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Quoteomg this happened in my city in Baltimore Md in Rosedale and they said that the women was transgender this really makes us look bad...smh

QuoteBaltimore County McDonald's beating video goes viral
Gay advocacy group says attack on transgender woman a hate crime

A video of a vicious beating at a Baltimore County McDonald's  restaurant went viral Friday, garnering hundreds of thousands of views on websites and prompting the fast-food giant to issue a statement condemning the incident.

The video shows two women — one of them a 14-year-old girl — repeatedly kicking and punching the 22-year-old victim in the head, as an employee of the Rosedale restaurant and a patron try to intervene. Others can be heard laughing, and men are seen standing idly by.

Toward the end of the video, one of the suspects lands a punishing blow to the victim's head, and she appears to have a seizure. A man's voice tells the women to run because police are coming.

The three-minute clip was apparently first posted on YouTube, then taken down by administrators who said it violated the site's policies. But it popped back up on other sites and was ultimately linked from the popular Drudge Report, which gave it top billing for much of the day.

By early evening, the video had received more than 500,000 views on one site alone.

County police confirmed that the attack occurred April 18 in the 6300 block of Kenwood Ave. Police said the 14-year-old girl has been charged as a juvenile, while charges were pending against an 18-year-old woman.

Equality Maryland said the victim is a transgender woman and called on state Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler to step in and investigate the case as a hate crime. Police and prosecutors said they did not know whether the victim is a transgender woman.

"It does appear that the victim was a transgender woman, and she was brutalized while people stood by and watched," said Lisa Polyak, vice president of the board of directors for Equality Maryland, an advocacy organization that fought unsuccessfully in the past legislative session for greater protections for transgender individuals. "There's no excuse for that violence under any circumstances, but we would encourage police to investigate as a hate crime."

The police report does not provide a motive, but quotes one of the suspects saying that the fight was "over using a bathroom."

As the video spread online, McDonald's acknowledged that the attack had occurred in a Baltimore-area restaurant and said it was working with local police.

"We are shocked by the video from a Baltimore franchised restaurant showing an assault. This incident is unacceptable, disturbing and troubling," the company said in a statement posted on its website. "Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and employees in our restaurants. We are working with the franchisee and the local authorities to investigate this matter."

The video received widespread attention part because of the racial dynamics of the attack – the attackers were black, and the victim is white. State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, who said he was unaware of the gender-related issues, said the racial dynamics of the incident could result in hate-crime charges.

"We just received this case, and the Police Department is continuing their investigation," Shellenberger said. "If there is evidence that the crime was racially motivated, we will take a look at those charges and see if we meet those elements. We have the ability, if the facts are there, to upgrade the charges at a later date."

The victim suffered cuts to her mouth and face, and a police report said she had been taken to Franklin Square Hospital Center in fair condition. Police said Friday they had no update on her status.

The video begins with two women near a bathroom door kicking and hitting a woman who is lying on the ground.

An employee repeatedly tries to separate them, but the attackers continue to stomp and kick the victim's head. People yell, "Stop! Stop!" to no avail, though others can be heard laughing. An older woman at one point also attempts to pull the attackers away and is shoved.

About halfway through the three-minute clip, the attackers rip a wig off the victim and drag her by her hair to the front door. That is where the victim is sitting before another blow to the head causes an apparent seizure.

Throughout the attack, a man is filming and does not intervene. But when the victim appears to have a seizure, he yells, "She having a seizure, yo. ... Police on their way. Y'all better get out of here."

Through a McDonald's spokesman, the owner of the Rosedale restaurant released a statement. The chain said the owner and employees would not be made available for comment, including an update on possible discipline of the employees.

"I'm as shocked and disturbed by this incident as anyone would be. The behavior displayed in the video is unfathomable and reprehensible," said the franchise owner, Mitchell McPherson. "The safety of our customers is a top priority. We know the police were called immediately, and we are thoroughly investigating this matter."

Quote from: Razgovory on April 23, 2011, 09:25:06 AM
That was unpleasant.

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 09:40:29 AM
I can never remember what the convention is for crossdressers.  Is a transgendered woman actually a man or a woman?

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 09:40:29 AM
I can never remember what the convention is for crossdressers.  Is a transgendered woman actually a man or a woman?

Quote from: DontSayBanana on April 23, 2011, 10:05:00 AM

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 09:40:29 AM
I can never remember what the convention is for crossdressers.  Is a transgendered woman actually a man or a woman?

Transvestite is a crossdresser.  Transsexual (usually) has had the operation; transgender is "identifies as" woman, so could be pre-op, post-op, or no-op.  "She" for all intents and purposes, though.

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Quote from: Ed Anger on April 23, 2011, 06:52:10 AM
I still think the beating of the good samaritan with a shoe tops it.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/stiletto-heel-attack-suspect-arrested-woman-allegedly-beat-man-trying-to-help-1135063.html?cxtype=rss_local-news

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 10:33:36 AM

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Yeah.  Instead of being beaten a little, the guy would be dead.

Quote
When you're wounded and left in Mobtown's McD's,
And the women come out to cut up the transVs,
Jest roll to your pistol; give the trigger a squeeze
An' go to your Gawd like a trannie.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 23, 2011, 11:16:20 AM
I suspect that a 5th Degree Felony, as all Felonies carry the risk of at least a year of prison time.  That is sort of the definition of a Felony.  At least in the US.

QuoteDefendants convicted of a fifth degree felony are given a prison sentence if the crime involves a weapon or is carried out by a person who has served prison time previously. Other factors requiring a prison sentence include any offense committed by an organized crime syndicate, a sex offense or a crime committed by a person in a public office or position of trust, such as a school teacher or parent. If the defendant does not fall under any factors requiring prison, the judge may require a sentence of community service or probation.

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Quote from: grumbler on April 23, 2011, 11:20:53 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 23, 2011, 11:16:20 AM
I suspect that a 5th Degree Felony, as all Felonies carry the risk of at least a year of prison time.  That is sort of the definition of a Felony.  At least in the US.

You suspect poorly.  That is sort of the definition of a Raz suspicion.  At least on Languish.

QuoteDefendants convicted of a fifth degree felony are given a prison sentence if the crime involves a weapon or is carried out by a person who has served prison time previously. Other factors requiring a prison sentence include any offense committed by an organized crime syndicate, a sex offense or a crime committed by a person in a public office or position of trust, such as a school teacher or parent. If the defendant does not fall under any factors requiring prison, the judge may require a sentence of community service or probation.

http://www.ehow.com/about_6385226_class-5-felony-ohio_.html

Quote from: grumbler on April 23, 2011, 11:16:49 AM

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 10:33:36 AM

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Yeah.  Instead of being beaten a little, the guy would be dead.

On the plus side, six of his attackers would be, as well.  Well, five if he was smart...

Quote
When you're wounded and left in Mobtown's McD's,
And the women come out to cut up the transVs,
Jest roll to your pistol; give the trigger a squeeze
An' go to your Gawd like a trannie.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 23, 2011, 11:33:28 AM
You did not prove my statement incorrect as committing a Fifth Degree Felony does in fact carry the risk of a year in prison under certain circumstances.

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 12:26:35 PM
Or, as is more likely, one of her attackers might be wounded, and some six-year old girl who was going to the counter for an ice cream would be dead.

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 10:33:36 AM

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Yeah.  Instead of being beaten a little, the guy would be dead.

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 12:26:35 PMOr, as is more likely, one of her attackers might be wounded, and some six-year old girl who was going to the counter for an ice cream would be dead.

Quote from: Slargos on April 23, 2011, 08:42:25 AM
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/04/21/dad-who-split-up-fight-in-mcdonald-s-shot-dead-115875-23075797/#ixzz1KJ30507k

Of course, this is not isolated.

These are the victims of your blind adherence to the cult of diversity.

Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on April 23, 2011, 02:58:11 PM
Good thing the police didn't show up, otherwise they could have been shot too. :(

Quote from: C.C.R. on April 23, 2011, 03:58:45 PM

Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on April 23, 2011, 02:58:11 PM
Good thing the police didn't show up, otherwise they could have been shot too. :(

Or tazed somebody...

Quote from: grumbler on April 23, 2011, 01:21:14 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 23, 2011, 11:33:28 AM
You did not prove my statement incorrect as committing a Fifth Degree Felony does in fact carry the risk of a year in prison under certain circumstances.

You argue as poorly as you assume; the statement to which you responded with your misunderstanding of how a fifth degree felony is defined was my statement about a specific circumstance, not some circumstance that you can just make up.  I am not interested in, nor do I have the time for, correcting all the things you know are true but which are not (as in your bogus definition of a felony, which applies to Federal law, not applicable here).

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 23, 2011, 04:48:02 PM

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Meh, that would be a bad thing.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 23, 2011, 04:51:15 PM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 23, 2011, 04:48:02 PM

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Meh, that would be a bad thing.

Well, it could have been like New Mexico where they do have a conceal and carry law.  When some crazy guy tried to assassinate the Democratic congresswoman civic minded citizens stopped him with their own firearms.  If it hadn't been a conceal and carry state that Loughner fellow could have caused some  serious damage.

QuoteVictim of McDonald's beating speaks out
Transgender woman calls attack 'hate crime,' has been afraid to be seen in public

A transgender woman beaten at a Baltimore County McDonald's  spoke out on Saturday, saying that the attack was "definitely a hate crime" and that she's been afraid to go out in public ever since.

"They said, 'That's a dude, that's a dude and she's in the female bathroom,' " said Chrissy Lee Polis, 22, who said she stopped at the Rosedale restaurant to use the restroom. "They spit in my face."

A worker at the restaurant taped Monday's attack and created a graphic video that went viral last week. After the video garnered hundreds of thousands of views on websites, McDonald's issued a statement condemning the incident, and on Saturday the worker who taped the incident was fired.

The video shows two females — one of them a 14-year-old girl — repeatedly kicking and punching Polis in the head as an employee and a patron try to intervene. Others can be heard laughing, and men are seen standing idly by.

Toward the end of the video, one of the suspects lands a punishing blow to the victim's head, and Polis appears to have a seizure. A man's voice tells the women to run because police are coming.

"I knew they were taping me; I told the guy to stop," said Polis, a resident of Baltimore. "They didn't help me. They didn't do nothing for me."

County police confirmed that the attack occurred April 18 in the 6300 block of Kenwood Ave. Police said the 14-year-old girl has been charged as a juvenile, while charges were pending against an 18-year-old woman. Reached Saturday, police officials said the investigation was continuing.

The police report does not provide a motive but quotes one of the suspects saying that the fight was "over using a bathroom."

Polis suffered cuts to her mouth and face, and said she had a seizure. She also acknowledged that she was intoxicated at the time of the assault.

On Saturday she said she continued to suffer from painful bruises.

Polis, who said she had a sex-change operation to become a woman, said this isn't the first time that she's been picked on physically because of her sexual identity. She said she's been subjected to beatings and even sexual assaults.

She said seeing herself all over the Internet and all over the news has been "like walking out of the closet all over again." Polis is concerned that the public attention could trigger more violence — and worries it could hurt her chances of getting a job. "I want to cry, but I need to hold my head up," she said.

Her twin brother, Matty Polis, who also lives in Baltimore, said it's been painful to watch her have to endure these sorts of attacks.

"My sister has gotten this her entire life," Matty Polis said. "Being the way she is, she's always had a hard time."

Polis, who was raised by her grandmother in Dundalk and Essex, graduated from Chesapeake High and hasn't had a job or stable place to stay for the past two years, according to her mother, Angela Thomas.

Polis, who is white, believes race may have also been a factor in her attack— both the assailants were black, according to the police report.

Equality Maryland has called on state Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler to step in and investigate the case as a hate crime.

"As a community we remain horrified that transgender citizens are so vulnerable that they can be brutalized ... for simply walking down the street," said Lisa Polyak, vice president of the board of directors for Equality Maryland. "She was simply trying to use a public accommodation. People should not feel threatened when they exist in public space."

Polyak added, "This is why we need a statewide law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression." The advocacy group has fought repeatedly to have such a law passed by Maryland's General Assembly.

Scott Shellenberger, the state's attorney for Baltimore County, said his office has not yet received the file and has not interviewed the victim because the charges were filed late in the week. He said his office will likely interview the victim in the next week and a half and gather additional evidence to determine if the attack was a hate crime.

"When the case was first presented, none of those facts had been revealed to the police — which is why the charges were the way they were," Shellenberger said. "We can certainly revisit the motive for the attack and determine if we need to make additional charges."

The three-minute video clip was apparently first posted on YouTube, then taken down by administrators who said it violated the site's policies. But it popped back up on other sites and was ultimately linked from the Drudge Report, which gave it top billing for much of the day Friday.

The video begins with two women near a bathroom door kicking and hitting a woman who is lying on the ground.

An employee repeatedly tries to separate them, but the attackers continue to stomp and kick the victim in the head. People yell, "Stop! Stop!" to no avail, though others can be heard laughing. An older woman at one point also attempts to pull the attackers away and is shoved.

About halfway through the clip, the attackers drag Polis by her hair to the front door. That is where the victim is sitting before another blow to the head causes an apparent seizure.

Throughout the attack, a man is filming and does not intervene. But when the victim appears to have a seizure, he yells, "She having a seizure, yo. ... Police on their way. Y'all better get out of here."

The owner of the Rosedale McDonald's announced Saturday afternoon that the employee who taped the beating had been fired.

"My first and foremost concern is with the victim," franchise owner Mitchell McPherson said in a statement, adding that action might be taken against other restaurant workers as well. "I'm as shocked and disturbed by this assault as anyone would be. The behavior displayed in the video is unfathomable and reprehensible."

Polis said she plans to take legal action against the restaurant.

"Anyone in my predicament should not be afraid to walk the streets," Polis said. "They should not have to go into a restaurant and get gawked at and made fun of. They shouldn't be afraid to leave the house. It's just wrong."

Quote from: Martinus on April 24, 2011, 03:30:09 AM
Are blacks in America worse than whites, when it comes to criminal behaviour, or is the equivalent of "urban blacks" found among "rural whites"?

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 02:52:27 PM

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 12:26:35 PMOr, as is more likely, one of her attackers might be wounded, and some six-year old girl who was going to the counter for an ice cream would be dead.

There's hundreds of examples of the exact opposite happening; meanwhile, you have only speculation on what "might" have happened, without a single shred of evidence.

Quote from: grumbler on April 23, 2011, 01:23:41 PM

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 12:26:35 PM
Or, as is more likely, one of her attackers might be wounded, and some six-year old girl who was going to the counter for an ice cream would be dead.

I bow to your superior familiarity with transvestites and their weapons skills.  :bowler:

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 02:50:34 PM

Quote from: Neil on April 23, 2011, 10:33:36 AM

Quote from: JonasSalk on April 23, 2011, 10:25:42 AM
Boy, it's a good thing CDM is against being able to carry a gun or this girl would have really caused some trouble and been able to defend herself.

Yeah.  Instead of being beaten a little, the guy would be dead.

Guy?

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 23, 2011, 11:37:50 PM
Polis said she plans to take legal action against the restaurant.

Quote from: DontSayBanana on April 24, 2011, 09:13:47 AM

Quote from: Martinus on April 24, 2011, 03:30:09 AM
Are blacks in America worse than whites, when it comes to criminal behaviour, or is the equivalent of "urban blacks" found among "rural whites"?

Trash is trash, Marty.  Color's got nothing to do with it.

Quote from: garbon on April 24, 2011, 08:47:19 AM
Let's say you delete that and we give you a pass, Mart, because today is easter, m'kay?

Quote from: Martinus on April 24, 2011, 05:08:59 PM
CdM's post (as his previous ones) seem to imply this is a race issue. On what basis do you make this statement?

Quote from: Martinus on April 24, 2011, 05:09:44 PM
Are you questioning that blacks in America are over-represented in criminal statistics?

