Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein on Thursday afternoon announced the creation of a new "major investigations" unit that will be tasked with building proactive cases against violent, repeat offenders. 

To lead the unit, Bernstein landed a coup with the recruitment of Thiru Vignarajah from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland. Vignarajah is a graduate of Woodlawn High School who went on to attend Yale University and Harvard University, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. 

"Research and data reveal that a relatively small number of violent, repeat offenders commit a disproportionately large amount of violent crime. By strategically and aggressively pursuing, prosecuting and imprisoning these individuals, we will have a dramatic impact on the level of violence in the city, and as a result make Baltimore a safer place to live and work."

Many of the major cases brought in federal court are a result of state-authorized wiretaps, and involve the cooperation of federal and local authorities. The new unit is expected to help specifically develop such cases.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 9:43 PM | Permalink
Categories: Courts and the justice system
        

That near-record low in homicides in Baltimore for May wasn't what it seemed, as police failed to disclose two homicides late in the month - including one case in which they even made an arrest.

The two victims are:

-Anthony Sherman, 27, of the 2600 block of E. Hoffman St., was shot in the head just after midnight on May 25th in the 1600 block of Ward Ct. in East Baltimore. He was found lying on the sidewalk and taken to a local hospital, where he was not expected to survive. Police spokesman Kevin Brown said Sherman died the next day, May 26.

-Kevin Jones, 57, of the 2700 block of Maryland Ave., was stabbed in the chest at 10:50 a.m. May 26 in the 1200 block of W. Ostend St. in Pigtown. Jones was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died at about 5 p.m. that day.

Police arrested Corey Arnell Crosby, a 40-year-old man, on May 27. Brown said the motive was an argument. The murder arrest was the fourth time Crosby has been arrested this year; now, he is being held without bond on the murder charges.

Attempts to learn more about the victims were not immediately successful. Court records show Jones in August received a 15 year prison sentence for drug distribution, but the entire sentence was suspended except for time served.

The killings are two more than police had previously disclosed, though the revised 15 killings for the month is still the first time the city has recorded less than 20 in the month of May since 1998 and only the second time since 1989.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: East Baltimore, South Baltimore
        

Justin Fenton reports:

Two Baltimore police officers convicted of misconduct for stranding two 15-year-old boys far from their homes received 18 month suspended jail terms and probation Wednesday, with a judge refusing prosecutors’ request to strip them of their badges.

Detectives Tyrone Francis and Milton Smith asserted their innocence before Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Timothy J. Doory handed down the sentence. “I still believe the only thing I’m actually guilty of is doing my job,” Smith said.

The father of one of the victims had asked that Doory send the men to jail. Francis and Smith were acquitted by a jury of kidnapping, false imprisonment and assault, and convicted on two counts each of misconduct. A third officer, Gregory Hellen, was acquitted by Doory in a rare dual judge-jury trial.

It was the first case personally tried by State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein.

The officers were accused of picking up two teens in West Baltimore at separate points on May 4, 2009, dropping one off on a street corner in East Baltimore and taking the other to the side of the highway that runs through Patapsco Valley State Park in Howard County. That teen, Michael Johnson Jr., was left in the rain without shoes and said his cell phone had been broken in half and thrown out of the window.

More details:

Continue reading "City police get suspended sentences for stranding teens" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Courts and the justice system
        

B's Luke Broadwater profiles Baltimore homicide victim No. 71, Darian Kess, a standout wrestler killed during a robbery:

Darian Kess could have gone on to finish high school as a four-time state champ (a rare accomplishment in Maryland). He could have gone on to be a star in college. He could have used wrestling to get an advanced degree. He could have done a lot of things with the special skills he had.

Instead, at age 27, Kess died last month in a bed at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He had been stabbed during a robbery, another casualty of Baltimore’s seemingly unending pattern of violence.

Kess’ death warranted a small mention in local newspapers, no more than a few sentences. He was now a statistic, homicide No. 71 of 2011. But each murder victim is immeasurably more than just a cause of death and a block number and another notch in the murder tally — typically the last things we read about them. Each victim had hopes and dreams and promise. Each has a story.

