?
Posted by: 2020 | September 26, 2009 12:54 PM