Quote from: Martinus on April 24, 2011, 05:09:44 PM

Quote from: garbon on April 24, 2011, 08:47:19 AM
Let's say you delete that and we give you a pass, Mart, because today is easter, m'kay?

Are you questioning that blacks in America are over-represented in criminal statistics?

Quote from: grumbler on April 24, 2011, 08:01:37 PM

Quote from: Martinus on April 24, 2011, 05:09:44 PM
Are you questioning that blacks in America are over-represented in criminal statistics?

Are you questioning the findings that, circumstances aside, "blacks" are no more likely to commit crimes than non-"blacks?"

Quote from: LaCroix on April 25, 2011, 03:20:42 AM
how would you know how deep they go?

Quote from: LaCroix on April 25, 2011, 03:20:42 AM
how would you know how deep they go?

Quote from: Neil on April 24, 2011, 08:35:23 PM
Oh look.  Grumbler is trying his 'there's no such thing as race!' line.  That's so cute.

Quote from: Zoupa on April 25, 2011, 02:37:47 AM
Oh grumbler. You have too much time on your hands old man.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 25, 2011, 09:32:01 AM
Which part did you find insulting Grumbler?  Where he called you "old" or a "man".

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 09:51:54 AM
Obviously the man/woman cut in line. Lines are serious business to blacks.

Quote from: Slargos on April 25, 2011, 09:53:15 AM

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 09:51:54 AM
Obviously the man/woman cut in line. Lines are serious business to blacks.

Are you saying there's a racial component to the consideration of queueing?

Quote from: Slargos on April 25, 2011, 09:53:15 AM

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 09:51:54 AM
Obviously the man/woman cut in line. Lines are serious business to blacks.

Are you saying there's a racial component to the consideration of queueing?

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 09:51:54 AM
Obviously the man/woman cut in line. Lines are serious business to blacks.

Quote from: Slargos on April 25, 2011, 09:44:32 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 25, 2011, 09:32:01 AM
Which part did you find insulting Grumbler?  Where he called you "old" or a "man".

Technically only the "too much time" part is an ad hom so I would expect it's that.

But then, sometimes I wonder if grumbler even knows what ad hominem means.

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:25:25 AM

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 09:51:54 AM
Obviously the man/woman cut in line. Lines are serious business to blacks.

Interesting, I never see anyone line up at the bus stop at 14th st near 3rd avenue...and there are lots of black people that wait there.

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:25:25 AM
Interesting, I never see anyone line up at the bus stop at 14th st near 3rd avenue...and there are lots of black people that wait there.

Quote from: Valmy on April 25, 2011, 10:38:12 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:25:25 AM
Interesting, I never see anyone line up at the bus stop at 14th st near 3rd avenue...and there are lots of black people that wait there.

Maybe they are Latinos in black face.

Quote from: The Brain on April 25, 2011, 10:27:04 AM

Quote from: Slargos on April 25, 2011, 09:44:32 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 25, 2011, 09:32:01 AM
Which part did you find insulting Grumbler?  Where he called you "old" or a "man".

Technically only the "too much time" part is an ad hom so I would expect it's that.

But then, sometimes I wonder if grumbler even knows what ad hominem means.

Ad hominim. :contract:

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:52:18 AM

Quote from: Valmy on April 25, 2011, 10:38:12 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:25:25 AM
Interesting, I never see anyone line up at the bus stop at 14th st near 3rd avenue...and there are lots of black people that wait there.

Maybe they are Latinos in black face.

Yeah, although I'd bet what's more likely that Zeus is a tool - which is probably why we are hostile to new posters (from other place or lurkers). :(

Quote from: Razgovory on April 25, 2011, 09:32:01 AM
Which part did you find insulting Grumbler?  Where he called you "old" or a "man".

Quote from: grumbler on April 25, 2011, 11:01:42 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 25, 2011, 09:32:01 AM
Which part did you find insulting Grumbler?  Where he called you "old" or a "man".

I didn't find any of it insulting Grumbler.

Quote from: Neil on April 24, 2011, 08:35:23 PM
Oh look.  Grumbler is trying his 'there's no such thing as race!' line.  That's so cute.

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:52:18 AM

Quote from: Valmy on April 25, 2011, 10:38:12 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:25:25 AM
Interesting, I never see anyone line up at the bus stop at 14th st near 3rd avenue...and there are lots of black people that wait there.

Maybe they are Latinos in black face.

Yeah, although I'd bet what's more likely that Zeus is a tool - which is probably why we are hostile to new posters (from other place or lurkers). :(

Quote from: Neil on April 24, 2011, 08:35:23 PM'there's no such thing as race!' line.  That's so cute.

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 12:29:40 PM

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:52:18 AM

Quote from: Valmy on April 25, 2011, 10:38:12 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 10:25:25 AM
Interesting, I never see anyone line up at the bus stop at 14th st near 3rd avenue...and there are lots of black people that wait there.

Maybe they are Latinos in black face.

Yeah, although I'd bet what's more likely that Zeus is a tool - which is probably why we are hostile to new posters (from other place or lurkers). :(

What's your definition of a tool?

QuoteA person, typically male, who says or does things that cause you to give them a 'what-are-you-even-doing-here' look. The 'what-are-you-even-doing-here' look is classified by a glare in the tool's direction and is usually accompanied by muttering of how big of a tool they are. The tool is usually someone who is unwelcome but no one has the balls to tell them to get lost. The tool is alwasys making comments that are out-of-place, out-of-line or just plain stupid. The tool is always trying too hard to fit in, and because of this, never will. However, the tool is useful because you can use them for things; money, rides, ect.

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 03:37:12 PM
Cause most people can't handle the dickery?

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 03:37:12 PM
Cause most people can't handle the dickery?

Quote from: Razgovory on April 23, 2011, 11:16:20 AM
I suspect that a 5th Degree Felony, as all Felonies carry the risk of at least a year of prison time.  That is sort of the definition of a Felony.  At least in the US.

Quote from: garbon on April 25, 2011, 03:49:00 PM

Quote from: Zeus on April 25, 2011, 03:37:12 PM
Cause most people can't handle the dickery?

Actually I think new people struggle with the notion that they aren't expected to join in swinging from day 1.  It's sort of like this new person in my office. We all rag on one another, but it still doesn't quite work out for her to be ragging on one of the higher ups on day 3. Needs to prove her chops and all that.

QuoteTeen 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."

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 26, 2011, 06:54:15 AM
And since it's Spring, time for the tradional Runnin' O' the Dazzling Urbanites, quickly followed by the Runnin' O' the Tourists.

QuoteTeen 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.

QuoteIndian tourist

Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2011, 08:02:27 AM
A tourist should know better than to go somewhere with blacks.

Quote from: Slargos on April 26, 2011, 08:12:06 AM
There was a Nigerian working the corner of my first hotel in Bangkok. Claimed to be a Liberian diamond trader, but I can spot a Nigerian jungle-monkey when I see one. I moved out the day after. Filthy race, the Nigerians.

Quote from: grumbler on April 26, 2011, 08:37:47 AM

Quote from: Slargos on April 26, 2011, 08:12:06 AM
There was a Nigerian working the corner of my first hotel in Bangkok. Claimed to be a Liberian diamond trader, but I can spot a Nigerian jungle-monkey when I see one. I moved out the day after. Filthy race, the Nigerians.

I thought you were getting a new schtick because even you saw how lame and worn out this one was.  I thought that that was a good idea, and encouraged you to spend your effort developing the new schtick rather than posting using the fail schtick.  I still think this a terrific idea, and look forward to tolerating your silence for a week or so in the name of the new schtick.

Quote from: Slargos on April 26, 2011, 08:47:53 AM
I wouldn't want to inconvenience you, so I decided to just run with it.  :hug:

Quote from: grumbler on April 26, 2011, 08:37:47 AM

Quote from: Slargos on April 26, 2011, 08:12:06 AM
There was a Nigerian working the corner of my first hotel in Bangkok. Claimed to be a Liberian diamond trader, but I can spot a Nigerian jungle-monkey when I see one. I moved out the day after. Filthy race, the Nigerians.

I thought you were getting a new schtick because even you saw how lame and worn out this one was.  I thought that that was a good idea, and encouraged you to spend your effort developing the new schtick rather than posting using the fail schtick.  I still think this a terrific idea, and look forward to tolerating your silence for a week or so in the name of the new schtick.

Quote from: katmai on April 27, 2011, 06:25:35 AM
Still better than the Irish.

Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2011, 08:02:27 AM
A tourist should know better than to go somewhere with blacks.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 26, 2011, 06:54:15 AM
And since it's Spring, time for the tradional Runnin' O' the Dazzling Urbanites, quickly followed by the Runnin' O' the Tourists.

QuoteTeen 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.

Quote from: Martinus on April 27, 2011, 06:53:40 AM

Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2011, 08:02:27 AM
A tourist should know better than to go somewhere with blacks.

Well, true. When I moved to Brussels, the first thing I was told is not to go into the black areas.

Quote from: Martinus on April 27, 2011, 06:54:49 AM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 26, 2011, 06:54:15 AM
And since it's Spring, time for the tradional Runnin' O' the Dazzling Urbanites, quickly followed by the Runnin' O' the Tourists.

QuoteTeen 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?

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 27, 2011, 06:56:31 AM

Quote from: Martinus on April 27, 2011, 06:54:49 AM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 26, 2011, 06:54:15 AM
And since it's Spring, time for the tradional Runnin' O' the Dazzling Urbanites, quickly followed by the Runnin' O' the Tourists.

QuoteTeen 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.

Quote from: Martinus on April 27, 2011, 06:57:06 AMBut it is not a race thing either? So what is it?

Quote from: LaCroix on April 27, 2011, 07:37:22 AM

Quote from: Martinus on April 27, 2011, 06:57:06 AMBut it is not a race thing either? So what is it?

it is just one of those things. like how poles shoveled their neighbor-jew into the oven while the good nordic folk did what they could to save theirs. sometimes unbearable standards of living turn potentially decent people into nasty subhuman freaks regardless of "race"

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
Is Marti trying on a new shtick to make himself even more repugnant?

Quote from: Slargos on April 27, 2011, 07:39:18 AMInteresting. Was the Swedish living standard substantially higher than the Polish at the time?

Quote from: LaCroix on April 27, 2011, 07:43:16 AM

Quote from: Slargos on April 27, 2011, 07:39:18 AMInteresting. Was the Swedish living standard substantially higher than the Polish at the time?

are we talking just physically or can we include culture and national mindset?  :P

Quote from: HVC on April 27, 2011, 07:39:46 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
Is Marti trying on a new shtick to make himself even more repugnant?

probably read somewhere that black people hate gays :lol:

Quote from: Ed Anger on April 27, 2011, 07:51:35 AM

Quote from: HVC on April 27, 2011, 07:39:46 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
Is Marti trying on a new shtick to make himself even more repugnant?

probably read somewhere that black people hate gays :lol:

He's blabbered about Reggae and their dislike of the semen demons.

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
Is Marti trying on a new shtick to make himself even more repugnant?

Quote from: katmai on April 27, 2011, 06:25:35 AM
Still better than the Irish.

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
Is Marti trying on a new shtick to make himself even more repugnant?

Quote from: derspiess on April 27, 2011, 01:57:11 PM

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
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" :mellow:

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 03:15:19 PM

Quote from: derspiess on April 27, 2011, 01:57:11 PM

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
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" :mellow:

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

Quote from: The Brain on April 27, 2011, 03:22:56 PM

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 03:15:19 PM

Quote from: derspiess on April 27, 2011, 01:57:11 PM

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
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" :mellow:

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

:perv: ?

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 27, 2011, 06:56:31 AM

Quote from: Martinus on April 27, 2011, 06:54:49 AM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 26, 2011, 06:54:15 AM
And since it's Spring, time for the tradional Runnin' O' the Dazzling Urbanites, quickly followed by the Runnin' O' the Tourists.

QuoteTeen 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.

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 03:26:35 PM

Quote from: The Brain on April 27, 2011, 03:22:56 PM

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 03:15:19 PM

Quote from: derspiess on April 27, 2011, 01:57:11 PM

Quote from: garbon on April 27, 2011, 07:32:17 AM
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" :mellow:

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

:perv: ?

:boff: to you

Quote from: The Brain on April 27, 2011, 09:17:02 AM
Podcast people make me sick.

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 27, 2011, 10:04:36 PM

Quote from: The Brain on April 27, 2011, 09:17:02 AM
Podcast people make me sick.

What's wrong with podcasts? :unsure:

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 27, 2011, 10:04:36 PM

Quote from: The Brain on April 27, 2011, 09:17:02 AM
Podcast people make me sick.

What's wrong with podcasts? :unsure:

QuoteSuspect 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.

Quote from: garbon on May 19, 2011, 10:26:52 AM
My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore. :ph34r:

Quote from: garbon on May 19, 2011, 10:26:52 AM
My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore. :ph34r:

Quote from: derspiess on May 19, 2011, 10:56:58 AM

Quote from: garbon on May 19, 2011, 10:26:52 AM
My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore. :ph34r:

:nelson:

Mine is sending me to Miami in a couple weeks. 

Quote from: derspiess on May 19, 2011, 10:56:58 AM

Quote from: garbon on May 19, 2011, 10:26:52 AM
My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore. :ph34r:

:nelson:

Mine is sending me to Miami in a couple weeks. 

Quote from: HVC on May 19, 2011, 11:12:36 AM

Quote from: derspiess on May 19, 2011, 10:56:58 AM

Quote from: garbon on May 19, 2011, 10:26:52 AM
My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore. :ph34r:

:nelson:

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 :P

QuoteAfter 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.

Quote from: HVC on May 19, 2011, 11:12:36 AM

Quote from: derspiess on May 19, 2011, 10:56:58 AM

Quote from: garbon on May 19, 2011, 10:26:52 AM
My work is sending me on a trip to Baltimore. :ph34r:

:nelson:

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 :P

QuoteSex 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.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 20, 2011, 01:12:54 AM
Get that Virginia shit out of my Maryland thread, dammit.

QuoteA police officer was attacked by a rat while riding to a crime scene in a patrol car earlier this week.

Baltimore police confirmed that the officer was riding in the passenger seat of an unmarked patrol car Wednesday while cruising down Hanover Street when he felt something on the back of his neck.

The officer swiped at his neck and discovered the big rodent crawling up his back, police said. The rat bit his palm and thumb before the officer was able to throw it out of the car window.

Police said the officer's partner rushed him to Harbor Hospital, where they were told they had to retrieve the rat to test it for diseases.

The officer said he and his partner went back to where they threw the rat out, found it limping along the road and, after a small struggle, one of the officers beat the rat to death with an umbrella and bagged it.

The officer who was bitten is on leave waiting to see if the rat is diseased.

Police said it's believed that the rat crawled up through the car's underbelly and bit apart some wires before it crawled into the back seat.

QuoteMan stabbed to death, child shot in Inner Harbor after fireworks

Violence erupted in separate locations of the Inner Harbor  Monday night despite a heavy police presence for the holiday, with a child shot in the leg and a man fatally stabbed shortly after the fireworks ended.

They marked the second and third violent events downtown Monday — a significant disappointment for the city Police Department, which had coordinated an elaborate July Fourth safety plan that involved several hundred state and city officers patrolling Baltimore's streets, monitoring surveillance cameras and tracking one another via GPS signals.

Earlier in the day, a man in his 20s was shot twice inside a parking garage around 2 a.m. after a long-running feud was reignited. He survived the attack.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III  held a news conference Monday evening to quell fears that the downtown area was dangerous, telling reporters that arrests were imminent in the morning incident and that he believed there were "sufficient resources" in place to secure the Inner Harbor for the Independence Day celebration.

