Saturday, July 7, 2007

July 7

Sorry for the Sun-heavy post today; with the exception of the Harford hammer beater, you might as well just go read the Sun.

The body of Phyllis S. Johnson was found by her son in her home in the 1700 block of N. Broadway in Oliver. She had been stabbed and was lying in a pool of blood. Also in Oliver, the man whose body was found in a garbage bag behind a house in the 1500 block of N. Bond St. has been ID'd as 52-year-old Christopher M. Barrett.

An unidentified man was fatally shot in the head last night in the 1900 block of W. Lafayette Ave. Another man and a woman were also shot at the same time.

In Harford County, 17-year-old Andrew E. Bogris allegedly attacked another 17-year-old with a hammer after arguing over a girl.

Kelly Schreck was arrested after five dead dogs, four starving dogs, and four starving cats were found in her Glen Burnie house. She's being held on $800,000 bail, the highest amount ever for an animal cruelty case in AAC.

The BPD, Hopkins, and the people of Charles Village are all a bit freaked out about the attempted abduction of a 29-year-old JHU grad student.

Joseph C. Schultz was given $1.3M after getting shot in the face by an FBI agent in 2002.

Sheila D. fought to allow Charles Murel out of jail long enough to attend his son's funeral. His son was the 3-year-old boy who was hit by a car on June 30 on W. Lanvale St.

Friday, July 6, 2007

July 6

Police found the car that fatally struck Pedro Colon on Dundalk Ave. early Wednesday morning, but they haven't located the driver.

Two men in a black SUV tried to abduct a Hopkins student in the 100 block of W. 29th St. yesterday morning, but fled when she screamed and witnesses ran to help her.

More on the drive-by yesterday morning in a downtown parking garage.

Bryant Mitchell Johnson is wanted for a whole bunch of bank robberies.

Vandals targeted 15 cars and a house in Hamilton.

A push for $2M to recruit city cops is falling on deaf ears. Sheila D. says we're meeting our recruiting goals (despite having at least 140 unfilled positions), and we shouldn't use the city's "rainy day fund" for this. Meanwhile, there are a paltry 21,000 open city warrants (that's the conservative number) and 79 officers to work on them. (Baltimore Crime loves us some math: if each officer closes a measly 53 warrants per day, and no new crimes are committed, we'd have a clean slate in a week!)

Two more dismissals of BCFD fire commanders for negligence and incompetence.

Darryl E. Green got two consecutive life sentences plus 40 years for killing Vanessa and Bianca Price in 1992.

The Examiner has a homicide Q&A for HoCo State's Attorney Tim McCrone.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Cory Booker

There's an interesting article about Cory Booker and his first year as mayor of Newark, NJ, in the Newark Star-Ledger (June 24, 2007, "Booker redirects his anger at the war on drugs"). His words almost sound like Mayor Dixon's, but Booker claims he's willing to go to jail to make things change. Sitting in jail is a far cry from riding around on a garbage truck.

"I'm going to battle on this," the mayor says. "We're going to start doing it the gentlemanly way. And then we're going to do the civil disobedience way. Because this is absurd ... I'm talking about marches. I'm talking about sit-ins at the state capital. I'm talking about whatever it takes."

There's also a series of articles in the New York Times on Booker's first year as mayor. The most recent part of the series details dissent in Newark, some from supporters of former mayor Sharpe James, and some from people who feel Booker has broken campaign promises.

July 5

According to "Murder Ink," the death of Philip Airey (the man who was killed and stuffed in the trunk of a burning car) has been added to the city's murder toll because, "Maryland State Police contacted Baltimore police and told them that they had evidence that the murder actually occurred in a building in the 4800 block of Pennington Avenue in Curtis Bay, making it a Baltimore City homicide." There were also updates on several homicides, including several cases that were closed.

A man in West Baltimore got shot in the leg after he cut a cop's face.

An Essex woman who was partying in Fells Point was paralyzed after she was shot in the neck by some people with whom she and/or her friends were arguing. WBAL doesn't report what day the shooting occurred, but they do tell us that "police are looking for black men in connection with the shooting."

A man died yesterday after being the victim of a hit-and-run in Dundalk.

Two people were shot early this morning in a parking garage just west of the main library and north of Lexington Market.

