"He smirked at me."

That's how Baltimore Police Officer Todd Strohman described the gunman just before he
pulled the trigger, putting a bullet into his shoulder, a bullet that will remain inches above his heart for the rest of his life.

The cop had another message for state lawmakers who make up the Senate's Judiciary
Committee contemplating tougher guns laws proposed by the city (see city's website describing proposed legislation): If the proposed laws had been on the books, the person charged with shooting him wouldn't have been on the street.

The audience applauded Strohman and the lawmakers wished him well. There was no sense
in grilling him on the necessity of enhanced gun legislation. The man charged in the crime had served two years of a 12-year sentence for armed robbery (the judge had suspended six of the years) and had been charged with five previous gun crimes. He had gotten out a little more than two weeks before the shooting on North Calvert Street.

"Seventeen days after he gets out, he shoots one of our cops," said Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Barksdale.

See more on the gun hearing:

Continue reading "City, county leaders press for tougher gun laws" »

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Categories: Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Crime elsewhere, Kenneth Harris trial, Neighborhoods, Police shootings, Top brass
        

Two men convicted of participating in a holdup of a Northeast Baltimore jazz club in which a former Baltimore city councilman was killed were sentenced Tuesday to life plus 30 years. A third defendant received a 65-year sentence.

Jerome Williams, 17, and Charles Y. McGaney, 22, were sentenced to the life terms after a jury convicted them Oct. 8 of first-degree felony murder, assault and other counts in connection with a holdup of the New Haven Lounge, in which Kenneth N. Harris was killed as he tried to flee. The third man, Gary A. Collins, 22, was convicted of assault and other counts connected to the robbery, but he was acquitted by a jury of murder.

The defendants were sentenced in Baltimore Circuit Court by retired Judge David Ross, who presided over their trial.

Sun reporter Nick Madigan will update the story throughout the day.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

Jurors have found two of the three defendants accused in the killing of Former City Councilman Ken Harris guilty on all counts.

Jerome Williams, 17, Charles McGaney, 22, and Gary Collins, 22, had been charged with more than two dozen crimes connected to the Sept. 20, 2008, robbery of the New Haven Lounge. Harris was shot as he tried to flee.

Williams and McGaney were found guilty by a jury in Harris' death. Collins was found not guilty on the murder charges.

"We are pleased with the verdict," Harris' wife, Annette, said after the proceedings. "Although two of the defendants were considered to be guilty in Kenneth's murder, we still feel that justice was served.

"This will not bring him back," Harris said. "This is a message to the criminals of Baltimore City that they cannot just get away with murder."

Follow the developing story here. 

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake issued this statement:

Continue reading "Jurors in Harris trial return guilty verdicts" »

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Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

An update from The Sun's Nick Madigan:

Jurors considering the fate of three defendants in the Ken Harris murder trial today asked the judge a second set of questions.

In the first query, the 12 jurors asked to see the bullet recovered from Harris’ body and a bullet casing found elsewhere. Judge David Ross said they could, even though the bullet had been shown to them by a prosecutor during the trial. Circuit Court rules normally forbid juries from handling ammunition, weapons, drugs or drug paraphernalia while they deliberate, although they can examine anything else. If a judge makes an exception, as he did today, a sheriff will take the ammunition into the deliberation room and wait while the jury looks at it.

The jurors also wanted to know whether they could have a printed transcript of trial proceedings, but were told by the judge that no such transcript exists. If they had asked for a video recording of the trial they would have been in luck, since the entire proceeding was taped. But no specific request for the video was made, and the judge is not permitted to offer anything to jurors that they have not solicited.

Jurors must almost invariably rely on evidence presented during trial — and submitted to them after closing arguments — as well as on their memories of testimony and any notes they might have taken.

It was the third day of deliberations in the case against defendants Gary Collins, Charles McGaney and Jerome Williams, who face life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges against them.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

The Sun's Nick Madigan is covering the trial of the men charged with killing a former city councilman. Here's his latest update:

The jury considering the fate of three men accused of the murder of Kenneth N. Harris had two questions today — neither of which the judge answered.

In the first, jurors wondered how many guns had been used in the hold-up of the New Haven Lounge where Harris was shot two years ago, to which retired Baltimore Circuit Judge David Ross responded that the jury had to refer to the evidence at their disposal.

(Complete trial coverage can be found here.)