"Several hundred uniformed and plainclothes police officers" from the city, as well as the Maryland State Police, the Maryland Transit Administration and the Maryland Transportation Authority were deployed to "ensure that we have a secure and safe July Fourth celebration," Bealefeld said.

The nighttime incidents, apparently unrelated, occurred about 10 p.m. Few details were immediately available. Heavy traffic was making it difficult for law enforcement to travel to the scenes, a police spokesman said.

In the first episode, a man was stabbed outside McCormick & Schmick's Restaurant in the 700 block of Eastern Ave., near the Pier Six Pavilion.

"An adult male got into a confrontation with another group of individuals, and that confrontation escalated and resulted in our victim being stabbed very seriously in the neck," police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

The man was transported to Maryland Shock Trauma with critical, life-threatening injuries. He was pronounced dead shortly before midnight.

Meanwhile, at Pratt and Light streets, a boy was standing with parents when they heard a noise and realized that the child, reportedly age 4, had been shot in the leg near his groin. He was transported to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Guglielmi said police will review surveillance camera footage as part of the investigations.

Other incidents Monday night appeared to be minor. Two individuals fell into the water at the Inner Harbor around 8 p.m. and were rescued by the Baltimore Police Marine Unit and transported to a hospital for monitoring, Guglielmi said, and several juveniles were arrested for carrying knives.

Police were taking a tough stance on curfew violations and clearing the streets of young people after 11 p.m., Guglielmi said.

QuoteMan with machete, wearing GPS monitor, carjacks woman

He was on probation and wearing a GPS monitoring device. He was also armed with a rusty machete, and prosecutors said he carjacked a woman as she checked the oil in her car on Ravenwood Avenue in May.

On Tuesday, a Baltimore Circuit Court jury convicted the teenager, Terrell Singleton, of carjacking and car theft, and he faces up to 69 years in prison when he is sentenced in April. Prosecutors said the GPS device he was wearing, so that prison officials could keep track of him, put him at the scene of the holdup.

The Baltimore State's Attorney's Office said that the woman was attacked on May 24. She saw two men approach and got into her car, "but one of the men reached in and brandished a 17-inch machete, stating, 'This is a jacking, hurry up.'"

Prosecutors said the woman got out and the men got in, driving off and throwing a purse out the back window. Baltimore County police stopped the car four hours later after a chase, and prosecutors said Singleton was arrested after he forced his way into a home, dropping the machete in the yard.

Electronic court records show that Singleton had been convicted previously as an adult with assault and given a 10 year sentence starting in August last year, with all but nine years and 10 months suspended. He was put on four years supervised probation.

That case stems from an incident in which another man, just last week, was convicted of trying to kill Singleton by shooting him out of revenge for the assault. Dafton Canty was found guilty of trying to shoot Singleton. Canty missed, but hit and wounded a 10-year-old boy instead.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on February 01, 2012, 09:33:12 AM

QuoteCanty missed, but hit and wounded a 10-year-old boy instead.

QuoteCommissioner Bealefeld also addressed recent reports that officers had gone into a school to handcuff and arrest a group of 8- and 9-year-olds who were charged with assaulting classmates off school property. The American Civil Liberties Union said police had overstepped their bounds, and relatives of the juveniles said the arrests were mishandled.

Bealefeld said the arrests "have raised a number of questions inside the Police Department that we're working through. I hope people have confidence in us that if we made mistakes, we're going to address that and work to avoid it."

But he said debate over the arrests distracted from the crimes committed and problems in the Morrell Park community. The students were accused of holding a youth's head underwater and another's against train tracks during a fight. Television reports said the children referred to themselves as "The Hit Squad."

"Sure, we could've done it better. But at the end of the day, we can't lose sight of why we were there to start with. ... We twist away from what's happening with bullying, what's going on in that neighborhood," Bealefeld said. "What's going on in that neighborhood that these violent assaults are happening? They didn't wake up one day and say, 'I'm putting my friend's head underwater.'"

Quote from: Caliga on April 11, 2012, 06:40:29 AM
A friend of mine is moving to Bawlmer in two weeks.  We were talking to her about it over the weekend and she kept saying how wonderful Baltimore is, etc etc etc.

I kept my mouth shut. :)

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 11, 2012, 06:28:23 AM
And in my ongoing "I can trump Ed's Shit From Ohio thread" efforts, here's a great video of a tourist on St. Patrick's Day cold-cocked, stripped and filmed by multiple Dazzling Urbanites, right in front of the Circuit Court building on Calvert Street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue2fNik7oNk&feature=related

You can easily identify the victim;  he's the white dude.

Quote from: Tamas on April 11, 2012, 06:45:53 AM
holy shit.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 11, 2012, 06:28:23 AM
And in my ongoing "I can trump Ed's Shit From Ohio thread" efforts, here's a great video of a tourist on St. Patrick's Day cold-cocked, stripped and filmed by multiple Dazzling Urbanites, right in front of the Circuit Court building on Calvert Street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue2fNik7oNk&feature=related

You can easily identify the victim;  he's the white dude.

Quote from: Ed Anger on April 11, 2012, 06:57:47 AM
Trumped again. :weep:

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 11, 2012, 07:02:33 AM

Quote from: Ed Anger on April 11, 2012, 06:57:47 AM
Trumped again. :weep:

You know, from time to time, I do miss being able to fuck with little shits like that.
Nowadays, no way, not with the prevalence of cameras on everybody over the age of 8.  But back in the day?  Oh, hells yeah.  I would've enjoyed trying to shove one of their heads through those concrete stanchions before the sergeant showed up.

Quote from: Ed Anger on April 11, 2012, 07:06:38 AM
Apparently, the thing to do here is toss them in the back of the cruiser, accelerate off and then slam on the brakes. After a few slams against the seat and plexi, Pookie gets respectful.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 11, 2012, 06:42:29 AM
You should arrange an introduction;  I will be her Virgil in this circle of hell.  She is cute?

Quote from: Caliga on April 11, 2012, 05:22:59 PM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 11, 2012, 06:42:29 AM
You should arrange an introduction;  I will be her Virgil in this circle of hell.  She is cute?

Not my type

Quotebut she is single (widowed).

QuoteShe is a Swiss citizen, too.... and very heavily armed. :)

QuoteWalmart where bleach fight took place is hot spot for police calls
Site had more than 1,600 calls over four years, mostly for theft reports

The Baltimore County Walmart that was the site of a bleach fight last fall, clearing the store for several hours and sending 19 to the hospital, likely won't see one of the women allegedly involved for awhile.

She was ordered by a judge Wednesday to stay away for five years.

The Lansdowne location has been one of the busiest Walmart stores in the county for 911 responders.

According to documents released by police to colleague Luke Broadwater, officers have been called to the Lansdowne Walmart about 1,600 times in the past four years.

From the time the big-box store opened in Nov. 2007 until the day after the Oct. 8, 2011 assault, police have been called to the store more than once a day, on average.

Most of the calls — more than 1,000 — have been for reports of theft.

There have also been 60 calls for domestic disputes and more than 50 cases of assault. Five calls were to report fires. Three were for bomb threats. There were also two reported armed robberies and a report of prostitution.

Those numbers are significantly higher than other Greater Baltimore Walmarts over the same time period. The Dundalk store had fewer than 1,200 calls for police, Catonsville had fewer than 1,000 and Reisterstown had fewer than 500.

Though Broadwater received the call statistics for the Lansdowne Walmart within days of the October assault, police said it would take about a month to return 911 statistics for a dozen other Walmarts and Target stores around Baltimore.

In order to speed up the data turn-around time, Broadwater limited his request to just the three other stores mentioned above. Even so, police did not return the data until after the start of the New Year.

Walmart's corporate office did not respond to inquiries Wednesday about the large number of 911 service requests to the Lansdowne store.

Read more of The Sun's coverage of the Walmart assault, and listen to a recording of the 911 call in the case that Broadwater also collected from police:

Quote from: Tamas on April 11, 2012, 06:45:53 AM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 11, 2012, 06:28:23 AM
And in my ongoing "I can trump Ed's Shit From Ohio thread" efforts, here's a great video of a tourist on St. Patrick's Day cold-cocked, stripped and filmed by multiple Dazzling Urbanites, right in front of the Circuit Court building on Calvert Street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue2fNik7oNk&feature=related

You can easily identify the victim;  he's the white dude.

holy shit.

QuoteA 20-year-old man has been charged in connection with the recent assault and robbery in downtown Baltimore of a visitor who was stripped of his clothes — a videotaped attack that garnered outrage but also helped police make an arrest.

Aaron Jacob Parsons of Rosedale turned himself in Friday night after having been linked to the incident for more than a week, as viewers of the video tracked social media activity that appeared to show his involvement. He has been charged with robbery, assault and other crimes.

His attorney, Warren Brown, said Parsons is a "good kid," who graduated from parochial school and was raised by his brother after his mother died. Brown said Parsons has no prior arrest record and is not responsible for the acts in the video that drew the most outrage.

"It's not the punch that has aroused so much anger — it's the humiliation after the punch, the disrobing of the guy and going through his pockets," Brown said. "He wasn't involved in any of that and has no real association with those people."

In a television interview, Parsons apologized for his role in the crime but said his recollection of the events were hazy.

In the video, filmed the night of St. Patrick's Day, the seemingly disoriented victim is standing with a group of young people in front of the east building of the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse. As a girl dances against him, a man who police now say is Parsons grabs something out of the victim's pocket. The man moves to recover his property, and the man identified as Parsons rears back and punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground. The victim is then stripped of his clothing and teased.

The humiliation of the victim drew attention to the video — which appeared on websites such as the Drudge Report and Huffington Post, and on CNN — and prompted tips that pointed police to Parsons.

"I think the fact that people from as far away as California chimed in to help out the Baltimore Police Department underscores how heinous this attack was, on a truly unsuspecting victim," said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III urged residents this week not to mischaracterize the Baltimore incident amid other racially charged cases in Florida and Oklahoma, saying there was no indication that the crime — involving black suspects and a white victim — was driven by race.

At least two people recorded the attack and posted it to the Internet. Police are still trying to identify at least three others captured on surveillance cameras.

As the video gained wide attention, police said they weren't sure when the incident occurred and didn't know the identity of the victim. They later were able to connect it to a March 19 report from a 31-year-old man visiting from Virginia, who told police he woke up in his hotel room a day earlier, beaten and bruised, with several items including a watch and his car keys stolen. He did not recall when or where he had been attacked.

But after the video began making the rounds on shock video sites and gaining media attention, police said tips poured in. An anonymous caller told police she knew Parsons from Facebook and Twitter, while an artist and blogger from California, Anthony Mandich, directed police to sleuthing done by Internet users to track screen shots of Parsons' Web activity, officials said.

Police have posted images of three others involved in the incident on the department's Facebook page in hopes of generating tips, continuing the key role social media has played in the evolution of the case — from shock video to criminal charges.

Attempts to reach Parsons since the video surfaced had been unsuccessful. "He's been deluged with threats," Brown said. Parsons' personal information, including phone numbers, his address and e-mail address, were plastered across the Internet.

Brown said Parsons graduated from Our Lady of Mount Carmel High School and has worked multiple jobs, including with FedEx and Ruby Tuesday's, in addition to promoting parties. Some of those expressing disgust with Parsons' depiction in the video were those closest to him, Brown said.

"A lot of people that know him and know the type of person that he is voiced a great deal of disappointment in what they saw," Brown said. "This was not the way he was raised."

QuoteParsons turned himself in about 7:30 p.m. Friday. Police said they had arranged for Parsons to turn himself in earlier Friday, but he taped an interview with WBFF-TV and then failed to appear and could not be located by members of the Warrant Apprehension Task Force.

Police were angered that the station, which it partners with for a weekly segment airing information about fugitives, didn't communicate with them that Parsons was on their premises and said they would be terminating the segment.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 14, 2012, 11:46:22 AM
Lulz, he got a $1,000,000 bail.

Quote from: Tonitrus on April 14, 2012, 02:25:03 PM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 14, 2012, 11:46:22 AM
Lulz, he got a $1,000,000 bail.

Isn't that usually murder-level bail?

QuoteA 23-year-old West Baltimore man was fatally shot in the head while he was eating crabs at McCulloh Homes on Friday night, authorities said.

Police responded to the call at 8:20 p.m. Friday in the 400 block of Watty Court. Brandon Simms had been eating crabs when an unknown gunman walked up and opened fire without warning, police spokesman Donny Moses said. The suspect fled on foot to an unknown location.

Simms, whose address wasn't immediately known, died at 1:45 a.m. Saturday at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 14, 2012, 10:14:15 PM
Daaaaaaamn.

QuoteA 23-year-old West Baltimore man was fatally shot in the head while he was eating crabs at McCulloh Homes on Friday night, authorities said.

Police responded to the call at 8:20 p.m. Friday in the 400 block of Watty Court. Brandon Simms had been eating crabs when an unknown gunman walked up and opened fire without warning, police spokesman Donny Moses said. The suspect fled on foot to an unknown location.

Simms, whose address wasn't immediately known, died at 1:45 a.m. Saturday at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

QuoteBail for Aaron Parsons, the 20-year-old Rosedale man charged with punching and robbing a downtown visitor in a recorded attack that gained wide attention online, was reduced Monday morning to $500,000.

A District Court Commissioner initially set his bail at $1 million on Saturday morning after Parsons turned himself in Friday night to face charges in the attack, thanks in large part to viewers of the video who tracked Parsons' online activity to link him as the suspect. The video made the rounds on the internet, making appearances on sites such as the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post, and airing on CNN.

At his bail review at Central Booking, both the Division of Pretrial Services and the State's Attorney's Office recommended no bail.

Parsons' attorney, Warren Brown, argued for a $25,000 bond, saying that the private school graduate had no prior criminal record as an adult or juvenile and that a no-bail status was typically reserved for murderers. All Parsons did was throw a punch, he said.

"We need to set aside the hysteria that this was caught on tape and look at it rationally and reasonably within the law," Brown said.

Assistant State's Attorney David Chiu said Brown was downplaying the attack. "This isn't a punch - it's a beating and robbery of an unconcious visitor to the city," Chiu said.

Police had been upset that Parsons failed to turned himself in at an agreed upon time Friday morning - which Brown disputes - but Brown said Parsons was not a flight risk or risk to public safety.

District Judge James Mann Jr. said his job was to "impose the least onerous bail to ensure the defendant will reasonably appear, while protecting the safety of the victim and the public." He said that while Parsons was likely to appear, he was concerned about the risk to public safety in deciding on $500,000 bond.

Copyright © 2012, The Baltimore Sun

QuoteRelated: California blogger who helped spread Parsons' information says he feels bad for him and he shouldn't do prison time.

A blogger from California who helped police link a suspect to a viral video of a downtown Baltimore beating says he thinks the story got out of hand and the suspect shouldn't do prison time.

"I actually take no pleasure in his arrest," Mandich said. "... I genuinly feel some empathy for his situation and I certainly hope he learns from this. He doesn't seem to be 'beyond help.'"

Anthony Mandich told The Sun two weeks ago that he had been outraged by the video and watched one night as users of the popular 4chan message board worked for hours one night to pinpoint Parsons' as a suspect. On Mandich's personal blog, he then posted some of the images, along with a rant about his frustration over what he saw. The site, which he said gets a couple hundred hits on a good day, received tens of thousands as the video spread.

When police did make an arrest, chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi singled out Mandich by name for helping provide information.

"I think the fact that people from as far away as California chimed in to help out the Baltimore Police Department underscores how heinous this attack was, on a truly unsuspecting victim," Guglielmi said.

It was an example of how the Internet, where shock videos thrive, could also be used for some good. But racial rhetoric ratcheted up - the attackers were black, and the victim white - prompting Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to urge against "fear-mongering," while Parsons began receiving death threats, according to his attorney.