An 18-year-old was arrested in Ellicott City after police found a bomb in his car.

Sumathi Reddy and John Fritze at the Sun profile a few of your City Council candidates, those of us who are brave/crazy/driven enough to want a job that "is far from glamorous, (and has) had less and less influence in recent decades over citywide problems such as crime and education. Like the Maryland General Assembly, the council has virtually no power over the budget, and many members spend significant effort on nonbinding resolutions."

Well, that narrows it down...

"witnesses said they heard a gun shot and found the victim slumped over ... Police are looking for black men in connection with the shooting."

(Thanks Jeffrey)

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

July 4

More on the murder of defense witness Carl Stanley Lackl, who was set to testify in the homicide trial of Patrick Byers that was scheduled to begin on July 10.

There are some reports in yesterday's comments about a murder in the 1100 block of Greenmount Ave. on Monday night, but I can't find anything about it.

Kevin Mark Warren has been identified as a suspect in the ice-cream-truck murder of 13-year-old Briona Jasmine Porter.

An inmate was stabbed at the Maryland Correctional Institute in Jessup last night.

A man with a gun was arrested at the second hole of the Longview Golf Course in Cockeysville.

Juvon Curtis Harris was arrested for fatally shooting Taavon Chambers in the parking lot of the Windsor Inn.

Jason Chen got 20 years for murdering his father with a steak knife in their Ellicott City home in 2005.

A robber in Frederick was arrested after calling one of his victims and demanding more money.

Operation Safe Streets East is trying to take back an East Baltimore neighborhood.
Dear readers, when posting the Mayorial poll, I inadvertently omitted the heir apparent.
The poll has been redone and you can vote again. Sorry for the oversight.
ps. yes I'm still in China, where Blogger is blocked ... one can create posts, but not view them. Please kiss the ground for me this July 4!

from Beijing Xinhua Domestic News Service:
"it is necessary to announce to the world the human rights violations in the United States ... In American society, excessive violence has resulted in ineffective protection of human life and personal safety."
"Indiscriminate arrests are [a] serious problem ... [in Baltimore in 2002,] Prosecutors declined to charge in 24 percent of the cases. Two-thirds of the cases they dropped were dropped on the day of arrest because they could not be proved in court."

"The Sun newspaper reported on 31 August 2002, the Baltimore City Detention Center has a poorly run system of health care and suicide prevention. In some cases, the problems resulted in jail suicides, heart attack deaths and fatal asthma spasms that federal authorities deemed preventable if the inmates had been properly treated."

"The United States has been releasing annually Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, censuring other countries for their human rights situations, but it has turned a blind eye to serious violations of human rights on its own soil."

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Carl Stanley Lackl

The man killed last night in the 8000 block of Philadelphia Rd. was Carl Stanley Lackl, a witness in the Baltimore homicide case against Patrick Byers. Lackl and Byers didn't know each other, and the State's Attorney's Office said Lackl had been a helpful witness. A 10-year-old girl witnessed Lackl's murder, and is probably scared s--tless, for a whole bunch of reasons that go way beyond the fact that no 10-year-old should have to witness a homicide.

No word yet from Sheila or Lenny. I really hope neither of them has the gumption to say it's a Baltimore County problem, not a city problem.

July 3

Lots of murder news in the city:
  • Two men were shot yesterday afternoon in the 2000 block of Guilford Ave. in Barclay, just up the street from the public school headquarters. 39-year-old Allen Burton died from his wounds at Shock Trauma shortly after the shooting.
  • 30-year-old Nathaniel Price was reported missing on Saturday; his body was found in the back of his 2007 Jeep yesterday in the 4900 block of Greencrest Rd. in the Northeastern.
  • The unidentified body found in a garbage bag behind a rowhouse in the 1500 block of Bond St. had a gunshot wound to the upper torso, and has been declared a homicide.
  • Davon Turner was the man who was murdered Sunday in the 800 block of N. Patterson Park Ave.
  • Gerald Smith was shot to death behind the wheel of his idling car in the 4800 block of Herring Run Dr.
  • Jewels Cook was the man whose body was found last week in the 2300 block of Cylburn Ave, near the Cylburn Arboretum.