The second question was whether Jerome Williams, who was 15 at the time of the robbery, was holding a gun during the crime. The answer from the judge was the same. It is rare in criminal trials for a judge to answer a jury’s factual questions about evidence or testimony once deliberations have begun, since the phrasing of any answer could be interpreted as prejudicial to one side or another.

Juries are provided with every shred of evidence presented during trials by prosecution and defense, including, in the Harris case, bandanas, a mask and surgical gloves from which incriminating DNA evidence was obtained. The Harris jurors also have copies of surveillance videos — and still images lifted from them — captured of the shopping plaza that houses the Haven as well as the interior of the club before and during the hold-up in the early hours of Sept. 20, 2008.

There were no images of the shooting of Harris, but two of the robbers can be seen holding guns.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Williams, the man DNA evidence pinned as the wearer of the mask, was the likely shooter of the former councilman. In the video, the masked assailant joins his two accomplices inside the bar some moments after the pair have already burst in, suggesting that the masked man was busy with the shooting outside and that only when he was finished did he enter the club.

The jury’s questions came shortly before they wrapped up their second day of deliberations, which they began on Friday afternoon.

The defendants — Gary Collins and Charles McGaney, both 22, and Williams, 17 — face life in prison if convicted of the crimes. More than two dozen charges were filed against each.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Breaking news, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Kenneth Harris trial
        

An update from The Sun's Nick Madigan, covering the closing arguments in the trial of three men accused of killing former City Councilman Kenneth Harris:

Amid a swirl of conspiracy theories, lawyers for the defense and the prosecution wrapped up their closing arguments today in the trial of three men accused of killing Kenneth N. Harris, and the case went to the jury.

Janice Bledsoe, who represents defendant Gary Collins, tried in the last of the defense’s three closing statements to leave the impression that the robbery of the New Haven Lounge two years ago and the killing of Harris were committed by different people.

She said that, given the trajectory of the bullet as it passed through Harris’ body, it was impossible for the shooter to have stood at the driver’s window of the ex-councilman’s car, as a witness had testified earlier in the trial, and fired downward toward the victim as he sat behind the steering wheel.

The only explanation, therefore, was that Harris had been shot by someone other than one of the three robbers, she said, most likely a person positioned near the McDonald’s restaurant across the parking lot of the Northwood Shopping Center.

In his rebuttal, Assistant State’s Attorney Donald J. Giblin ridiculed Bledsoe’s theory, not least because a shell casing for the fatal bullet was found next to where the car had been parked.
“It would be the greatest pistol shot of all time,” Giblin said, referring to the possibility of a 9-millimeter bullet traveling at least 100 yards and hitting its target dead-on, in the dark, behind the closed window of a car.

Giblin said it was likely that Harris had been leaning forward to switch on the car’s ignition when he was shot, making it possible for the bullet to travel through his body as it did, entering his back under his left shoulder, piercing his left lung and windpipe and severing a major artery under his right shoulder.

The prosecutor said the defense lawyers had come up with “some outrageous things” to “divert the attention” of the jury from the facts of the case. “They’re just trying to muddy the waters,” he said.

Continue reading "Conspiracy theories swirl in closing arguments of Harris trial" »

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Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

From Sun reporter Nick Madigan, covering the trial of the three men accused of killing former City Councilman Kenneth Harris:

A prosecutor trying the case of three men accused of killing Kenneth N. Harris launched this morning into an impassioned assertion of the state’s case against them, and used every evidentiary weapon at her disposal to argue for their conviction.

The defendants came “locked and loaded” to commit a crime, Assistant State’s Attorney Cynthia M. Banks told the jury as she looked at the defendants, Gary Collins, Charles McGaney and Jerome Williams, sitting in the courtroom in downtown Baltimore.

Banks projected onto a screen an image from a slightly out-of-focus surveillance video that included the captioned names of the defendants with an arrow pointed at each of the men — Williams on the left, Collins in the middle and McGaney on the right — as, Banks said, they walked away from the camera shortly before the hold-up on Sept. 20, 2008.

The use of the defendants’ names on the screen prompted an immediate objection from Jerome Bivens, a lawyer who represents Williams. “Your honor, you need to see this,” Bivens said, referring to the fact that the screen, facing the jury, was out of the judge’s range of sight. After a conference at the bench, the judge, David Ross, allowed Banks to proceed.