Darian’s story is of a special kid with unique athletic abilities. It’s a story about the easy wrong and the hard right. It’s a story about beating cancer. It’s a story about finding meaning in fatherhood. It’s a story about trying to get right with God. And, ultimately, it’s a story about tragedy.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:16 PM | Permalink
Categories: Northeast Baltimore
        

Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein told residents at a North Baltimore community meeting that the juvenile justice system is weakened by a lack of facilities to house young offenders.

"The juvenile justice system is not good," said Bernstein, in response to a question about teenage drug dealers. "There is no real accountability.  There are no real repercussions."

Bernstein, who was sworn-in as state's attorney in January, joined Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III at a meeting hosted by Councilman Bill Henry.

"Limited facilities to commit juveniles" mean that they are "put right back in the communities" where they are getting into trouble, said Bernstein.

Bernstein told attendees that the state's attorney's had a better working relationship with the police department than it had under his predecessor, Patricia Jessamy.

"We have a much more cooperative relationship with the police department where we understand our roles and work together," he said.

Posted by Julie Scharper at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Courts and the justice system
        

A day after two photographers complained and threatened to sue (through the ACLU) over being ordered because of security concerns to stop taking pictures of trains and the light rail, the chief of Maryland's Mass Transit Administration said he would apologize.

Mike Dresser writes:

The head of the Maryland Transit Administration flatly repudiated Monday the efforts by some of the agency's police officers to forbid photographers from shooting pictures of MTA equipment or from MTA property, vowing to settle all the issues raised by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland before a lawsuit can be filed.

Read more on Dresser's Getting There blog.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:12 PM | Permalink
        

Excerpts from this week's Baltimore Guide police blotter for South and Southeast Baltimore (For more, click here):

-S. Collington Avenue, 300 block, May 20, 9:50 p.m. A man told police that a second man whom he did not know entered his home through an unlocked door, pulled a handgun and told the man, “You know what I want and you can thank Chris.” The suspect took oxycodone and $250 cash, then walked out

-S. East Avenue, 1100 block, May 16, 9:10 a.m. The Department of Transportation reported that someone had taken a boot off a car and driven away with it.

-1000 block Light St., Friday, May 20, 10:58 p.m.: A bar security guard was bitten by a 22-year-old patron who had stolen a purse from the bar.

Continue reading "Baltimore Guide blotter - May 25 - "You can thank Chris"" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 10:56 AM | Permalink
Categories: Best of the Blotter, South Baltimore, Southeast Baltimore
        

City police today are identifying the woman found shot to death in Leakin Park on Sunday night.

Lois Smyth, 40, who was also known as Lois Vance, was found by a jogger in the 3900 block of Windsor Mill Road, between the Gwynns Falls Trail and a stream, police say. Smyth was from the 400 block of W. Maple Road in Linthicum, and had no criminal record.

Police are interviewing people of interest and have a motive, though it was not disclosed for investigative reasons. According to The Sun's homicide map, Smyth is the fifth female killed in Baltimore this year, and just the second white victim out of 83 victims.

On Facebook, friends of Smyth were organizing a candlelight vigil at Old Mill Senior High School for Thursday night.

Police also provided names for two other recent victims of fatal gun violence:  Fareed Abdullah, 28, of the 8600 block of Pine Road in Jessup, was identified as the man shot while sitting in a vehicle on Saturday morning in Northwest Baltimore, while Maurice Gray, 35, of the 800 block of Bradhurst Dr., was identified as the man shot and killed Tuesday night in the 700 block of E. Eager St.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Anne Arundel County, Southwest Baltimore
        

Anne Arundel County police are seeking help identifying a bank robbery suspect who held up a 1st Mariner Bank on May 6. Police said the man walked in to the branch in the 1600 block of Annapolis Road in Odenton about 11:15 a.m.

Police said the man walked up to a teller, "announced a bank robbery and gave verbal commands.

 The suspect brought a bag into the bank with him and had the bank teller put the bank money in the bag." Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Clifford Van Hoesen of the Robbery Unit at 410-222-3469 (3566) or Metro Crime Stoppers.

Continue reading "Arundel police seek bank robber" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:08 AM | Permalink
Categories: Anne Arundel County
        

May in Baltimore concluded with 13 homicides, one higher than the lowest total ever recorded for the month of May since 1970, the furthest that statistics are available. For comparison, last May saw 23 homicides, and since 1999 the city averages more than 21 homicides in the month. 