Mandich said his initial outrage gave way to a more measured look at the crime and the circumstances around it. He thinks Parsons, who was being held on $500,000 bail after a hearing Monday, shouldn't do prison time but instead receive a punishment of community service.

"People calling for life in prison and all that type of punishment are way out of control," Mandich wrote to me. "I feel kinda bad for Parsons in a way .. dead mother, raised by a sibling, graduated from parochial school (as did I)."

Here's Mandich's full email to me:

I actually take no pleasure in his arrest.  The thing is, I don't really think it was a hate crime.  Aaron Parsons is a young man who by all accounts has been a good kid for the most part and honestly the more times I have seen the video it has really lost its initial shock value.

People calling for life in prison and all that type of punishment are way out of control.  I feel kinda bad for Parsons in a way...dead mother, raised by a sibling, graduated from parochial school (as did I).

He is just in WAY over his head on this one and I am sure he is feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment.  I genuinely feel some empathy for his situation and I certainly hope he learns from this.  He doesn't seem to be "beyond help" and I would be in favor of a sentence without a prison term but heavy in community service of a meaningful nature such as public service announcements in support of racial tolerance etc.

Regardless of what happens, I hope he comes out of this chapter of his life a better, more evolved human being, and I wish him the best.

QuoteBALTIMORE -- An elderly woman got the last word after locking a police officer in her basement, and later suing the police.
Venus Green, who was 87 when she was handcuffed, roughed up and injured by police, will receive $95,000 as part of a settlement with Baltimore City. The city chose to settle the case instead of taking a chance in front of a jury.
"We thought we would have a difficult time in front of a city jury, or any jury," Baltimore City solicitor George Nilson said.
Green was so put out by what police officers did, the city said she locked one of them in her basement.
"I was treated like a criminal ... He dragged me, threw me across the chair, put handcuffs on me and just started calling me the 'b' name. He ridiculed me."
- Venus Green
"I was treated like a criminal," said Green, a retired educator who's now 90.
In July 2009, Green's grandson, Tallie, was shot and wounded. Tallie said he was shot at a convenience store, but police insisted it happened inside Green's house and that the shooter was either Tallie or Green.
"Police kept questioning him. They wouldn't let the ambulance attendant treat him," Green said. "So, I got up and said, 'Sir, would you please let the attendants treat him? He's in pain,'" Green said.
Green said the officer said to her, "Oh, you did it, come on, let's go inside. I'll prove where that blood is. You did it."
Police wanted to go the basement, where Tallie lived, but Green refused on the basis that the police did not have a warrant.
"I said, 'No, you don't have a warrant. You don't go down in my house like that. He wasn't shot in here.'" Green said the officer replied, "I'm going to find that gun. I'm going to prove that you did it."
A struggle ensued between a male officer and Green.
"He dragged me, threw me across the chair, put handcuffs on me and just started calling me the 'b' name. He ridiculed me," Green said.
An officer went into the basement and Green locked him inside.
"She locked the door, the basement door. She basically took matters into her own hands," Nilson said.
"This was my private home, and if I latched it, that was my prerogative because he had no search warrant to go in my basement. So, I had to right to latch it," Green said.
Green said she suffered a separated shoulder in the scuffle, and she sued the Police Department for assault and violations of her rights.
"I was once a block watcher, department head of a high school. (I've) been around education for over 50 years. (I'm a) law-abiding citizen, I've never been arrested, I paid my taxes, owned my home, my husband died 34 years ago. (I) raised my son and I have been brutally abused," Green said. "I feel like the Police Department needs to go back to school."
In the past two fiscal years, the city has paid out $16.8 million in claims against the Police Department. City Council President Jack Young voted against this settlement and others, saying he is "tired of the Police Department bleeding money."

Read more: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/30835886/detail.html#ixzz1sQXRxRJo

Quote"So, I got up and said, 'Sir, would you please let the attendants treat him? He's in pain,'" Green said.

QuotePolice have arrested a second suspect in the videotaped beating in March of a man in downtown Baltimore, charging her with using a high-heeled shoe in the attack and slapping the victim after he had been knocked unconscious.

Authorities are still looking for two other people in the assault on the 31-year-old visitor from Virginia who was stripped of his clothes and left unconscious and naked on North Calvert Street in front of the city courthouse.

The graphic video, which was posted on the Internet, has horrified police and residents alike because of its brutal images and what appears to be an unprovoked attack on a man who told police he was intoxicated and was trying to find his Mount Vernon hotel.

After finally making it back to his room, he called police but could not remember any details other than that his iPhone, $1,300 watch and Audi car key were missing. Police didn't link that report to the assault until the video was posted on the Internet.

The victim is identified in court documents as Sephy Bounan of Alexandria, Va. He declined to comment when reached Monday, and referred questions to Lee Jacobson, a Towson attorney. Jacobson said he is the family's longtime lawyer.

Earlier this month, police arrested the man who allegedly threw the punch that decked Bounan. The man, Aaron Jacob Parsons, 20, is a party promoter from Rosedale. He is being held on $500,000 bail on charges of assault and robbery.

Authorities announced Monday the arrest of Shayona Mikia Davis, 20, on charges that include armed robbery and assault. She was being held on $750,000 bail. Also Monday, police said they are seeking Deangelo Carter, 18, and Shatia Baldwin, 21, both of Baltimore; each is charged in warrants with assault and robbery.

Authorities identified Davis, who lives in the 5200 block of Wilton Heights Ave. in Northwest Baltimore, as the woman seen in the video gyrating against the victim and then slapping him across the face after he had been knocked to the ground. Police said the alleged use of a high-heeled shoe in the attack prompted more severe charges of armed robbery for Davis.

Members of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter helped track down suspects by examining Internet postings.

In charging documents, police said they compared a driver's license photo of Parsons to the video, saying it "positively identifies him as the suspect." The video does not say where it was shot, but landmarks that include a white stone building, a bench and a mailbox place the location in front of the Baltimore courthouse in the 100 block of N. Calvert St.

The victim told police that he left Power Plant Live about 2 a.m. and was walking back to the Mount Vernon Hotel on West Franklin Street.

Court documents follow events depicted in the video — a woman dancing and rubbing against the victim as another woman yelled, "Let's get his car keys."

In the video, a man in a white T-shirt says, "I'm 'bout to take his money, yo," and reaches into the victim's pocket. Another man says, "Take that ... watch." The victim grabs the man's hand, then backs away as the man punches him in the face.

"The victim immediately falls backward hitting his head against the ground," the court documents say. "The victim appears to be dazed or unconscious for a few seconds. As the victim was lying on the ground, a group of people surrounded the victim beating, kicking, and removing his personal items along with his clothing."

Police said the victim made his way back to his hotel about 6 a.m. with a black left eye and bruises on his forehead, left hand, elbow and right hip.

Quotecharging her with using a high-heeled shoe in the attack

QuoteOne of the women he tried to help got all butt-hurty and decided to attack. She and at least three of her friends approached Miliner as he sat in the passenger seat of his vehicle and proceeded to beat the snot out of him – punching, kicking, spitting – all of it was caught on video by a McDonald's employee. During the attack, one of the women removed her stiletto heel and got all stabby on Miliner's eye, repeatedly gouging it.

QuoteAuthorities are investigating Tuesday's security breach at a Baltimore social services office, which police said allowed a woman hiding a large kitchen knife in a bag to enter the building and stab her 8-month-old daughter.

The infant was wounded in the neck and head, and police said a social worker was in the room when the stabbing took place. The baby was in good condition at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, and as of Tuesday evening, no charges had been filed against the mother, who was in police custody.

But the incident raised questions about safety in a building where tense, emotional meetings between parents and their estranged children are routine.

"No, our folks do not feel safe," said Patrick Moran, Maryland director of the union that represents social workers throughout the state, including those at the East Biddle Street building where the attack occurred.

"People who come into these offices are going through a difficult time in their lives," Moran said. "Sometimes they act out and act irrationally. This time, it's a baby who was the victim. That's unacceptable."

Officials representing the city Department of Social Services said an extensive review is being conducted to determine if security guards followed procedures, and if those procedures are sufficient.

"We are absolutely looking into all these questions and working very closely with police," said Ian Patrick Hines, a spokesman with the Maryland Department of Human Resources. "We are reviewing our security procedures at all of our sites to [determine] how this came to happen and make sure it doesn't happen again. This is a very unfortunate situation."

The building is in a nondescript, block-long office complex in the 3000 block of East Biddle St., just west of Edison Highway. It is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, and visitors are required to show identification, submit bags for inspection or search, and walk through a metal detector. Police said the woman, described as in her late 20s or early 30s, did not have identification with her.

Hines described the sort of violence that occurred Tuesday as "extraordinarily uncommon."

Moran, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said complaints about lax security have been made in meetings with agency managers — to no avail. Moran said he's been trying to increase security patrols on floors where meetings such as the one on Tuesday took place.

The union head said he would prefer to have Department of General Services police instead of a private security force. "Those are the people you need to do the job," Moran said. "Events such as this are going to become more commonplace if security needs are not met."

Baltimore police detective Donny Moses, a department spokesman, said the stabbing occurred shortly after 10 a.m. He said the mother was in a room with her daughter and a social worker when she "became irate."

Moses said the woman took a large kitchen knife out of a bag and stabbed the girl several times, including in the head and over her left eye. He said the social worker was not injured.

"We have a long way to go with this," the detective said of the investigation. Police did not detail how the woman was subdued.

Police said it was too early to determine why the mother — who cut herself on her hands during the attack and was treated by paramedics at the scene — became angry. Neither Hines nor police would describe how she was involved with social services or whether she had a history of violence. Her name was not made public because criminal charges had not yet been filed.

Joan Little, who runs the child advocacy unit for the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, said the social services office has to fulfill dual roles — to ensure safety and to provide a comfortable environment for parents and their children. She described the rooms as having toys and games, but also as "institutional gray."

The get-togethers can often be uncomfortable, occurring under the watchful eyes of counselors who work for the agency that in many cases separated the children from parents.

"These are difficult situations," said Little, an attorney whose staff represents children in welfare and neglect cases. "We want to promote family visits. It is so tough when a security situation like this happens.

"Normally, everyone would be supporting more contact between children and parents, and not restrained contact." The idea, she added, is for the "mother-baby visit to be personal enough that it can support the bonding that is supposed to be happening."

Little, whose attorneys visit the East Biddle Street building at least once a week, said it would be counterproductive for a security guard to attend each meeting. But she would support it when violence is a part of a parent's history.

Little said she feels safe in the building. She said there is a metal detector at the entrance, and she has seen guards going through purses and checking IDs, though not every time.

"It's not like airport security ... " she said. "I don't feel that it's a dangerous environment. But certainly we're dealing with parents who have significant mental health problems, and significant drug problems. On any given day, anything can happen."

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 24, 2012, 06:57:03 AM

QuoteOne of the women he tried to help got all butt-hurty and decided to attack. She and at least three of her friends approached Miliner as he sat in the passenger seat of his vehicle and proceeded to beat the snot out of him – punching, kicking, spitting – all of it was caught on video by a McDonald's employee. During the attack, one of the women removed her stiletto heel and got all stabby on Miliner's eye, repeatedly gouging it.

That's why every Dazzling Urbanite goes face down and eats pavement when the rollers show up.

Edit:  And hello there, little miss Megan O'Rourke reporting live from Dayton.    :perv:

Quote from: 11B4V on April 25, 2012, 09:49:28 AM
He should have been carry a gun.

QuoteParents got the chilling news in a letter brought home by their children: A gun was found on a pre-kindergarten student at Northwood Elementary school.

According to school officials, the student's teacher allegedly found the gun and notified district officials.

The letter said an adult was arrested in connection with the incident. Witnesses said they saw a woman escorted from the building in handcuffs, said 11 News reporter Kai Reed.

William Kitt's two grandkids attend Northwood."I could be talking to a funeral home right now. It's sad, it's sad, but people have to wake up and realize these things happen every day," every day," he said. "If you check the news it happens a lot. It's the kind of country we live in now. You know what I mean. You have to be responsible for your kid. Or your grandkid," said Josie Blake, a grandmother.

The letter urged parents to monitor what their kids bring to school and to check the contents of their book bags.

Kitt never thought he would support the use of metal detectors at an elementary school. But he does now, said Reed.

"You need them because this happens too often," he said.

"I don't just think of the gun going in the school. I think of if the gun could have gone off. The kid could have thought it was a toy and shot somebody and it's tragic," Kitt said.

QuoteDelegate warns of 'black youth mobs'
McDonough urges 'no-travel zone' at Inner Harbor

A Baltimore County delegate said Wednesday that the governor should send in the Maryland State Police to control "roving mobs of black youths" at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, prompting a colleague to label the message "race-baiting."

Del. Patrick L. McDonough, a Republican whose district includes part of Harford County, distributed a news release with the headline: "Black Youth Mobs Terrorize Baltimore on Holidays." In it, McDonough said he had sent a letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley urging him to use the state police to help prevent attacks and to declare the Inner Harbor area a "no-travel zone" until safety can be guaranteed.

McDonough's message, which came on the last day of a General Assembly special session, offended some colleagues who thought it gratuitously highlighted the issue of race.

"It's a throwback to the '50s and '60s, and it's obviously race-baiting," said Del. Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., a Baltimore Democrat who offered to take McDonough on a guided tour of the Inner Harbor on a weekend night.

McDonough, a radio talk-show host, is best known in the legislature for his relentless and sometimes confrontational efforts to crack down on illegal immigration in Maryland.

"I'm not surprised at this inappropriate behavior," said Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez, a Montgomery County Democrat. She said that in her 10 years in the legislature, she hadn't seen such a racially tinged statement released by a colleague.

McDonough refused to back down, saying he had heard from police that the crowds involved in several recent incidents were all black. Failing to mention the race of the participants, he said, would be "political correctness on steroids."

McDonough said his statement was prompted by several recent problems, including a St. Patrick's Day disturbance and a recent incident in which he and his wife witnessed a fight involving about 100 youths at Pratt and Calvert streets.

The lawmaker said that his statement has brought attention from out-of-town news media and that he planned to give national television interviews warning visitors against traveling to the Inner Harbor. He charged that Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and city police haven't taken sufficient action and have been covering up the extent of the problem.

"A no-travel zone is an action that needs to be taken to protect lives," he said.

Mayoral spokesman Ryan O'Doherty said today, "Del. McDonough's sad and racially-charged publicity stunt is not deserving of a response and Mayor Rawlings-Blake is proud of the men and women of the Baltimore Police Department for reducing crime to historic lows. As an elected official, Del. McDonough should show more respect for the work our police officers do with the community every day to make Baltimore safer."

O'Malley, a former Baltimore mayor, dismissed McDonough's suggestions, saying Baltimore had cut its crime rate more than any American city of comparable size.

"Delegate McDonough should come and visit some time," the governor said. "He might enjoy it."

Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 17, 2012, 02:41:23 PM
Nyuk, nyuk.

Quote from: derspiess on May 17, 2012, 02:59:56 PM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 17, 2012, 02:41:23 PM
Nyuk, nyuk.

Elaborate.  I'd imagine you're a little conflicted.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 17, 2012, 03:02:53 PM
but, in the delegate's case, there's a certain way you should go about addressing it.

Quote from: garbon on May 17, 2012, 10:11:57 PM
Why are you concerned? It isn't like you live in Baltimore. :contract:

Quote from: derspiess on May 18, 2012, 01:15:23 AM

Quote from: garbon on May 17, 2012, 10:11:57 PM
Why are you concerned? It isn't like you live in Baltimore. :contract:

Who's concerned?

Quote from: garbon on May 18, 2012, 07:45:34 AM
That comment was to Seedy. :hug:

Quote from: garbon on May 18, 2012, 07:52:22 AM
Do commuter rails count in that calculation? That's essentially what that subway line was by that point.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 18, 2012, 07:59:45 AM
Subway station looks like a Tarzan movie in the morning.