She then showed an array of other images taken both outside and inside the New Haven Lounge, where the hold-up occurred, displaying for the jury a detailed timeline of what she said were the defendants’ actions during the robbery, again with names and arrows for each. The killing of Harris, a former Baltimore councilman who was shot as he tried to flee in his car, was not captured on video.

Continue reading "Prosecution in Harris trial lays out case in closing arguments, with photos, DNA charts" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

The latest from the trial of the accused killers of former City Councilman Kenneth Harris, from Sun reporter Nick Madigan:

Jurors will hear closing arguments Thursday in the trial against the three men accused of killing former Baltimore Councilman Kenneth N. Harris — if the case sticks to schedule.

After the prosecution rested its case — which involved testimony from dozens of witnesses since Sept. 13 — the defense put three witnesses on the stand, and may swear in one more on Thursday morning before closing statements begin.

In preparation for handing over their case to the jury, prosecutors elected to pursue first-degree felony murder charges against the defendants rather than first-degree murder. The latter would have required proving that the defendants planned to murder Harris before the hold-up occurred, a factor typically referred to as premeditation or “with intent.”

“From a layman’s perspective, it’s no different,” Joseph Sviatko, a spokesman for the Baltimore State's Attorney’s Office, said on Wednesday. “First-degree felony murder is still on the table, and the penalties for both charges are the same — life in prison. It’s not necessary for the state to prove that the defendants intended to kill the victim.”

Sviatko said that felony murder requires a lesser burden of proof than the premeditation charge. Prosecutors will explain to the jury that the law defines felony murder as a killing that took place while the defendants were in the act of committing another felony — in this case, an armed robbery.

The defendants are Charles McGaney, 22, Jerome Williams, 17, and Gary Collins, 22, who are accused of holding up a jazz club in a shopping center on Havenwood Road in Northeast Baltimore on Sept. 20, 2008. Harris, a married man who was spending the evening with another woman, was shot after he had stopped at the club to borrow a corkscrew and use the bathroom, according to testimony in the trial.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

An update from Sun reporter Nick Madigan, covering the trial of three men accused of killing former City Councilman Kenneth Harris:

Under a barrage by highly detailed scientific testimony, jurors in the Kenneth N. Harris murder trial had difficulty staying awake Monday during a long cross-examination of a DNA analyst.

Lawyers defending three men accused of the former Baltimore councilman’s murder two years ago unloaded a stream of questions at the state’s witness, Kelly Miller, a DNA analyst with the police department’s crime lab, who had pinpointed evidence at the crime scene as having come into contact with the defendants.

Such DNA evidence, which relies in large part on mathematical equations and probabilities, is almost invariably the most complicated of any criminal trial, and its complexity alone is usually enough to glaze the eyes of the average juror. Add to that the defense lawyers’ seemingly endless questions, some apparently designed to confuse more than to enlighten, and you have boredom of a high order.

Some of the jurors in Baltimore Circuit Court appeared to wither as the day wore on, heads nodding, eyes at half mast. Even the judge, David Ross, who is taking a break from retirement to oversee the trial, allowed himself to close his eyes on occasion, if only briefly.

Continue reading "Complex evidence glazes jurors’ eyes in Ken Harris murder trial" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

The Baltimore Sun's Nick Madigan has been covering the trial of the men charged with killing former city councilman Kenneth N. Harris. Here is the latest from the courtroom (complete coverage here):

Continue reading "Crime lab tech take stand in Harris trial" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

From Sun reporter Nick Madigan at the downtown courthouse:

As the Ken Harris murder trial reconvened today after a three-day break, defense attorneys resumed their verbal sparring with the state's witnesses and their questioning of virtually every iota of testimony and evidence, whether relevant to the actual crime or not.

Without saying it outright, the lawyers, who represent three men charged with the murder of the former Baltimore councilman, seem deeply immersed in the tried-and-true legal tactic of undermining the prosecution’s case at every turn, even when the questions might at first glance seem entirely innocuous.

One of this morning’s witnesses, for instance, was twice asked whether, as a forensic examiner for the Baltimore police, he had tried to find out the identity of a young woman seen in an ATM surveillance video captured near the scene of the crime shortly before it took place on Sept. 20, 2008, outside the New Haven Lounge, a jazz club in Northeast Baltimore.