This is the second month already in 2011 that the city - still one of the most violent in the country, according to FBI statistics - has marked a notable low, after there were just 10 killings in February, tying the lowest total of any Febraury since at least 1970 and marking one of the lowest monthly totals ever. It was even lower, yes, than February 2010, when the city was hit with "Snowpocalypse," the heavy snowfall than critics still chalk up as the major reason why murders declined for the year.

There was also a stretch of 12 days without a homicide earlier this year, which, in a city that sees two killings every three days, was one of the longest such stretches dating back at least several years. For the year, the city is still ahead of last year's pace due to a big spike in April. A man fatally shot in the 700 block of E. Eager St. Tuesday night became the city's 83rd victim of the year, compared with 79 at this point last year. Ninety-five people had been slain at the same time in 2009.

Continue reading "May ends with historically low homicide count" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Top brass
        

The off-duty Baltimore police officer who shot and killed a Marine outside a Mount Vernon nightclub had been drinking, prosecutors said two city police sergeants are prepared to testify at the officer's murder trial.

In court on Tuesday, a prosecutor said one sergeant will testify that Officer Gahiji Tshamba's speech was slurred and he appeared "glassy-eyed." Tshamba had refused to take a breath test after he shot Tyrone Brown, who had drunkenly grabbed the buttocks of one of Tshamba's female companions. The officer says Brown advanced on him and he fired to defend himself.

The prosecutor said that during a ride away from the scene right after "shooting a man 12 times," Tshamba talked about "how hot the chicks were." The trial, before a judge, is scheduled to start this morning.

Both men have troubled pasts linked to alcohol. One issue unresolved is whether the judge will allow the victim's medical records documenting alcohol abuse and other problems into the trial. The officer was disciplined several times, including for shooting a man while drunk during an argument with people in a car.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:32 AM | Permalink
Categories: Downtown
        

Fresh off a story about a teacher stopped by police for handing out leaflets promoting vegetarianism at the Inner Harbor, we get word of another problem -- train buffs stopped by police from taking pictures of, you guessed it, trains.

Mass Transit Police, referring to the Patriot Act and Sept. 11, told two photographers in Baltimore that taking pictures of trains such as the Light Rail was not allowed without permission.

The Sun's Mike Dresser documents the issues and notes that the Maryland ACLU is threatening a lawsuit. These issues just don't seem to go away. Here is Mike's full story and a video of one of the photographers posted on YouTube of his encounter with MTA police. 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: North Baltimore
        

Weeks after his office and home were raided by federal agents, attorney Stanley Needleman is in trouble again — this time with allegedly stealing a judicial clerk's school textbook from a Baltimore County courtroom.

Needleman, 68, has been charged with one count of theft under $100 after police say a check of court surveillance cameras showed him on May 9 flipping through the textbook, titled, "Understanding White Collar Crime," walking away with it and resuming his spot behind the defense table to represent a client.

In an interview with a detective, according to police charging documents, Needleman said he picked up the book because it "had to do with my situation," an apparent reference to raids on his North Calvert Street office and Pikesville home in mid-April by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The City Paper has reported that agents seized $600,000 in cash.

Needleman told the detective in the textbook case that he "did not have any intent whatsoever to take anybody's book," but police noted that he made no attempts to return the book, valued at $41. He did not respond to a request for comment.

The court clerk, Bradford Gorney, also did not return a phone call seeking comment. But on his Facebook page, he posted on May 10: "It's official, someone stole my school textbook from inside my courtroom with cameras … DUMB."

Read more here.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:28 PM | Permalink
Categories: Baltimore County
        

A pair of brothers — one 35, the other eight years younger — have been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the fatal shootings early Sunday of two men in a Pikesville parking lot, The Sun's Nick Madigan reports.

The shootings took place shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday behind a row of businesses on the 1300 block of Reisterstown Road. Officers discovered Guillermo Garcia, 30, and Antonio Guzman-Rangel, 33, suffering from gunshot wounds that proved to be fatal.

The two men's deaths bring to 13 the number of homicides in Baltimore County so far this year.

