Mobtown, my Mobtown

[Tonitrus]

And since it's Spring, time for the tradional Runnin' O' the Dazzling Urbanites, quickly followed by the Runnin' O' the Tourists.

Teen stabbed as police struggle to disburse crowd downtown

A teenager was stabbed as police struggled to disperse a large group of young people who converged downtown Monday evening, Baltimore police said.

The teenager, who was injured shortly before 10 p.m. near the intersection of Gay and Fayette Streets, was taken to a nearby hospital with non life-threatening injuries, said Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman. She did not know the victim's age or gender.

A least 100 teenagers roamed the streets near the Inner Harbor, City Hall, the Convention Center and the First Mariner Arena for more than two hours as police used megaphones to order them to leave.

About a dozen police cars and wagons, lights flashing, were parked along Calvert and Pratt streets. Police officers twirled espantoons and opened the wagon doors as they shooed the teens along.

The young people walked in large, boisterous groups and did not appear to be heading toward a destination. Asked why they had gathered downtown, one young person said, "It's the day after Easter."

Another explained, "It's spring break night."

It's become a yearly event in recent springs and summers;  the Dazzling Urbanites tweet and twitter to converge downtown at night, ramage through the Inner Harbor, suckerpunching tourists and snatching purses.  They pushed a poor Indian tourist into the Inner Harbor last year, who subsequently drowned, so I can't wait to see what they do to top that during Wilding 2011.

Do whites do such things too?

Alas, no.

They do, just in Fort Lauderdale or South Padre Island.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Is Marti trying on a new shtick to make himself even more repugnant?

Doesn't matter.  You'll forget it in a few days & call him "boo"

I don't think him and I have a particularly friendly relationship here on Languish.

?

to you

Everyone is to The Brain.

[jimmy olsen]

Podcast people make me sick.

What's wrong with podcasts?

[Neil]

Podcast people make me sick.

What's wrong with podcasts?

Weirdos and Martinuses love them.

[The Brain]

Podcast people make me sick.

What's wrong with podcasts?

They are gay.

[CountDeMoney]

Meanwhile, back at the villian's hideout

Suspect in McDonald's attack to face hate crime charge
Defense attorney says incident was "self-defense"

The 18-year-old woman charged in an attack on a transgender woman at a Rosedale McDonald's, which was captured on video that went viral on the Internet, will face an additional hate crime charge after being indicted Monday by a Baltimore County grand jury.

Activists for the gay, lesbian and transgender community had expressed concern that hate crime charges weren't initially filed by police last month, after Chrissy Lee Polis said she was assaulted in an apparent dispute over her using a woman's restroom.

On Monday, the activists called the new count in the indictment against Teonna Brown appropriate and necessary. A hate crime charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, which could be added to the 25-year maximum for the assault charge Brown already faces.

Prosecutors "came to the only possible conclusion in deciding to try the assault on Chrissy Lee Polis as a hate crime," said Lynne Bowman, the interim executive director of Equality Maryland. "Lack of understanding or fear about someone who is transgender is never an excuse for violence, and when it occurs, it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Sandy Rawls, who founded Trans-United, a Baltimore-based group that fights transgender discrimination, praised the work of police and prosecutors in the case but said the charge is not reason to celebrate.

"It's a tragedy for everybody involved," Rawls said. "It's a tragedy for the community, it's a tragedy for Chrissy and it's a tragedy for those" charged in the beating.

Brown's attorney, Timothy P. Knepp, declined to discuss the case in detail but said "anything that happened, happened in self-defense."

Brown is "a well-mannered, thoughtful young lady, and I firmly believe that when this case comes to trial, she'll be found not guilty," Knepp said. He said hate crime charges "certainly do not apply in this case."

Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger declined to comment on the indictment because the case is pending. A 15-year-old suspect remains charged as a juvenile.

The video, recorded and apparently posted to the Internet by a McDonald's employee, showed Polis being repeatedly kicked and struck in the head, then dragged by her hair across the floor, eventually having an apparent seizure as onlookers laughed.

Even before Polis acknowledged her sexual orientation, the video had garnered millions of views and prompted outrage for the sheer brutality and apparent lack of compassion from those watching and recording.

But the case has since turned a spotlight on the plight of transgender people, with thousands signing petitions as well as holding rallies. One activist writing in London's Guardian newspaper called the McDonald's attack the transgender community's Stonewall — equating what happened in Baltimore County with the 1969 riot outside a Greenwich Village gay bar that catapulted the quest for homosexual rights from a fringe effort into a national movement.

Attempts to add greater protections for transgender people have foundered in the Maryland legislature. Last month, delegates rejected an anti-discrimination measure that would have prevented employers, creditors and housing providers from discriminating against transgender people. A clause dealing with discrimination in public accommodations, which would have included places such as restaurants, was stripped out of the proposed law even before it went to a vote.

Hate crimes happen "all the time" to transgender people in all kinds of situations, said Mara Kiesling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, based in Washington.

A recent survey showed nearly 40 percent of the transgender community has been harassed while in a retail store and that 2 percent of them had been physically assaulted while in a restaurant or hotel.

"We should be upset in our society when that happens to any kind of person, but the truth is it does happen to transgender people more than other kinds of people," Kiesling said. ""Polis was not by any means an isolated event."

Polis, 23, told The Baltimore Sun on April 24 that the altercation was prompted by her using the women's bathroom. She also said the women accused her of "talking to [her] man." She said in that interview that the attack was "definitely a hate crime."

She could not be reached for comment Monday, but her attorney, William H. "Billy" Murphy, said Shellenberger made the right decision to seek additional charges.