The witness, Staccato Butler, conceded that he had not looked into her identity, explaining that he was not asked to do by detectives. “They told me they wanted stills from a certain time frame, and that’s what I gave them,” Butler said, referring to his having made a series of still pictures from surveillance tapes both inside and outside the club at the time of the fatal hold-up.

Continue reading "Harris trial resumes with defense peppering witnesses with questions" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

From Sun reporter Nick Madigan, who is at the city courthouse:

On the third day of testimony in the trial of three men accused of killing a former Baltimore councilman, defense attorneys seemed confident that none of the half-dozen witnesses who have testified so far has managed to pinpoint the defendants at the scene of the crime.

As the session broke for lunch today, two of the lawyers told reporters that some witnesses seemed  unsure of what they had seen on the night Kenneth N. Harris died, and that in some cases they contradicted each other.

"No one can identify anyone - even less than I thought," Jason Silverstein, an attorney for defendant Charles McGaney, said outside the courtroom. "And so far no one has identified any of the evidence that they got DNA from, except for the mask."

Continue reading "Defense attorneys in Harris trial say witnesses inconsistent" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

Sun reporter Nick Madigan's latest installment on the Harris trial (for full trial coverage and more stories on the Harris shooting):

A forensic pathologist who performed an autopsy on Kenneth N. Harris, the 45-year-old former Baltimore City Council member who was shot during a holdup two years ago, testified in court today that a single bullet had entered the victim’s back below his left shoulder, traversed his left lung and his windpipe, and ruptured the subclavian artery, a major blood vessel under his right collar bone, causing “significant bleeding in his chest cavity.”

Ling Li, an assistant medical examiner in the state coroner’s office in Baltimore, said that, as a result of the damage to the windpipe, or trachea, Harris had aspirated blood into his lungs.

The bullet that killed him was recovered from tissue under Harris’ right shoulder and shown Tuesday to the jury that is to decide the fate of three men accused of the former official’s murder.

As Li spoke, Harris’ sister, sitting in the courtroom’s third row, became upset and buried her face in her hands. 

Continue reading "Forensic pathologist takes stand at Harris murder trial, describes ex-councilman's injuries" »

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Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

Nick Madigan's latest installment on the Harris trial (for full trial coverage and more stories on the Harris shooting):

A jazz club owner who was with Kenneth N. Harris moments before the former Baltimore City Council member was shot to death said in court today that a gunman shouting profanities and threats approached them outside the club and that Harris immediately left the club owner’s side and headed for his car.

Keith A. Covington, who has run the New Haven Lounge in Northeast Baltimore since 1987 and became friendly with Harris about a decade ago, was the fourth witness to testify in the trial of three men accused of Harris’ murder on Sept. 20, 2008.

Covington told the jury that Harris had stopped by the club at about 1 a.m., after it had closed, to borrow a corkscrew for a bottle of wine and to use the restroom. Covington let Harris into the bar and opened the bottle for him. Then, he said, Harris told him he had a woman in his car he wanted Covington to meet and the two stepped outside.

At that moment, a gunman appeared from behind a column, his weapon pointed “directly at my forehead,” Covington said.

“ ‘You know what this is,’ ” the man with the gun shouted, according to the witness. “ ‘Get the **** back in the building before I kill you.’ ”

Harris, standing on Covington’s left, “broke off to get back to his car” as two other men approached. “One is running toward me,” Covington said, “and the other is running toward Ken.”
As he reached the door of the club, a gun pointed at the back of his head, “I hear a shot,” said Covington, who did not see anyone being hit. “I’m frightened for my life at this point like at no other time… I’m realizing this is no joke. This is nothing to be played with. I can only pay attention to the gunman’s demands. I can only feel that if my employees panic and run, they may be shot as well.”

Covington went on to describe the robbery inside the club, where six employees had been holding a staff meeting. Some were robbed, and about $2,000, the night’s proceeds, were taken from a safe that Covington was forced to open, he said.

As the three men ran out the building’s rear door, Covington grabbed a gun he kept in a drawer and fired three shots, prompting another expletive from one of the robbers.

Covington said he did not find out that Harris had been shot and killed until later, after police had been summoned. The former councilman was found in his car a short distance away. His companion, Monica Foreman-Robinson, testified on Monday, the trial’s first day.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Breaking news, Kenneth Harris trial
        

The Sun's Nick Madigan reports from the afternoon proceedings in the Ken Harris trial:

A 20-year-old former Morgan State University student testified today that blood was “flowing like water” from Kenneth N. Harris on the night the ex-Baltimore City Council member was shot two years ago.

