Tuesday night's Little Italy crime meeting had it all -- drama, accusations, finger-pointing and language that can't be printed in a family newspaper. But in the middle of one nasty episode came an exchange that has become a mantra as we in this city discuss the balance between bars and homes:

How much responsibility does a bar owner have to ensure patrons behave both outside the establishment and in the larger neighborhood. Baltimore's police commissioner is pressing bar owners to take a more active role in keeping their surroundings safe and clean.

A manager of Mo's Fisherman's Wharf gave the typical complaint from his side: "We are not here to do anything to anyway. We are here to do business. Customers dowhat they do when they leave. It's not our fault."

Little Italy resident Giovanna Blatterman quickly responded with one of the best come-backs I've heard to this statement: "If I've got a potato chip bag on my sidewalk I get fined. Now you're telling me that if you have human garbage that you're not responsible for it?"

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Crime humor
        

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "Dead birds and passing heroin pellets" »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turns out New Yorkers do have a sense of humor (even when they don't think they do).

Reporting a column on the four bodies that surfaced in Harbor waters around Baltimore this month, I thought I'd compare it to the notorious dumping ground of the New York mob -- the East River (yes, I'm trying the Pine Barrens too).

The New York Police Department is trying to find out if their East River body county exceeds our Inner Harbor body count, but in the meantime I called the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. I got a spokeswoman:

"You want what?" she asked.

"I want to know how many bodies you pulled from the East River this year," I answered.

"Dead ones?" she asked, perfectly seriously.

I couldn't help myself:

"Is there any other kind?" I asked.

"Well, yes, sometimes people fall in and we pull them out alive," she answered.

I gave up at that point. I'd love to know how many times the Medical Examiner gets called to cart away a body only to arrive (long after the cops and the paramedics) to find it alive! She sent me to the city's health department, which sent me back to the police.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Crime humor