A police statement said detectives learned that the suspects, Mario and Fredy Linares, had been asked to leave the nearby Paradiso Italian Grill and Bar earlier after getting into a physical altercation with the two men who ultimately were shot. The suspects left the restaurant but returned to the area at closing time, police said. When the victims left the bar shortly it closed, the suspects confronted them in the parking lot and Garcia and Guzman-Rangel were shot, according to police.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Baltimore County
        

No, rapper Rick Ross is not a suspect in a Southeast Baltimore murder. But witnesses told police that one of the men involved in the shooting of 34-year-old Payton Rivers early Tuesday has similar features.

Rivers is believed to have left his home to get food when he was approached by two males, one who was clutching a handgun and shot him, according to police.

When officers arrived, Rivers was sitting in the 3400 block of E. Baltimore St., suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. A motive was not known.

Witnesses described one suspect as a short black male with close-cropped hair, wearing a blue and black striped V-neck shirt and dark-colored shorts. The other, Guglielmi said, was described as being chubby with a "Rick Ross-style" beard, a reference to the rapper's large beard.

Anyone with information is asked to call homicide detectives at 410-396-2100.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 4:46 PM | Permalink
Categories: Southeast Baltimore
        

From Laura Vozzella at The Sun's Baltimore Insider blog:

Former Gov. Bob Ehrlich and two top aides testified last week before the grand jury investigating deceptive Election Day robocalls made on behalf of his re-election campaign, a source close to the matter told me Tuesday.

Ehrlich, former communications director Paul Schurick and longtime aide Greg Massoni testified before the grand jury, which met for three days, according to a source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because grand jury proceedings are secret.

Also called in, the source said, were a few lesser-known  figures: Chris Cavey, a former chairman of the Baltimore County Republican Party; Joe Sliwka, a former campaign aide with whom Ehrlich considered buying a Chick-fil-A franchise after his failed re-election bid; and Gene Raynor, former head of the city and state elections boards.

As officials were preparing an investigation, The Sun last fall first traced the Election Night calls to a Pennsylvania-based company that said the calls had been paid for by Julius Henson's Universal Elections, which was being paid by Ehrlich campaign. Henson was later slapped with a multi-million dollar lawsuit by Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler over allegations that he and his company violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by not identifying who was behind the messages.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The murder trial of Baltimore police officer Gahiji Tshamba, who unloaded his service weapon into a former Marine outside a Baltimore bar last year, began Tuesday morning with hearings to determine what evidence can be presented in court, The Sun's Tricia Bishop reports.

Lawyers for Tshamba, 37, claim their client shot Tyrone Brown a dozen times in self-defense and was following proper police procedure during the incident, which happened in the early morning hours of June 5, 2010, after a night of club hopping. But prosecutors say Tshamba was intoxicated, irrational and that he murdered an innocent man who served the country.

The two sides spent the morning arguing about what can be said to a jury or judge, dependent upon what kind of trial Tshamba elects, though they agreed on one thing: Each wants the fact-finders to take a field trip to the crime scene, outside a back entrance to Club Hippo in Mount Vernon, during the proceeding.

"You don't get the largess of the situation until you get to the crime scene," said Assistant State's Attorney Kevin Wiggins.

Wiggins said at least two officers are prepared to testify that Tshamba appeared to be under the influence of alcohol after the shooting, talking about "how hot the chicks were that were with him that night" while he was being transported to Mercy Medical Center.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:12 PM | Permalink
Categories: Courts and the justice system, Gahiji Tshamba, Police shootings
        

A Pennsylvania woman who was beaten and raped in the parking lot of the popular Ocean City club Seacrets in 2008 has filed a federal lawsuit alleging the club's security staff left her vulnerable to the attack.

The woman, who was 25 at the time, is seeking at least $1 million, according to court records.

The attack occurred in the early hours of May 24, 2008, when the woman went outside the megaclub to make a phone call and left her purse inside with her friends. After trying to get back inside, club staff told her she was being ejected for being too intoxicated and would not let her find her friends to get her purse, which contained her hotel room key, according to the court filings.

She was unable to reach her friends or get into the hotel, and returned to the club parking lot at 2:15 a.m. There, in an area obstructed from security staff because of a large boat and SUV that blocked their view, the woman was attacked by a man who dragged her behind a building on the premises and raped her, records show.