“Where his feet were, it was like a puddle,” Jeron Whaley said as he described opening Harris’ car door and seeing the injured man sitting in the driver’s seat. The woman with Harris, he said, was “hysterical, screaming, crying, asking for help.”

Whaley was the second witness for the prosecution in the trial of Charles Y. McGaney, Gary A. Collins and Jerome Williams, who face first-degree murder charges and other counts in the death of the former city official, who was shot during a holdup at a jazz club in the Northwood Shopping Center on Sept. 20, 2008.

Continue reading "A student recalls the Harris crime scene; plus the mysterious man with a match" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

From Sun reporter Nick Madigan:

The woman who was with Kenneth N. Harris on the night he was killed said in court today that she was “terrified” when a man in a white Halloween mask walked up to the car they were sitting in and fired a shot at the former Baltimore City Councilman, showering them both with glass.

Monica Foreman-Robinson, whose identity was not publicly known until she took the stand at the start of the trial of three men accused of his murder, said the car shook as the bullet shattered the driver’s side window.

The witness, who said under questioning from a prosecutor that she had met the former city official a few months earlier at the bank they both used, said the gunman had been “really excited and really exaggerated” and was “screaming and yelling” at Harris to remain where he was and not leave in the car.

Continue reading "Woman who was with Harris speaks of his last moments" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

Defense attorneys for the three men accused of killing former City Councilman Ken Harris got their first chance to question the state's case, saying pressure to solve the high-profile shooting led police to overlook gaps in evidence.

"It was a grave tragedy when Mr. Harris was killed. We were all hurt," said defense attorney Jerome Bivens, who represents defendant Jerome Williams. "That hurt turned to anger... and that anger turned to contempt. Deep, deep contempt. Somebody had to pay - somebody had to be arrested whether they were guilty or not."

Bivens said police treated the case differently than they would the average killing, and that "when the government wants to charge you with a crime, they can charge you with a crime." He said he also plans to question the veracity of results from the city crime lab.

"Mr. Harris, who was a voice for youth, would not want you to convict the wrong person," Bivens said.

Continue reading "Defense attorneys raise questions over evidence in Harris trial" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Kenneth Harris trial
        

Over the strenuous objections of a defense lawyer, a Baltimore Circuit Court judge presiding over the trial of three men accused of killing former City Council member Kenneth N. Harris ruled this morning to admit DNA evidence that prosecutors say links one of the men to the crime, The Sun's Nick Madigan reports.

The judge, David Ross, listened to more than 90 minutes of arguments from both the defense attorney, Jason E. Silverstein, who represents defendant Charles McGaney, and a prosecutor, Cynthia M. Banks, before concluding that police detectives had not acted improperly when they sought a search warrant for the DNA evidence without telling the judge who granted it specifically which case the evidence was intended to support.

[For more Sun coverage of this case, click here]

McGaney, 22, and his co-defendants, Gary Collins, 22, and 17-year-old Jerome Williams are charged with first-degree murder, first-degree assault and various robbery and weapons counts in the killing of Harris, who was shot during a robbery outside a jazz club in a strip mall on Havenwood Road in Northeast Baltimore on Sept. 20, 2008. Harris had stopped at the club to borrow a corkscrew and use the bathroom.

In pre-trial motions today, the defense argued that DNA evidence that gave Baltimore police a key break in the investigation was obtained under questionable circumstances. At issue is whether detectives acted properly in obtaining McGaney's DNA through a warrant in an unrelated case.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Courts and the justice system, Kenneth Harris trial
        

Three young men accused in the fatal shooting of a former Baltimore city councilman are set to go on trial Monday.

Charles McGaney (seen at right) and Gary Collins, both 22, and 17-year-old Jerome Williams are charged in Harris' death. Williams was 15 at the time of the slaying but faces trial as an adult.

The three were linked to the crime in part through DNA  evidence. But defense attorneys accuse police of cutting corners in their investigation and obtaining DNA through false pretenses. They've filed motions seeking to have the evidence thrown out.

Arguments for that motion and others are expected to start today.  -AP

[Photo by The Sun's Jed Kirschbaum]

Posted by Justin Fenton at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Courts and the justice system, Kenneth Harris trial, Northeast Baltimore