QuoteA hostile crowd challenged officers and delayed help for a shooting victim as he lay dying in the parking lot of a south Seattle fast food restaurant, police said.

Some men in a crowd of 25 to 50 people on Wednesday night were "posturing, ripping off their shirts and challenging officers to fight," said spokesman Mark Jamieson. Additional officers were called in to quell the crowd.

But Jamieson said fire department medics couldn't reach the wounded 31-year-old man for five to seven minutes. He eventually was rushed to Harborview Medical Center with multiple gunshot wounds, and later died, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said.

People often congregate in the parking lot of the Jack in the Box restaurant on Rainier Avenue South, which is a drive-through without indoor seating, Jamieson said.

A witness to the shooting flagged down a passing police car, he said. The officer saw the victim with numerous people standing over him, and no one appeared to be helping. When the officer told them to stand back, the crowd turned on the officer, delaying the emergency response, Jamieson said.

When fire department medics finally reached the man they knew he was very badly wounded, spokesman Kyle Moore said.

"We realized we had to get him to the hospital as quickly as possible," Moore said. "Every minute made a difference in that case."

Medics may typically take 10 to 15 minutes to stabilize a patient before transporting, but they couldn't wait this time. "We transported him as quickly as we could," Moore said.

It is typical in assault cases for medics to wait for police to secure a scene for their own protection, Moore said.

The shooting was the 14th homicide of the year in Seattle, Jamieson said. Another shooting in the same parking lot last Saturday wounded a man in his legs. It remains unsolved, and it's unknown if the two are connected.

Although police haven't received much cooperation, detectives are hoping someone helps identify a suspect and a motive.

"Presumably some of the people saw what happened," Jamieson said. "We need those people to come forward and tell us what happened."

Jamieson didn't know if anyone who interfered could face possible charges because of the man's death.

"Our concern at the time was to make it safe - to make the scene safe for fire personnel to get in there and render aid," Jamieson said. "And right now we're concerning ourselves with trying to solve this homicide."

Quote from: derspiess on May 18, 2012, 09:06:48 AM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 18, 2012, 07:59:45 AM
Subway station looks like a Tarzan movie in the morning.

:lol: Is that a paraphrased Sanford & Son quote, by any chance?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoSrKLTx_ao

Quote from: Kleves on May 18, 2012, 09:16:22 AM
Not from Baltimore, but I thought Seedy would appreciate this from Seattle:

QuoteA hostile crowd challenged officers and delayed help for a shooting victim as he lay dying in the parking lot of a south Seattle fast food restaurant, police said.

Quote from: Kleves on May 18, 2012, 09:16:22 AM
Not from Baltimore, but I thought Seedy would appreciate this from Seattle:

QuoteA 19-year-old student from Baltimore Polytechnic High School told police he was beaten by two separate groups of juveniles from a rival school in downtown Baltimore on Thursday afternoon, an attack that comes amid a pitched debate over downtown safety.

According to police, the student was walking in the 200 block of W. Fayette St., a block north of the First Mariner Arena, before 4:20 p.m. when he said he was attacked from behind by an unknown male. Nine other juveniles joined in as he tried to defend himself, and his phone was taken during the attack, he told police.

Moments later, police say, an MTA bus stopped in the block and a juvenile male wearing a Digital Harbor High School shirt "forced open the door and got off the bus," followed by 19 other juveniles wearing Digital Harbor shirts, who again assaulted the victim, police said.

Anthony Guglielmi, a city police spokesman, said the victim told the police he was attacked because of a rivalry between the two schools. Guglielmi said police were coordinating with school officials to investigate the case.

The Sun reported last week that police dispatch tapes revealed a broader disturbance downtown on St. Patrick's Daythan police had let on, and some questioned whether police had been forthcoming initially about the scope of the incident. The tapes showed police struggled to contain large groups of young people moving throughout the downtown area.

Also that night, a Virginia man was beaten and stripped of his clothing near the downtown courthouse, an attack that was caught on tape and garnered national attention.

The racial elements of that crime fed much of the outrage - the victim was white, and the attackers were all black. In Thursday's reported assault, Guglielmi said the 19-year-old victim was white and the attackers were all juvenile black males.

The reports of the St. Patrick's Day incidents prompted Baltimore County Del. Pat McDonough, a conservative radio show host, to issue a statement asking the governor to send in the Maryland State Police to control "roving mobs of black youths" at Baltimore's Inner Harbor. He said the Harbor should be declared a "no-travel zone" until safety can be ensured.

His comments were denounced by other politicians, including Gov. Martin O'Malley, and a group of activists to call for an apology. McDonough has declined, saying to do so would be "political correctness on steroids."

Quote'Unruly' school kids cause disturbance in downtown 7-Eleven
Deal for free Slurpees attracts 20 to 30 kids who allegedly shoplift, get in physical altercation with store owner

A crowd of "unruly" school kids rushed into a downtown 7-Eleven store about 2 p.m. Wednesday for a free "Slurpee" promotion, and didn't leave until they'd caused a commotion — allegedly shoplifting and getting into a physical altercation with the store owner.

According to police, between 20 and 30 middle school students rushed into the store near the intersection of Light and East Pratt streets all at once for the special promotion of the frozen drinks, called "SlurpFREE Day."

The company said the event was to promote its new sugar-free version of the drink, and to "launch the upcoming Slurpee season."

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the youths, many of them in school uniforms, "became unruly" after entering the store and allegedly began shoplifting other items.

There was then some sort of physical altercation between some of the youths and the store owner, Guglielmi said.

The store owner "wasn't violently hurt," he said.

Police responded to the store after receiving a call for a common assault, he said.

Guglielmi said he did not believe there were any arrests made, and that he did not know which school the youths attended.

Margaret Chabris, a 7-Eleven spokeswoman, said in a statement that the disturbance associated with the promotion was "a rare and unfortunate event," and that most people around the country had fun with the promotion.

QuoteOne person was killed and five others were injured in two separate triple shootings in Baltimore on Thursday night, according to police.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 25, 2012, 09:12:58 AM
Important safety tips, 7-Eleven: don't offer free frozen Kool-Aid in known lawless tribal regions.

QuoteThe owner of a downtown 7-Eleven that was attacked by a mob of youths drawn by a free Slurpee promotion says an envelope filled with the day's receipts — $6,600 in cash — went missing during the melee, according to Baltimore police.

Salman Iqbal told police that the money was in his front right shirt pocket while he was being attacked Wednesday afternoon after he confronted up to 40 youths wearing yellow school shirts and khaki pants. He reported that some youths had stolen candy from the store on Light Street, near the Inner Harbor.

Wednesday's disturbance began shortly before 1:30 p.m., as Iqbal was about to leave to deposit money in a bank. Police said 35 to 40 youths came in to get free Slurpees, and while they were being served, another group came in "and were observed taking candy from the shelves and placing it inside their pants pockets," according to the report.

Iqbal walked to the front door to block their exit, but police said the youths who took the candy got away. "The juveniles that the owner stopped at the door were just getting the free Slurpees that 7-Eleven was offering to the customers," the police report says. "The owner was assaulted on their effort to exit the store."

Police said the youths became angry and beat Iqbal, punching him in the mouth and repeatedly hitting him on his arms and neck. Police said the youths forced their way out of the store and scattered. It was then, Iqbal said, that he noticed the envelope with the money missing from his pocket.

A spokeswoman for 7-Eleven, Margaret Chabris, said that store owners and managers are taught to take unruly crowds "very seriously" and are warned that giveaways, such as the Slurpee promotion, can trigger such attacks.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 25, 2012, 09:24:32 AM
Lulz, wuddai say? Wuddai say?

QuoteFederal office worker beaten downtown

A 51-year-old federal office worker was jumped and beaten by up to five juveniles Thursday morning in downtown Baltimore's Hopkins Plaza — an apparent random attack and the latest in a series of assaults in the heart of the city.

Police are also investigating a fight that occurred at Charles and Lombard streets Wednesday morning and involved youths who may have been wearing school uniforms. Eight days ago, a group of youths stole candy and attacked the owner of a convenience store on Light Street.

The string of incidents has prompted the police commander in charge of the Central District station to propose teaming his patrol officers with school police during the morning and evening rush hours. That would put police who know many of the students on the front lines.

"We want to partner with the school system," said city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. "We want to quickly identify those involved, and it's easier to do that with the school police."

The latest attack occurred outside the Fallon Federal Building at Hopkins Plaza, located along South Charles Street between West Baltimore and West Lombard streets. The square is three blocks northwest of the Inner Harbor, near several downtown hotels, the convention center and the 1st Mariner Arena.

Police did not have any details on the victim or precisely where he worked. The Fallon building contains offices for several agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Court. There are several other federal buildings nearby.

Guglielmi said the victim was apparently walking to work about 7 a.m. when he was attacked by at least five juveniles - four males and one female. One youth was not wearing a shirt. Other clothing descriptions were not available, but police said they did not appear to be wearing school uniforms.

Police were viewing video from surveillance cameras to try and identify the youths involved. Guglielmi said the victim was "punched in the head and kicked to the ground," but was not hurt seriously enough to require medical attention. Police said he was not robbed.

The earlier attack occurred Wednesday about 8:30 a.m. at Charles and Lombard streets, at the southeast corner of Hopkins Plaza. Police said officers responded to 911 calls reporting "a group of juveniles fighting," possibly wearing school uniforms.

Guglielmi said that officers responded but the fight was over by the time they arrived. Authorities said video surveillance cameras confirmed there was a fight and police using the footage and talking with school police to try and identify suspects and victims.

QuoteMeanwhile, prosecutors are reviewing the police case in the May 23 attack in the 7-Eleven on Light Street. Police said detectives using footage from video cameras were able to identify the youths involved. Police said they are students at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical Senior High School in Northeast Baltimore.

A spokesman for the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office said no charges have been filed as of Thursday, and he declined to comment further on the open investigation.

Putting school police officers with city patrol officers would be an extension of weekend night police foot patrols that the mayor ordered to saturate the Inner Harbor and downtown after hundreds of teens converged on St. Patrick's Day and fought street corner to street corner. School police officers are staffing a post outside the Harborplace Gallery, a shopping mall on Pratt Street that attracts many students.

There was no immediate comment on Thursday from the city school system. A spokeswoman was checking with the school police chief.

The repeated incidents of violence have raised questions about security and safety as the summer season approaches. The city is gearing up for several large scale tourist events, including June's 2012 Star-Spangled Sailabration commemorating the bicentennial of the War of 1812, July 4 fireworks, Artscape north of downtown and the Grand Prix road race.

On Thursday, Delegate Patrick McDonough continued his pressure on the city, proposing what he calls a "Solutions Summit" and the creation of a Maryland Youth Advocacy Fund to raise money through private contributions to fund youth initiatives.

But McDonough, a Republican from Baltimore and Harford counties, has been dismissed by city leaders and others after he complained about "black youth mobs" terrorizing the city and asking the governor to send in state police to restore order. He said the Inner Harbor should be declared a "no travel zone."

The delegate is holding a steady series of news conferences to garner attention. At his latest gathering, McDonough challenged Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a Democrat, to a televised debate over the safety of the city.

"The youth crime problem in Baltimore City and the state must no longer be ignored," the delegate said in a statement issued Thursday.

Ryan O'Doherty, the spokesman for the mayor, said that McDonough "should debate himself and his Republican colleagues who supported deep cuts to the Police Department and cuts to gun prosecutions as part of the state doomsday budget."

The spokesman charged the cuts — which did not take effect after the General Assemble voted in a special session to raise taxes on the state's top wage earners and to shift some teacher pension costs to counties — would have decimated public safety in the city.

O'Doherty said police academy classes would have been cut, 92 police positions abolished and 18 prosecutors who handle gun crimes fired. "Crime is down to historic lows in Baltimore because of the smart investments that the city and the state have made in public safety," the spokesman said.

QuoteA mother accidentally backed her SUV into five children in the driveway of her Lewisdale home, critically injuring them, Prince George's County police said.

The children, ranging in age from 18 months to 11 years old, were taken to Children's National Medical Center in Washington with life-threatening injuries, police said.

The accident happened about 8:45 p.m. Thursday at a home in the 2200 block Hannon Street, authorities said. The driver is the mother of at least one of the children.

QuoteFangirl shits pinecones after overhearing pornstar Brian Pumper refer to her as a 'bitch'. Blows are exchanged & shit gets ugly, but the real battle is all verbal, with ego-busting insults like "u think i wud tweet about u? I FUCK MOOLIONAIRES NIGGUH".

Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 01, 2012, 06:08:18 AM
Damn, you know you've got a Dazzling Urbanite juvenile problem downtown when you're getting ganked in front of the Federal building going to work at 7:00 in the morning on a Thursday.  :lol:

Quote from: Ideologue on June 16, 2012, 01:39:02 AM
They attacked a civilian employee of the United States?

The correct response, of course, is to machinegun random locals.

Quote from: The Brain on June 16, 2012, 03:38:41 AM
I'm rigid.

QuotePolice: Craigslist robbery goes awry as buyer, seller come armed
Bolton Hill incident latest in series of attacks linked to Internet site

The couple in search of a car found the sedan they wanted for sale on Craigslist for $4,000. They arranged a meeting Monday night on a street in Bolton Hill lined with 19th-century rowhouses.

But Baltimore police said both the seller and the buyer took guns to the transaction. And when one of the men who posted the ad drew his weapon and demanded money from the prospective buyer, police said his female acquaintance pulled her own gun and fired into the air.

The gunman dropped his weapon on Bolton Street and the woman gave chase, "firing her weapon numerous times indiscriminately in the air," said city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. No one was hit by gunfire, but police said they seized both guns and arrested the victim on weapons charges.

"We understand that this was a terrifying, frightening situation, but when you fire a gun into the air, you become part of the problem," Guglielmi said of the female victim in Monday's Bolton Hill attack. "The best thing to is to be a good witness and call the police."

The two men who tried to rob the couple escaped, and were described only as men in their 20s. City police said the holdup was linked to an earlier attack in which a 20-year-old man and two of his relatives were robbed and assaulted on Laurens Street in West Baltimore, also after answering an ad about a car for sale.

In May, police arrested a man in connection with a separate string of four armed robberies in Northwest Baltimore after they said he posted on Craigslist that he had coins to sell.

The spate of attacks linked to the popular Internet bartering site is prompting new warnings by police, urging people exchanging goods to take precautions. "People are targeting others on Craigslist," Guglielmi said,

The robberies linked to the May arrest all occurred on Callaway Avenue, near Northwest Baltimore's Ashburton neighborhood and on a street with single-family homes and expansive lawns. That location, and the one in Bolton Hill, are areas not prone to crime.

Guglielmi said it appears that robbers are setting up meetings in what appear to be quiet neighborhoods unlikely to raise suspicion. But police said people meeting others off the Internet site need to take even more precautions.

Authorities recommend that meetings take place during the day and in public spots, such as downtown, where there are typically lots of people and surveillance cameras on virtually every block. In Milwaukee, authorities encourage transactions in police station parking lots for added safety.

Police are encouraging buyers to agree to pay only in certified checks issued by banks. "If it's a robbery, the check will be pretty worthless to them," Guglielmi said. "And if they do try to cash it, it will be very easy to trace."

The robbery in Bolton Hill occurred about 8:30 p.m. Police said a man and his female friend answered a Craigslist ad to buy a sedan for $4,000. They talked with the "sellers" several times over the phone, police said, and agreed to meet in the 1600 block of Bolton St.

Police said the couple met with two men and started to talk about the deal when one of the sellers "brandished a silver revolver and pointed it at the woman and demanded money. The male victim struggled with the suspect."

That drew the other "seller" into the fight, Guglielmi said, and prompted the woman "to pull a handgun and fire a shot into the air." The gunman dropped the revolver and ran, leading a chase along Bolton Street with the woman shooting into the air, the police spokesman said.