Hey, all you Baltimore County people, you've got a few also:
  • A 38-year-old man was fatally shot in the 8000 block of Philadelphia Rd. in Rosedale last night at about 9:00. He was the 21st murder victim in the county this year.
  • 23-year-old Taavon Chambers was the man who was shot to death in the parking lot of the Windsor Inn in Woodlawn just after closing time on Monday morning (or Sunday morning, according to the Sun). Chambers was the nephew of a Baltimore County police officer, and did not appear to know his attacker.


13-year-old Briona Jasmine Porter died after being shot during a robbery attempt of her mother's new ice cream truck.

The family of murder victim and alleged rim stealer Joseph Johnson claims that he and Charles Brockington have had disputes in the past.

Luke Broadwater's monthly recap in the Examiner focuses on Marine reservist Michael Simms, and gives us a few fun facts: Every police district in the city has had at least nine murders; police have closed 48 of this year's 151 homicides; our population is apathetic towards violent crime; and a pastor on Edmonson Ave. is preaching on the street outside her church to try to stem the flow of blood.

David Lee Miller, the alleged murderer of Elizabeth Walters and their unborn child, will face first-degree murder charges for the fetus' death.

There were four shootings in two separate incidents in AAC over the weekend. (Actually, the article lists five victims, but the headline says four. Go figure.)

Fascinating evidence that MO'M and his zero-tolerance approach might not have been as effective as the former mayor claimed.

There's a good article on BPD foot patrols in the Sun that poses questions and observations like "Is it (the foot patrols) going to be sustained?" and "How this will prevent violent crime ... isn't readily apparent. But then, preventive measures rarely are dramatic or immediate."

Accusations of excessive force were made against officer James Wilder of the BPD for his behavior at the scene of an accident on 39th St. and N. Charles St.

Kenneth Pinckney was charged with first- and second-degree assault for stabbing a man who was talking to Pinckney's wife at the Deutsches Gasthaus in Aberdeen.

A porn shop in Aberdeen was burned on Sunday morning.

As of yesterday, felons who have completed their sentences can vote in Maryland.

Guardian Angels will begin training Edgewood residents within the next few weeks.

Someone stole a banner from a PFLAG booth at the Columbia City Fair last weekend.

Lawrence Williams stole Viagra from the military and sold it for his own profit.

Rats have infested the playground at the old Memorial Stadium site in Waverly. (Okay, so it's not a crime, but it's really gross.)

Monday, July 2, 2007

July 2

Charles Brockington, the man charged with second-degree murder for shooting rim-stealer Joseph Milton Johnson, will be held without bail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for 8:30AM July 26, 2007 in Wabash District Court, room six.

Three more murders between Saturday night and Sunday night, bringing our official tally to 157.

A man was killed in the parking lot of the Windsor Inn bar and restaurant in Woodlawn (Balto. County) just after closing time on Sunday morning.

A decomposing body was found in a garbage bag behind a rowhouse in the 1500 block of Bond St. The death is suspicious but has not been ruled a homicide. Also at the same link, a man was shot during a robbery at a house in Severna Park.

The hit-and-run driver who killed 10-year-old Kianna Johnson with a green station wagon on June 21 remains free and unidentified.

Hey Sheila, your voters are almost ready to pack up and leave. Maybe you should do something more meaningful than holding another f--king meeting.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

July 1

Charles Brockington was charged with second degree murder yesterday.
Charging documents allege that he killed Joseph Milton Johnson, Jr. 29, early Friday, June 29, when Brockington spotted Johnson removing tires from Brockington's 2006 Mercedes parked in front of his home. The documents further allege that in a ruse to return the tires and distract Brockington, Johnson returned to his car and drove away. While driving away, Johnson was struck in the left shoulder area by a 9MM gun fired by Brockington.

Damon Holmes got 40 years for killing Malian can driver Oumar Bah.

19-year-old Adrian Jones got nervous when he saw some cops, so he ran away then tried to shoot them.

With 155 murders at the year's halfway point, the Sun investigates the violence and the lack of outrage in the city. Meanwhile, WJZ has a story about a rally to stop the violence.

The Sun published Q&As with Hamm and Dixon.

Annapolis is having a rough time with crime, too.

Police are still searching for the two men who robbed an Edgewater Shell station last week.

Robberies and drug arrests in the Blotter.