"There is, we think, ample evidence to support his decision that this should be a hate crime," Murphy said. "If we continue to tolerate at any level this kind of criminal act against the transgender or gay and lesbian community, we are treating them with contempt, and we are not affording them the same empathy and dignity that all citizens in this country are entitled to."

He declined to say whether Polis planned to file a civil suit, saying that the criminal prosecution was the "first order of business."

Brown had been charged last year with attacking another woman at the same McDonald's. In that case, the victim said Brown accused her of "calling her ugly" and "kept trying to badger" her. The woman said Brown pushed her and eventually dragged her teenage daughter across the floor by her hair. Charges in that case were dropped when the victim said she no longer wanted to pursue the case.

In the April attack, Brown also faces second-degree assault charges for allegedly striking Vicki Thoms, a Good Samaritan, and Darrick Jones, a McDonald's manager, who tried to intervene.

Thoms declined to comment, saying the incident and its coverage has affected her "terribly."

"It's made me scared to go out of my house. I'm having post-traumatic stress syndrome" symptoms, Thoms said, her voice breaking. "I wish more people would have love in their hearts instead of hate."

Many who viewed the video wondered whether the employee who recorded the beating could be charged for failing to help, but Shellenberger said last month that Maryland law does not impose punishment on bystanders who fail to help a person being attacked.

Only people who are deemed to have aided and abetted a crime can be charged in such circumstances, he said. The employee was fired from the restaurant after the incident.

On Monday, McDonald's reiterated its earlier statement, saying that the fast-food chain is "doing everything possible to make sure the right thing is done." The company declined to comment further.

[garbon]

My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore.

[Malthus]

My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore.

Try not to make eye contact with any locals. 

[derspiess]

My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore.

Mine is sending me to Miami in a couple weeks. 

[HVC]

My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore.

Mine is sending me to Miami in a couple weeks. 

So he'll get shot by black people and you'll get stabbed by coked out cubans

[garbon]

My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore.

Mine is sending me to Miami in a couple weeks. 

Well I'm only doing it as they just realized that I should stop by the office (/meet 2 of my main clients) after my 3 day trip in DC.

[CountDeMoney]

My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore.

Mine is sending me to Miami in a couple weeks. 

So he'll get shot by black people and you'll get stabbed by coked out cubans

I hope he winds up in a hotel bathroom with a chain saw.  Now that's lulz right there.

[CountDeMoney]

Now this one's classic:  walk away from your work detail, and get shot like a motherfucker.

After walking off work detail, inmate is shot in argument
Victim, 33, near end of 15-year sentence

As Stanley Dunham neared the end of a 15-year sentence for attempted murder, prison officials had approved him for a work program that had him assisting in making deliveries around the region. Day after day for six months, he went out on his rounds, and each time returned to the facility.

But on Wednesday afternoon, officials say, the 33-year-old walked away from his supervisor at a Southwest Baltimore shopping center and got into an argument. He was shot twice, and was last reported in critical condition.

Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said inmates selected for work detail programs are typically nearing their release date and have earned their way into the program through good behavior. Dunham was not restrained with handcuffs or leg shackles, per protocols, Binetti said. He confirmed Thursday that the shooting victim was an inmate.

A law enforcement source said Dunham walked away when his supervisor went into a fast-food restaurant in the 2400 block of Frederick Ave. In his few moments of freedom, police say, Dunham apparently got into an argument with another person inside a Shoe City store.

Prison officials said the Division of Correction immediately notified police of the walk-off, and said police in turn notified them about the shooting. They said no one was able to positively identify the victim, who had been rushed into surgery, as the missing inmate until Thursday morning.

Binetti said Dunham had been involved in the program since December 2010, making deliveries with a Division of Correction employee.

Homicide detectives were investigating the case because of the severity of Dunham's injuries and were reviewing camera footage, according to Detective Kevin Brown, a police spokesman.

The prison system's internal investigative unit was working with Baltimore police, and officials said the exact circumstances of the walk-off and shooting were unknown.

[derspiess]

My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore.

Mine is sending me to Miami in a couple weeks. 

So he'll get shot by black people and you'll get stabbed by coked out cubans

Like I'd visit Miami unarmed

[Tonitrus]

Sex at 85 mph? Not your routine traffic case
Lawsuits after car crashes are beyond common. But a Virginia lawsuit about a freeway crash last year is dropping a few jaws as it makes the rounds and heads toward trial next week.

By Tom Jackman
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Lawsuits after car crashes are beyond common. But a Virginia lawsuit about a freeway crash last year is dropping a few jaws as it makes the rounds and heads toward trial next week. Among the latest allegations in the lawsuit pending in Fairfax County Circuit Court:

• Paragraph 10: "At the time of the collision, Defendant was going 85 miles per hour."

• Paragraph 12: "At the time of the collision, Defendant was having sex with a female."

• Paragraph 13: "At the time of the collision, Defendant was driving admittedly drunk."

• Paragraph 14: "At the time of the accident, Defendant was partially or totally in the backseat of the car."

85 miles per hour? The backseat? And what happened to paragraph 11?

Records show the defendant, from Woodbridge, Va., was convicted of drunken driving in May 2010. But he now denies he was driving. He was coming from his 21st birthday party in Baltimore, court records state. The woman involved has been dismissed from the case. Another person in the car denies driving as well.

The defendant's lawyer, Frank Prior, said there was "no statement by anyone that they were driving on the Beltway having sex" and "no facts on it." The plaintiff, a 28-year-old cabdriver, is seeking $75,000 in damages; his attorney Douglas Stevens declined to comment beyond his court filings.

But Stevens sought punitive damages against the defendant and the friend, arguing in a pleading that "having sex at 85 miles per hour while drunk on a freeway is willful and wanton negligence." A judge threw out the punitive-damages claim.