Police said the attackers escaped with $4,000 but no gun. Police arrested the victim's companion, Keyna Oduyoye, 30, of the 3500 block of Kings Point Road in Randallstown, charging her with two counts of illegal handgun possession and discharging a gun in a public place.

Police said she did not have a permit to carry the weapon. No one answered a call placed to her Baltimore County home.

A Bolton Hill electronic mailing list warned residents of the attack in an email blast Tuesday afternoon. The email, from association president Joe Palumbo, quotes a witness who was sitting on her steps and saw the fight erupt.

The woman said her husband walked toward the men to break up the fracas "when suddenly a woman pointed her gun at the men and fired two shots." She and her husband ran into their house and called police. "Then we heard three more shots even closer to our house," wrote the woman, whose name was not divulged on the email.

Quote from: katmai on June 19, 2012, 11:28:17 PM
Why do you live there again?

Quote from: katmai on June 19, 2012, 11:28:17 PM
Why do you live there again?

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 19, 2012, 11:37:39 PM

Quote from: katmai on June 19, 2012, 11:28:17 PM
Why do you live there again?

That shit happens in Anchorage too.  Tell him the recent story about the Air Force kid and craigslist.

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 19, 2012, 11:37:39 PM

Quote from: katmai on June 19, 2012, 11:28:17 PM
Why do you live there again?

That shit happens in Anchorage too.  Tell him the recent story about the Air Force kid and craigslist.

Quote from: katmai on June 20, 2012, 01:18:16 AM

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 19, 2012, 11:37:39 PM

Quote from: katmai on June 19, 2012, 11:28:17 PM
Why do you live there again?

That shit happens in Anchorage too.  Tell him the recent story about the Air Force kid and craigslist.

And it turned out to be one of his fellow airmen and nothing to do with craigslist mister Chair Force man.

Quote from: katmai on June 20, 2012, 01:17:25 AM

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 19, 2012, 11:37:39 PM

Quote from: katmai on June 19, 2012, 11:28:17 PM
Why do you live there again?

That shit happens in Anchorage too.  Tell him the recent story about the Air Force kid and craigslist.

Ahem
Murders 2011
Baltimore : 196
Anchorage: 14

QuoteNonetheless, dropping below 200 murders in a year for the first time since 1977 is a major milestone

Quote from: Syt on June 20, 2012, 01:56:35 AM

Quote from: katmai on June 20, 2012, 01:17:25 AM

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 19, 2012, 11:37:39 PM

Quote from: katmai on June 19, 2012, 11:28:17 PM
Why do you live there again?

That shit happens in Anchorage too.  Tell him the recent story about the Air Force kid and craigslist.

Ahem
Murders 2011
Baltimore : 196
Anchorage: 14

Baltimore had over 20 more than all of Austria. :lol:

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 20, 2012, 02:10:10 AM
For all we hear about our murder rate vs Europe, that is actually higher than I would have thought.  :P

Quote from: Syt on June 20, 2012, 02:26:37 AM

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 20, 2012, 02:10:10 AM
For all we hear about our murder rate vs Europe, that is actually higher than I would have thought.  :P

Ok, let's look at Vienna. 2011: 21 homicides (20 of which have been solved by police), in a city of 1.7 million, 1.9 million in metro area.

:P

Quote from: katmai on June 20, 2012, 01:59:52 AM
And iirc that was the lowest amount for them in a few years :P

QuoteNonetheless, dropping below 200 murders in a year for the first time since 1977 is a major milestone

And have had 99 so far this year. :lol:

QuoteBaltimore police say they plan to change some tactics from last year's Fourth of July celebration to make sure the violence that stained the event won't happen again.

Police will use low fencing to restrict access to the Inner Harbor and will shift officers to potential trouble spots such as transit stops as the night progresses, officials said Monday. Several hundred officers, including some from the Maryland State Police and the Maryland Transportation Authority, will patrol the harbor area. They'll be on horseback, on bikes and in cars, as well as on foot.

"The bottom line is, we had a few incidents last year committed by a few people, and this year we want to do better," said acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony E. Barksdale. "We are ready for the event."

Last year's celebration was marred by two post-fireworks incidents — a visitor from Alabama was fatally stabbed at Pier Six, and a 4-year-old was wounded by a bullet that police believe was shot into the air. And in recent months, reports of attacks by groups of youths roaming through downtown also drove weeks of debate about safety.

And now, city officials are scrambling to recover from a severe storm that left widespread power outages and problems stemming from inoperable traffic lights to dark, sweltering homes and businesses.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the weekend storm that rocked Baltimore won't derail police security at the Inner Harbor on Wednesday but noted that a follow-up storm could stretch resources to their limit.

"We know we have enough resources if there are no other intermediary weather concerns," she said. "We have enhanced deployment in the harbor. I'm pleased it's showing results. I'm confident it will be a safe Fourth of July."

Marvin L. Cheatham Sr., a civil rights leader with the National Action Network, said he's noticed the Police Department working more with the community and is optimistic the event will be peaceful.

He called on parents to take responsibility for their children's actions — disciplining them with "tough love" when they do wrong. And he asked the city to provide "more and better" activities for young people.

"You can count on one hand the number of venues tailored to young African-Americans," he said.

In response to concerns about violence, city officials decided to fence in last year's New Year's Eve fireworks at the Inner Harbor, restricting access to nine entry points. Police will adjust that tactic for Independence Day, using low "bike racks" instead to manage the flow of visits, said Deputy Commissioner John Skinner.

Police believe a 6-foot-high fence isn't necessary and the lower barriers will work just as well to control the crowd. In addition to the fireworks display, the day's events include a concert beginning at 4 p.m.

Skinner also said police will shift the deployment of officers from fixed positions throughout the night to adjust to crowd patterns. For example, as the fireworks show is winding down, deployments will be beefed up in areas such as transit stops.

"We'll be trying to get ahead of the crowds as the crowds are leaving," Skinner said. "As the event progresses, we'll be taking resources from one area and aggressively moving them into other areas."

During the Independence Day celebration, which can draw 200,000 people or more to the Inner Harbor area, Barksdale said police will be taking a no-tolerance approach to disruptions. He noted that the city has had several large-scale events downtown — including New Year's Eve and the recent Sailabration — that went off without any major incidents.

"Years ago, we tended to say, 'Get out of here, go home.' But we've seen that we can't do that. If you come to the Inner Harbor and you can't behave in society, then we are making arrests," Barksdale said. "If you've looked at the reporting lately for downtown, the mayor's plan for downtown is working, and we're going to keep that going."

In recent months there has been a debate about safety downtown amid reports of groups of young people committing assaults and robberies. The most visible incident was the St. Patrick's Day assault on a Northern Virginia man who was punched, stripped of his clothing and robbed — much of it recorded by bystanders and posted online.

Two Baltimore County lawmakers — a Republican and a Democrat — said in May that suburbanites had become wary of venturing into the city and complained that officials weren't doing enough to combat such attacks. Rawlings-Blake dismissed such concerns as akin to "dealing with hecklers" and criticized Del. Pat McDonough, the Republican, for using what she said were racially charged terms.

City Councilman William H. Cole IV, who represents downtown, noted that the area is the fastest-growing part of the city — its population has increased by 35 percent since 2000.

Cole said of the criticism of downtown, "It's a bit frustrating, because I live here year-round. What's unfortunate to me is, some people take a couple horrific but isolated incidents and define what downtown Baltimore is. To me, that's not a fair representation. People continue to move here because it's safe, enjoyable and vibrant. I'm raising three kids in the middle of downtown, and it's a thoroughly enjoyable experience."

Federal Hill Neighborhood Association President Ryan Hada said Baltimore has a record of providing a "great event, well-managed and well-organized" for the Fourth of July.

He expects police to provide "appropriate protection" for visitors as they have in years past.

Police wouldn't comment on the number of officers to be deployed Wednesday — after last year's event, officials said 600 officers were on hand — but said there will be "several hundred" from various agencies.

Among the technology police will use is a live feed from the police helicopter, known as Foxtrot, that will be streamed into tactical command centers.

"A lot of people are betting against us for the Fourth, but we're all in this and we want a big day for Baltimore," Barksdale said.

Quote"You can count on one hand the number of venues tailored to young African-Americans," he said.

Quote from: katmai on June 20, 2012, 01:17:25 AM

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 19, 2012, 11:37:39 PM

Quote from: katmai on June 19, 2012, 11:28:17 PM
Why do you live there again?

That shit happens in Anchorage too.  Tell him the recent story about the Air Force kid and craigslist.

Ahem
Murders 2011
Baltimore : 196
Anchorage: 14

Quote from: Ed Anger on July 03, 2012, 07:18:55 AM
I assumed Seefor killed and ate his roommates.

Quote from: Octavian on July 03, 2012, 07:24:42 AM
Wouldn't he then had posted about in on Languish being all smug about his superior eating habits?

QuoteBaltimore police are trying to determine the circumstances of a young man's death in downtown Baltimore early Saturday.

It came amid a spate of violence across the city overnight. Four shootings were reported elsewhere, one of them leaving a man dead in East Baltimore.

Officers were initially called to the 300 block of S. Charles Street at about 5 a.m. Saturday for a 911 call reporting shots fired, but they later were called to a hotel in the area where a man was suffering from "extreme trauma to the upper body," according to the Police Department's chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

The man, who was partially clothed, was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Guglielmi said homicide detectives responded and canvassed the area for evidence of a shooting, but found no shell casings. It was also not clear what caused his injuries, but there was evidence of "road rash" on his arms, and police called their Accident Investigation Unit.

Later Saturday morning, Guglielmi said police had found clothing on the roof of the hotel, and are investigating whether the man jumped or fell.

He was not carrying identification, and is described only as white and in his early- to mid-20s.

The downtown area is packed this weekend with attendees to the annual Otakon convention, one of the largest anime conferences in the country.

Quote from: Syt on July 28, 2012, 01:16:50 PM
Why would they hold that convention in Baltimore of all places? :lol:

Quote from: Syt on July 28, 2012, 01:16:50 PM
Why would they hold that convention in Baltimore of all places? :lol:

Quote from: Tonitrus on July 28, 2012, 03:09:36 PM
Including a large black guy in paramilitary garb carrying an assault rifle (it was tipped and partially striped in neon orange).

QuoteFour men shot early Saturday in latest Baltimore spree of violence

Four men were shot in locations across Baltimore early Saturday, including a double shooting in the Druid Heights neighborhood that follows an already violent start to September, police said.

Around 2:30 a.m., officers found two men suffering from gunshot wounds in the 300 block of Gold Street, Detective Jeremy Silbert said. The men were transported to area hospitals, where one died. The second victim is expected to survive, he said.

On Saturday, a man was shot multiple times in the 2500 block of Edgecombe Circle North in the Parklane neighborhood. Officers arrived at 1:56 a.m. and the victim was transported to an area hospital.

Another man walked into an area hospital for treatment at 5:24 a.m. with a gunshot wound to his shoulder. The victim told police he was shot in the 1800 block of Orleans Street in the Dunbar-Broadway neighborhood.

Over Labor Day Weekend 16 people were shot and six killed. One of the victims was 22-year-old Larelle Amos, a mother who was shot by a stray bullet while she cleaned up after a family party. In response, police said they increased their presence in East and Northeast Baltimore, where the shootings occurred.

Druid Heights, the site of Saturday's double-shooting, has been the site of multiple shootings this year, including one that involved a 9-year-old boy who was caught in a crossfire on Aug. 20. The child is recovering. Donte White, 23, was charged in the shooting.

Phillip Scott, 34, was killed in April after he was shot multiple times in front of a house in the 1900 block of Etting Street. The incident was near a fatal shooting outside McCulloh Homes on April 13, where Brandon Simms, 23, was shot in the head while he ate crabs.

QuoteSpring heat rises in Baltimore, and so does city violence
Link between heat and crime has been studied, debated for years

By Justin George and Alison Matas, The Baltimore Sun

7:53 PM EDT, April 11, 2013

As record heat baked Baltimore, a wave of violence unfurled across the city: six shootings and eight people wounded over a period of less than eight hours.

The first shots were fired around dinnertime Wednesday, and the violence continued until after 2 a.m. Thursday. Police have no suspects in any of the crimes — which included two double shootings — and believe the seven wounded men and one injured woman will survive.

Several academic studies of crime suggest that it's no coincidence that the outburst of violence came as the temperature at the Inner Harbor hit 96 degrees. Researchers have debated the subject for years, but those who see a link say warmer weather drives people from their homes and into potential conflicts.

"One of the things in Baltimore is there's not a lot of air conditioning, so people move outside," said Phil Leaf, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. "The more you have different people interacting, the more chance you have for beefs."

Baltimore police say they don't need statistics to tell them what they already know from patrolling the same city streets as winter turns to spring and summer.

"We can all look at seasons of the moon and we can look at the weather," police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. "But if you ask a cop what their gut feelings are, yeah, things get crazy when it gets hot outside.

"What we do know is when the weather's warm, people go outside."

The National Weather Service reported a high temperature of 91 degrees at BWI-Marshall Airport on Wednesday, which broke a 91-year record. And a reading at the Inner Harbor hit 96 degrees, which tied Port Isabel, Texas, for the highest temperature in the United States on Wednesday.

It was one of the most violent nights recorded in the city so far this year.

Guglielmi said police are not overreacting to Wednesday night's shootings, Guglielmi said, but are working to "drill down" into each incident, looking for connections to gangs and drugs and developing sources that help police get in front of any retribution.

But the warm weather does mean police are shifting strategies. That includes shuffling schedules for patrol and plainclothes officers and even permitting officers to wear short-sleeve uniform shirts — an annual changeover that started Monday.

On the streets where the wounded were hauled away in ambulances overnight, people speculated Thursday on the causes of the violence.

"I don't know," said Meechie Thornton, 53, just half a block up from the intersection of West Fayette and North Stricker streets where a man was shot in the left side while sitting in a car. "They just go buck wild."

Thornton sat on the step of a brick rowhouse on Fayette Street talking to Kenyatta Player, 34, who wore a summer dress and sunglasses in the warm breeze.

"When it gets hot, people are crazy," Player said. As she spoke, a car screeched up the street.

"See? That made no sense whatsoever."

Researchers have tried to make some sense of the connection between heat and violence.

Psychologists at Florida International University looked at crime reports in Minneapolis for a 2000 study and found crime was more prevalent during the summer than in other seasons.

Similarly, a 2010 study conducted through Kent State University found that violent crime in Cleveland increased as temperatures rose.

Craig Anderson, who directs the Iowa State University's Center for the Study of Violence, has also studied the relationship between temperature and crime. He said heat tends to make people cranky, which can amplify minor provocations.

People also become more likely to retaliate. That can turn into a cycle, he said, and it doesn't take much to see a big effect on crime statistics.

He helped conduct a 2010 study that showed that as temperatures rise, so do people's tempers. The research examined the impact climate change could have on violent crime.

Using data from 1950 to 2008, the professors predicted that if the country's annual average temperature were to increase by 8 degrees, the number of murders and assaults would jump by 34 per 100,000 people.

Others have said the relationship between crime and temperature is complex.

James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University, studied daily crime counts and temperatures in Columbus, Ohio, for a year. He discovered crime did increase with the temperature but only to a point. Once it got too hot, crime reports dropped again.

He wrote in 2010 that crime was highest when temperatures were hovering in the mid-80s, but petered out as temperatures climbed into the 90s.

He also found temperature had the greatest impact on crimes outside of the home.

Most of the overnight incidents in Baltimore took place outside, Guglielmi said.

But some research has raised questions about the link between heat and murder in the city.

A 1995 article published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology looked at crime in Baltimore over a period of eight years to see whether temperature had a direct influence on the number of killings. The study found that "homicide in Baltimore is a surprisingly consistent — or constant — process, showing little or no variation on many temporal factors important at the national level."

On Thursday, in a home in the 800 block of Arnold Court in the Gay Street neighborhood, two women sat on a back porch speculating what may have prompted a shooting in their complex. They blamed the drug dealers who seem to proliferate in their alleys when it's warm.

"It's not even summertime and they're already outside, selling their damn weed and all that mess," said a woman who declined to give her name because the shooter has not been caught. "They stand out in front of your doors. You ask them to leave, they give you mouth."

The woman said she saw paramedics rolling the wounded man in Wednesday's shooting into an ambulance. All the while, she said, the man kept saying, "Please, just give me some cold water."

The woman looked at her friend and said, "Bullets are hot, I believe."

QuoteGang leader impregnated 4 prison guards while running contraband scheme, authorities say
Published April 25, 2013
| FoxNews.com
advertisement
A Maryland gang member is accused of running a scheme to smuggle contraband into prison by "corrupting" 13 female prison guards from behind bars, four of whom he impregnated.
A federal indictment says Tavon White has been charged in the plot to smuggle drugs, cell phones and other contraband into the Baltimore jail and other corrections facilities, along with the prison guards, six of his fellow inmates and five others with gang ties who allegedly operated outside the jails.
The indictment also says the ring involved sex between the inmates and guards, which led to four of the officers becoming pregnant by White, the leader of a jailhouse gang called the Black Guerrilla Family.
White is accused of "corrupting" the female officers through personal and sexual relationships and other bribes and convincing them to join his ring, Fox Baltimore reports.
MyFoxDC.com reports the ring became increasingly brazen and confident over time, with White quoted as saying: "You understand me? This is my jail. I am dead serious, I make every final call in this jail."
White was being held at the Baltimore City Detention Center awaiting trial on a charge of attempted murder at the time.
The gang members and the corrections officers have been charged with conspiracy, drug possession and distribution and money laundering.

Quote from: Tonitrus on April 25, 2013, 05:05:21 PM

QuoteGang leader impregnated 4 prison guards while running contraband scheme, authorities say
Published April 25, 2013
| FoxNews.com
advertisement
A Maryland gang member is accused of running a scheme to smuggle contraband into prison by "corrupting" 13 female prison guards from behind bars, four of whom he impregnated.
A federal indictment says Tavon White has been charged in the plot to smuggle drugs, cell phones and other contraband into the Baltimore jail and other corrections facilities, along with the prison guards, six of his fellow inmates and five others with gang ties who allegedly operated outside the jails.
The indictment also says the ring involved sex between the inmates and guards, which led to four of the officers becoming pregnant by White, the leader of a jailhouse gang called the Black Guerrilla Family.
White is accused of "corrupting" the female officers through personal and sexual relationships and other bribes and convincing them to join his ring, Fox Baltimore reports.
MyFoxDC.com reports the ring became increasingly brazen and confident over time, with White quoted as saying: "You understand me? This is my jail. I am dead serious, I make every final call in this jail."
White was being held at the Baltimore City Detention Center awaiting trial on a charge of attempted murder at the time.
The gang members and the corrections officers have been charged with conspiracy, drug possession and distribution and money laundering.

Quotethe corrections officers have been charged with conspiracy, drug possession and distribution and money laundering.

QuoteBaltimore police review board called irrelevant, ineffective
Board formed in 2000 to much fanfare has many vacant seats

By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun
June 2, 2013

In a mostly empty ninth-floor conference room on a recent Thursday evening, the civilian panel charged with investigating police misconduct in Baltimore met for its monthly meeting.

There are supposed to be nine members, but four chairs were empty — those positions have been vacant for years. Of the five positions that are filled, four of the members said they want out, having long overstayed the limits of their terms.

When the board was created more than a decade ago, boosters promised it would prove a crucial check on brutality and abusive language by police officers. Opponents called it an intrusion into departmental discipline. It proved to be neither, and members say the panel has become irrelevant, ineffective and disengaged from the public it's supposed to represent.

As the recent meeting drew to a close — less than 15 minutes after it started — member William Brent, 88, questioned the panel's existence. Brent, who has served 14 years on the panel, eight years beyond his term limit, thinks the work is important, but goes unacknowledged.

"I don't think any of those people know what we're doing, or who we are," Brent said. Other members nodded in agreement.

Baltimore's board sometimes gets cases from police after they've already been closed, and its recommendations are very rarely followed. Its investigations and the complaints it reviews are not public, and only cryptically described at meetings. Police and union officials are supposed to hold three additional nonvoting positions on the board, but haven't been coming.

"I think they're a paper tiger," City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young said of the board.

Informed of the board's vacancies and complaints from its members, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told The Baltimore Sun that her staff would move to fill the vacancies. "It's critically important that we get this fixed," she said.

Civilian review boards began to emerge in cities in the early 1990s, in the wake of the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles. The issue had been debated for several years before a string of police-involved shootings and a 1999 incident in which a state senator was handcuffed pushed it toward approval in the Maryland General Assembly.

It was a hard-won legislative battle, followed by months of political maneuvering over who would sit on the panel. But the fervor faded quickly, and the Baltimore board never developed the assertive role that civilian groups took on elsewhere.

In Washington, the police complaints board makes policy recommendations and has more than 20 staffers investigating misconduct. Chicago's independent police review authority analyzes police-involved shootings and posts investigative reports online.

Baltimore's new Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez, who oversees a reconstituted professional standards and accountability bureau, joined the Police Department after 27 years in Los Angeles, considered to have some of the strongest police oversight in the country. He said he is reviewing Baltimore's board with a goal of making it more relevant.

"I believe that in today's law enforcement, there is a very critical need in what we do to have civilian oversight," Rodriguez said. "I do not think the system [in Baltimore] is broken, but I think there's room for improvements."

But Sheldon Greenberg, director of the School of Public Safety Leadership at the Johns Hopkins University, is skeptical about the implementation and significance of civilian review. He said many cities jumped on the trend "without a real connection to a need or purpose locally."

"If you just do it because it's on the books, or because other cities are doing it, then you're just going through the process," Greenberg said. "Process without purpose is meaningless."

In Baltimore, the board has two investigators and subpoena power. Complaints have declined from 137 in 2010, to 97 in 2011, to 87 in 2012. The board's reports for the past three years show that the members voted to reverse the findings of internal affairs in 49 out of 812 — or 6 percent — of allegations reviewed by the board.

Some who have dealt with the panel say the process was confusing and got them nowhere.

In 2005, then-Johns Hopkins University student Blake Trettien said he was handcuffed by an officer who had just arrested his friend, and spent 33 hours in Central Booking before being released without charges.

Months after he filed a complaint, Trettien said the board informed him that the issue didn't fall within its jurisdiction. "I was arrested for no reason, which they said was something that they didn't deal with," said Trettien, who would write a paper about "zero tolerance" policing that helped him get into law school. :lol:

Richie Armstrong and two other men arrested in 2011 during a protest over the East Baltimore Development Inc. project said they filed complaints with the board and never heard back.

"We ended up on trial behind this, and I thought because of the magnitude there would be some steps taken, even just to get us some satisfaction that the city was concerned about the issues," Armstrong said.

"People have lost trust in the process," said Clarence Mitchell IV, the radio host who as a state senator helped spearhead the effort to create the board.

Doreen Rosenthal, a Bolton Hill activist, was the first chairwoman of the board and said the early days were exciting. Members came up with a structure and procedures, and attended training. They also hired investigators and developed a marketing plan to get the word out to citizens.

Rosenthal quickly became disillusioned. "I don't think we ever had a case that was [for something other than] abusive language," she said. "I felt like it was a waste of time."

Still, in 2009, there was still an impression that the board had power. Then-City Council President Rawlings-Blake recommended that important policy decisions, such as the Police Department's move at the time to stop releasing the names of officers who shoot citizens, be filtered through the civilian review board.

But under Mayor Rawlings-Blake, the board has languished with vacancies. Seats on the panel representing Southeast, Central, and Northern districts have been vacant for at least three years. The seat representing Northwest Baltimore is also vacant.

Rawlings-Blake said she made three appointments in 2011 — the first since the mayoral administration of Martin O'Malley — and City Council records show that they were confirmed. But they never were sworn-in. One of those appointees is expected to be re-nominated to the council at Monday's meeting.

Cherry Hill resident Cleoda Walker, the current chairwoman, says that while the board has enjoyed a good relationship with police commissioners, the department hasn't followed board recommendations when police and the board differ.

"I think two times at the most," said Walker, who has served on the board since 1999.

Walker said the board's subpoena power is used most often to obtain medical records to corroborate a citizen's claim of injuries. They also can hold "inquiry panels" and interview witnesses, though that has only happened two or three times, she said.

She believes in the work, even if it sometimes feels the board is ignored. The board makes sure that people who make complaints receive a letter letting them know how the board ruled on their cases. "At least it's something," she said.

Philip K. Eure, the executive director of Washington's Office of Police Complaints and a past president of a national organization of police civilian oversight groups, said it is key to bolster the resident members with professional staff and give them power.

His office has 22 staffers who report to a five-member board appointed by the mayor. It recently issued an 84-page annual report that criticized Police Chief Cathy Lanier for not following three of its recommendations since 2010. Citizens can file complaints with his office, with internal affairs, or with both, and he believes more complaints are filed with his office than with police.

Of Baltimore, he said: "There seems to be kind of a culture of both a lack of transparency and lack of seriousness and purpose insofar as independent police review goes."

Charlene Bourne, an East Baltimore neighborhood booster, is the only member seeking to stay on the board and hopes for changes in their role.

"I would like to see the Police Department take our board more seriously," Bourne said. "When we send something in and our finding is different than theirs, I would like to see it investigated more thoroughly."

QuoteCouncil president unhappy with Baltimore police plan

City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young said Monday night he wished the city had not paid consultants $285,000 for a crime-fighting plan that he described as "something we could've done in-house."

Young was part of the city spending panel that approved the consultant contract in April, but he said the finished product delivered last week fell short of his expectations because in many areas it identified problems rather than specific solutions.

Young peppered Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts with questions about staffing and overtime pay at a City Hall hearing, and said afterward that he felt police dodged his questions.

"I'm waiting for the commissioner to earn his money," Young said in an interview. "It was a lot of fluff, a lot of fast-talking. I just felt that I wasted my time."

Chief among council members' concerns was why the department — one of the largest per capita in the country — doesn't seem to have enough officers to provide coverage of the city.

Police said fixes would not be quick but that they were working to make significant changes for the first time in decades. The plan released last week outlines continuing or future initiatives that touch nearly every corner of the agency.

On deployment, Batts said police first needed to study their emergency call trends and deployment patterns, then will have to revamp their dispatch system — a significant undertaking, officials have said.

They'll also have to work out any major changes in officers' work schedules through contract negotiations with the police union, Batts said.

To explain the work being done, police brought forward an Annapolis-based contractor named Peter Bellmio. But Bellmio did not work on the $285,000 contract. He was hired in January for $5,000 to obtain preliminary deployment data, and earlier this month was given a $16,300 contract to study the impacts of changes on deployment.

The consultant who worked on the strategic plan, Robert Wasserman, sat in the back of the council chambers and did not speak during the hearing.

Bellmio said his analysis showed that police in Baltimore receive a volume of 911 calls that is on par with larger cities. He said the agency's patrol deployment patterns also don't take into account that crime spikes at night and on the weekends.

Young and other council members said they couldn't understand why police aren't able to free up more resources for foot patrols. Batts said he had placed 75 to 100 officers on foot patrols in East and West Baltimore as well as downtown and around Lexington Market.

"We're doing exactly what you asked," Batts said. Police also said that though homicides and shootings are up, the rate of increase has slowed since the summer.

Batts has pointed to rising attrition as one reason for the spike in crime this year, and police said the shortages require increased overtime spending.

The meeting became tense when Young pressed police on how many officers they are short each night, and why. Police did not give a direct answer, and Young continued to press. Councilman Warren Branch then intervened, saying to police, "You don't know how many officers work a shift per night?"

Deputy Commissioner Dean Palmere eventually said patrol districts typically have 36 officers per shift, 18 of whom are responding to calls. A spokesman later said the shifts "do not go out short."

Young said he does not see a visible presence when he goes throughout the city.

"Where are they? We're paying all of this overtime, and I don't see your officers," he said. Referring to the city's population decline, he said: "We have fewer people, and the same amount of officers. I just don't understand. Maybe it's me."

QuoteAn exceptionally murderous city
Crime and despair in Baltimore

As America gets safer, Maryland's biggest city does not


Print edition | United States
Jun 29th 2017 | BALTIMORE
BACK in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Dante Barksdale was playing the game in Baltimore—dealing drugs, toting guns, making some money—there was a process to killing people. "You couldn't shoot someone without asking permission from a certain somebody," muses the former gangster, on a tour of the abandoned row-houses and broken roads of West Baltimore, the most dangerous streets in America. "It's become like, "I'm going to kill whoever's got a fucking problem with it."

Mr Barksdale, who spent almost a decade in prison for selling drugs, speaks with authority. His uncle, Nathan "Bodie" Barksdale, was a big shot in the more hierarchical Baltimore gangland he recalls. Avon Barksdale, a fictional villain in "The Wire", a TV crime drama set in Baltimore, was partly inspired by him. The younger Mr Barksdale was himself fleetingly portrayed in it. ("'The Wire' was a bunch of bullshit," he sniffs. "I got shot in the fourth episode and I didn't get paid.") Now employed by the Baltimore health department, in a team of gangsters-turned-social workers known as Safe Streets, he uses his street smarts to try to pre-empt murders by mediating among the local hoodlums. This also gives him a rare vantage onto the city's latest upwelling of violence, which is concentrated in poor, overwhelmingly black West Baltimore—and is horrific.

Hours after Mr Barksdale conducted his tour of some of Baltimore's most troubled streets on June 12th, they witnessed another six murders. That raised the number of killings in the city to 159, the highest recorded so early in the year at least since 1990, even though the city's population was much bigger then than it is now. If weighted to reflect the fact that the murder rate always climbs in the hot, fractious summer months, this suggests Baltimore may see more than 400 murders this year. That would smash the existing record of 344 killings, which was set in 2015, fuelled by violent rioting over the death in police custody of a drug peddler called Freddie Gray.

This is catastrophic. A 50-minute drive from Washington, DC, black men aged 15 to 29 are as likely to die violently as American soldiers were in Iraq at the height of its Baathist insurgency. Yet there is no sign of Maryland or the federal government taking the sort of emergency action such a disaster would seem to justify. Instead of bolstering law enforcement in Baltimore and a few other violent cities, including chiefly Chicago, but also St Louis and Milwaukee, Jeff Sessions, the attorney-general, has tried unsuccessfully to row back a modest federal-government intervention devised by his Democratic predecessor. Meanwhile he has used the violence in those places to misrepresent the much more pacific state of America at large.

"The murder rate is up over 10%—the largest increase since 1968," Mr Sessions said last month in testimony to the Senate intelligence committee. He neglected to clarify that, notwithstanding that rise, the murder rate is at close to its lowest level in a quarter of a century. In most places, Americans have never been less likely to be murdered; the homicide rate in New York is below the national average. More than 55% of the increase last year was accounted for by Chicago, where 781 people were murdered—more than the total for New York and Los Angeles combined.

America is not experiencing a crime wave, in short, but rather historic progress marred by a few exceptionally bleak places. That does not justify Mr Sessions's campaign for harsher custodial sentences across the board, which would not cut violent crime much or at all in Baltimore or anywhere. The attorney-general would do better to fathom what is causing the bleak spots, starting with a few stark truths.

As American as cherry pie
Most murder victims in America are black people shot dead by other black people. Blacks represent 13% of America's population, yet in 2015 they represented 52% of the slain. The toll on black families and communities is appalling; between 1980 and 2013, 262,000 black men were murdered in America, more than four times America's total number of casualties in Vietnam. If black Americans were murdered at no more than the national rate, America would still be an unusually violent developed country; its murder rate would fall from the current level of 4.9 per 100,000 people, which is similar to that of some African countries, to 2.4 per 100,000. That would make America merely three times as dangerous as Germany.

Criminologists have for decades argued about what makes young black men so much likelier to commit murder than young men of other ethnicities. The answer lies in some combination of poverty, family instability, epidemics of drug use in the wretched inner-city districts into which many blacks were corralled by racist housing policies, and bad, or non-existent, policing. The last of these, which may be the most important, extends far beyond occasional instances of police brutality. In America's overtly racist past, the killers of black Americans were less likely to be caught than the killers of whites because black lives were valued less. These days, inadequate resources, recruitment and training of inner-city police officers are bigger problems. Yet the outcome is the same. In the 1930s, Mississippi solved 30% of black murders; in the early 1990s, Los Angeles County, then in the grip of a violent crack-cocaine epidemic, solved 36%; in 2015 the police in Baltimore solved 30.5% of murders, most of which involved blacks.

Where murderers operate with a sense of impunity, they are likely to commit more murders. "I probably know ten dudes right now who have shot people and never been arrested," says Mr Barksdale. Another grim indicator of impunity is that, while the number of fatal shootings has soared this year, the number of non-fatal ones has hardly increased. "Instead of taking a shot and running away, the gunmen are walking up and taking multiple shots to leave no witnesses alive," says Cassandra Crifasi, a researcher into gun violence at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health. In the absence of effective policing, friends and relatives of murder victims are also more likely to take the law into their own hands—and so the virus spreads.

The same pattern has been noted in other poorly policed societies, especially those experiencing upheaval or trauma. The homicide rate among black Americans, notes Jill Leovy, a writer on murder in America, is similar to that among Arabs in some parts of Israel's occupied territories and American frontiersmen in the 18th century. "Like the schoolyard bully," she writes in "Ghettoside", "our criminal-justice system harasses people on small pretexts but is exposed as a coward before murder. It hauls masses of black men through its machinery but fails to protect them from bodily injury and death."


Better policing contributed to the drop in violent crime seen in most American cities from the mid-1990s. The size of its contribution is unclear, however: the complexity of local circumstances and the patchiness of America's crime data makes accounting for changes in crime rates hard. Even with decades of data to mull over, and a list of likely factors including better policing, strong income growth, demographic changes and reduced alcohol consumption, researchers at the Brennan Centre for Justice, at New York University, could account for only half of the national reduction in violent crime. Accounting for the recent surge in killing in Baltimore and Chicago is even harder. Yet it is striking that both places have recently suffered a dramatic collapse in public trust in the police, sparked by acts of brutality.

Just as the killing of Freddie Gray, who suffered a fatal spine injury in the back of a police van, lit up Baltimore, so the killing of Laquan McDonald, another young black man, who was shot dead in possession of a pocket-knife, led to protests in Chicago. In both cases the police, undermanned and unsure how to comport themselves in a world of mobile-phone cameras in every pocket, retreated. Between November 2015 and January 2016, the number of suspects briefly detained in Chicago dropped by 80%. In Baltimore, arrest numbers have fallen in the past three years, even as the murder rate soared.


Baltimore's police department was thrown into additional disarray last year by a damning report from the Department of Justice, which concluded that many of its officers were poorly trained, racist and incompetent, especially in their bungled efforts to police poor black neighbourhoods. This finding led the feds to demand the overwatch role that Mr Sessions has tried unsuccessfully to give up. Another scandal, in March, has made matters worse; seven members of an elite Baltimore police unit were charged with robbing drug dealers and law-abiding Baltimoreans, among other crimes. "I sell drugs," one allegedly boasted.

Baltimore's police bridle at the suggestion that they are to blame for the city's violence. They are at least trying harder. The case-closure rate for murders is currently around 50%. In response to the six murders on the day of your correspondent's visit to West Baltimore, the city's police commissioner, Kevin Davis, also announced what amounted to a weeklong state of emergency. He dispatched most of the city's 2,850 police officers—including many previously dedicated to office-work—on 12-hour patrols. If such efforts could be sustained, they would probably be popular, even though the police are not. "No one trusts the police, no one wants to tell them anything," said Yolanda Stewart, a resident of the troubled Sandtown-Winchester neighbourhood, whose 21-year-old nephew was recently shot and maimed outside her house. "But we need strong police around here to protect us."

A tour of Baltimore's trouble spots also evinces some sympathy for the cops. Better policing alone cannot curb a major crime wave; though New York's crime-fighting success is often attributed to an imaginative crackdown on petty crime in the 1990s, the city's long economic boom probably played a bigger part. By contrast, the state of Baltimore's poorest neighbourhoods, huddled on either side of the Patapsco river, is unrelentingly dire.

Whole streets have been boarded up against the junkies who hunker miserably on the weedy verges. Where an occasional inhabited house interrupts the monotony of abandonment, a glimpse of curtains or a pot-plant appears both valiant and acutely pathetic. ("The people in these communities are doing the best they can," says Ericka Alston, a former addict who runs a much-praised after-school club in West Baltimore.) The city has an estimated 16,000 abandoned houses, some of which have lain empty since its previous big riot, in 1968, following the death of Martin Luther King. Most of the damage is more recent, however. A former steel and manufacturing hub, the city has lost 75,000 factory jobs since 1990; as a result, around a quarter of Baltimoreans are stuck in poverty, with few obvious exits. A 25-year-long study of 790 children in Baltimore by the sociologist Karl Alexander and colleagues, from 1982 to 2007, found only 4% of poor children made it through college. In Sandtown-Winchester, shortly before the riots, 52% of adults were unemployed, 49% of teenagers were "chronically absent" from school and a third of houses were empty or abandoned. Whatever caused the drop in crime that Baltimore experienced with the rest of America, such indicators suggest it was fragile progress.

That is especially true given the attendant horrors of Baltimore's other big scourge, drug addiction, which also has a long history in the city. "If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind," said Billie Holiday, a jazz singer and heroin addict, who grew up in Sandtown-Winchester in the 1920s. Mr Barksdale and many of his ex-gangster colleagues cut their teeth during the crack-cocaine binge of the late 1980s and 1990s. Many, including Mr Barksdale, are the sons of addicts. Underpinning the latest crime surge is a third epidemic, of opioid prescription drugs, which is in some ways the deadliest yet.

According to an estimate by the health department, around 50,000 Baltimoreans are addicted to opioids. Some consider that an exaggeration; a visit to the streets around Baltimore's Lexington Market suggests it might not be. "See him on the bike! He's so high he can't ride straight," says Mr Barksdale, from behind the wheel, picking out the stoners with an expert eye. There appear to be dozens of them; two dealers are plainly visible, dishing out the content of orange pillboxes. It is probably Percocet, an opioid pain-reliever, with a street value of $30 for a 30mg hit. One of the dealers is operating within a few feet of a police van—perhaps, Mr Barksdale speculates, because he too is stoned. "Everyone's high!" he exclaims. "You used to be ostracised if you was on drugs. Now it's so common it's accepted."

In the view of Mr Barksdale and his co-workers, these and other changes in Baltimore's illegal drugs market help drive the killing. The more hierarchical gangs, and regulated murders, depicted in "The Wire" were based on the relative scarcity of heroin and cocaine; a gangster with a good supply of the drugs occupied a commanding position. By contrast, the easier availability of prescription drugs—especially in the aftermath of the riots, during which many pharmacies were looted—has led to a profusion of petty dealers, many of whom are also addicts. The result is constant turf battles which, unchecked by sobriety, are especially liable to turn bloody.


Barksdale, gangster-turned-helper
In turn, the bloodshed has led to a general downgrading of the value of a life. "The normal has changed, violence and retaliation and pain are expected," says Ms Alston, who estimates that 98% of the 50-100 children who attend her after-school club have heard or seen someone being shot. "This is about six-year-olds walking in and saying, 'Did you hear so and so got shot?'" That suggests a third way in which violence, which public-health experts increasingly view as analogous to infectious disease, spreads. The community starts taking it for granted.

Safe Streets is one of the more imaginative efforts to stop the contagion. It was launched in Baltimore a decade ago after a model pioneered in Chicago by an epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin. His idea was to erect barriers around the violence in the form of interventions by community leaders and streetwise locals. Of 31 such "violence-interrupters" employed by Safe Streets, all but two have done prison time. "We all did shit, got shot, got hit the fuck up, that's why we're credible messengers," explains Mr Barksdale. "Ain't none of us were snitches." Patrolling their areas in orange T-shirts, the violence-interrupters soak up news of the latest disagreements with obvious relish. ("So there are these two marching bands got this beef going on," recounts one with delight, through an open window of Mr Barksdale's car, "and they got knives and pit-bulls...")

Uncertainty about where the violence-interrupters stand in relation to the law has made them controversial. Because they are devoted to forestalling violence, they tend to take no view on the drugs deals they observe. A few have also sought to augment their meagre salaries unwisely. Mr Barksdale concedes that one of the problems is keeping people engaged without dipping back into their old lifestyles. His gangster uncle, who briefly worked for Safe Streets, was one who succumbed to temptation. Nathan Barksdale died in prison in North Carolina in February, aged 54, having been jailed for four years for trafficking heroin. Such controversies have left Safe Streets short of friends in high places; it almost lost its annual funding, of $1.6m, last year. Yet the ex-crims appear to be effective. A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University published in 2012 found a statistically significant reduction in non-fatal violence in the four neighbourhoods they patrol, and a significant reduction in killings in two of them. Given the high cost of violence, financially and otherwise, that suggests Safe Streets is good value. It is estimated that $80m has been spent on treating gunshot wounds in Baltimore over the past five years.

It will take more than a few more ex-gangsters to pacify Baltimore, however. A straw-poll of Safe Streets workers suggests the city's troubled parts need four things above all. They need better schools, to mitigate the damaging effects on teenagers of their chaotic families, and to equip them for the jobs being created in Baltimore's plusher areas. They need fewer prescription drugs. And they need more and better policing. For the last of these, there is at least some hope in the form of the promised reforms and federal oversight. Of better schools and fewer drugs in Baltimore's violent districts there is no sign and, in the absence of serious attention to this calamity, little prospect.

Quote from: The Brain on July 02, 2017, 03:13:18 AM
No homicides on boats? SHOCKER

QuoteA massive lump of congealed fat, wet wipes and other detritus — dubbed the "fatberg" — is growing underneath the streets of Baltimore.

The Baltimore Department of Public Works said Monday it discovered the fatberg earlier this month in a sewer main between Baltimore Penn Station and the 1700 block of Charles Street. So far the fatberg has been responsible for a dry weather sewer overflow on Sept. 21 that discharged around 1.2 million gallons of sewage into the Jones Falls, the department said.

A similar fatberg estimated to weigh more than 140 tons was also recently discovered in London's sewer system and is expected to take weeks to destroy. Baltimore's fatberg, however, has been mostly scraped off and sent to the landfill on Quarantine Road.

Congealed fats, oils and grease have blocked a sewer main between Baltimore Penn Station and the 1700 block of Charles Street. (Department of Public Works)

When engineers decided to explore the sewer to determine the cause of multiple sewer overflows in the area, they discovered the fatberg, DPW said. The walls of a 100-year-old, 24-inch wide pipe were caked with congealed fats, oils and grease. Up to 85 percent of the pipe was clogged with the congealed fat, blocking the flow of sewage.Raymond said there were other, smaller fatbergs throughout the city's pipes, but none as large as the one under Penn Station.

Raymond said the city has a fats, oils and grease — known as FOG — prevention program targeting restaurants and other food service establishments. When the substances go down a pipe, they congeal, harden and often attach to other items that don't break down in the sewer, such as wet wipes.

Plus, Raymond added, FOG can block up a homeowner's pipes, causing an expensive call to a plumber.

Quote from: Oexmelin on September 26, 2017, 08:42:28 PM
Fatberg growing under the streets of Baltimore:

QuoteA massive lump of congealed fat, wet wipes and other detritus — dubbed the "fatberg" — is growing underneath the streets of Baltimore.

The Baltimore Department of Public Works said Monday it discovered the fatberg earlier this month in a sewer main between Baltimore Penn Station and the 1700 block of Charles Street. So far the fatberg has been responsible for a dry weather sewer overflow on Sept. 21 that discharged around 1.2 million gallons of sewage into the Jones Falls, the department said.

A similar fatberg estimated to weigh more than 140 tons was also recently discovered in London's sewer system and is expected to take weeks to destroy. Baltimore's fatberg, however, has been mostly scraped off and sent to the landfill on Quarantine Road.

Congealed fats, oils and grease have blocked a sewer main between Baltimore Penn Station and the 1700 block of Charles Street. (Department of Public Works)

When engineers decided to explore the sewer to determine the cause of multiple sewer overflows in the area, they discovered the fatberg, DPW said. The walls of a 100-year-old, 24-inch wide pipe were caked with congealed fats, oils and grease. Up to 85 percent of the pipe was clogged with the congealed fat, blocking the flow of sewage.Raymond said there were other, smaller fatbergs throughout the city's pipes, but none as large as the one under Penn Station.

Raymond said the city has a fats, oils and grease — known as FOG — prevention program targeting restaurants and other food service establishments. When the substances go down a pipe, they congeal, harden and often attach to other items that don't break down in the sewer, such as wet wipes.

Plus, Raymond added, FOG can block up a homeowner's pipes, causing an expensive call to a plumber.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-fatberg-20170925-story.html

QuotePolice commissioner: Slain Baltimore detective was to testify in case of indicted officers

Slain Baltimore homicide Detective Sean Suiter was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury in the case against a squad of indicted officers on the day after he was shot, Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said Wednesday evening.

The revelation brings together two cases that have sent shock waves through the Police Department and the city as a whole: the federal prosecutions of eight members of the department's elite gun task force, who are accused of shaking down citizens and conspiring with drug dealers, and the killing of Suiter last week in West Baltimore, the first of an on-duty officer by a suspect in 10 years.

Davis said Wednesday that federal authorities have told him "in no uncertain terms" that Suiter was not a target of their investigation into the Gun Trace Task Force. He said authorities have no reason to believe Suiter's killing was connected to his pending testimony.

"The BPD and FBI do not possess any information that this incident ... is part of any conspiracy," Davis said. He said evidence shows the shooting occurred spontaneously, as Suiter investigated a suspicious person in the Harlem Park neighborhood.

"There is no information that has been communicated to me that Detective Suiter was anything other than a stellar detective, great friend, loving husband and dedicated father," he said.

Davis also said that Suiter is believed to have been killed with his own service weapon, which was fired at close range, and that there was evidence of a struggle before the shooting.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 23, 2017, 11:57:20 PM
There's no big secret conspiracy there.  Sounds interesting.  Isn't interesting.

Quote from: grumbler on November 24, 2017, 09:39:43 AM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 23, 2017, 11:57:20 PM
There's no big secret conspiracy there.  Sounds interesting.  Isn't interesting.

Agreed.  Cop threatens to violate police omerta, gets shot to death.  Nothing surprising or interesting about that.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 24, 2017, 10:27:52 AM

Quote from: grumbler on November 24, 2017, 09:39:43 AM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 23, 2017, 11:57:20 PM
There's no big secret conspiracy there.  Sounds interesting.  Isn't interesting.

Agreed.  Cop threatens to violate police omerta, gets shot to death.  Nothing surprising or interesting about that.

He was going to testify about gis participation in a car chase with one of the indicted officers that resulted in the death of a motorist in 2010.  He wasn't exactly the linchpin witness upon which 7 federal indictments receiving testimony since 2014 rest upon.

But hey, you know better than I do what goes down in the Western District.  You should come up here and tell somebody so they can do something.