Continue reading "Woman sues Ocean City club in connection with '08 rape" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Crime elsewhere
        

Last year at this time, city police officials were scrambling to quell violence after a stretch of three days that saw nine people slain. "There are people in the city who decided to make everyone's Memorial Day miserable," said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi at the time. The killings spanned the city, happened inside homes and out in the streets, and included domestic incidents and drug killings.

This year, the violence was relatively muted. Three people lost their lives - in one wild incident, a man was shot in broad daylight and crashed his car into a pole, injuring a pedestrian. A woman was found dead along the Gwynns Falls Trail on Sunday evening - the cause of her death unknown as of last report - and a man was fatally shot after midnight Tuesday.

As city officials would say, that's three too many. But what a difference a few days make. While Baltimore just a few weeks ago was facing a 25 percent increase in killings compared with last year, the quiet weekend compared with last year's bloody stretch now has the city three ahead of last year's pace (82 to 79, or about 4 percent). Last year, of course, the city would go on to record its lowest total in more than 20 years (which was still good enough for fourth-worst in the country).

This year, the headlines came out of the counties. In Baltimore County, two men were fatally shot in Pikesville outside an Italian restaurant near state police headquarters, and three were stabbed in Dundalk. Then in Anne Arundel, a man was fatally stabbed and, in an incident with allusions to Saturday's Northwest Baltimore killing, drove his vehicle into an ice cream shop and injured three pedestrians. 

Posted by Justin Fenton at 9:31 PM | Permalink
        

A man who died after crashing his vehicle into a tree and hitting three people Sunday night in Glen Burnie had been stabbed prior to the accident, police said today.

Lamonte Tracey Sherman, 39, of the 300 block of Stephens Circle in Aberdeen, was driving from Americana Circle onto Ritchie Highway about 10 p.m. when he apparently lost control of his car, a green 2006 Dodge Magnum station wagon, Anne Arundel County police said.

Police earlier had said the vehicle jumped the curb and struck a tree, then hit two people in the parking lot of Ann's Dari Crème, who received only minor injuriies. Lt. John McAndrew, a police spokesman, said Monday afternoon that the vehicle struck a table outside the eatery at which a 15-year-old girl was sitting with her family before continuing on to strike the tree.

Read more here.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 9:09 PM | Permalink
Categories: Anne Arundel County
        

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Two men were killed early Sunday morning outside a restaurant on Reisterstown Road in Pikesville, police said, The Sun's Yeganeh June Torbati reports.

At 1:32 a.m., police received a report of a double shooting outside an Italian restaurant on the 1300 block of Reisterstown Road in Pikesville. At least one of the men died at the scene, police said, and they have no suspects in the case.

The restaurant is located at a busy shopping strip called The Alley Shops, where the stores cater to the area's large Orthodox Jewish community and sell jewelry, liquor, used goods and Russian books, as well as hair styling and tax consulting services. It's also a block away from the Maryland State Police headquarters.

On Sunday afternoon, shop managers in the area said they had been surprised to hear of the killings because the area is usually safe. They said they believed the shooting occurred in the shared parking lot behind their stores.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Baltimore County
        

Despite what numerous drivers running errands on Saturday afternoon seemed to believe, a handicapped parking permit is not a family pass for choice parking.

At the Glen Burnie Wal-Mart, Cpl. Eric Trumbauer snagged two such drivers at once. One woman, teary-eyed and apologetic, said she used her husband’s handicapped placard because she was only running in to get dog food. The other, 31-year-old Trina Mendez, was less remorseful.

“There’s nowhere to [expletive] park,” Mendez said, her painted toenails resting in the window as Trumbauer wrote a $140 citation.

Lavona Arnold could only shake her head at the situation. Arnold is 70,and, as she puts it, has “two bad knees and two bad feet.” She leaned on a shopping cart, her cane hooked inside, and walked by the cars shaking her head.

“I had to park all the way down there,” she said. “You think that’s not disgusting? By the time I walk from there up to here, I’m ready to turn around and go back. They think they can get away with it. [They say,] ‘My grandmother has a handicap. I’m going to use it. They won’t catch me.’”

Anne Arundel County police have been cracking down on such violations as part of an initiative called Operation HIDE, or Handicap ID Enforcement. Cpl. Nicholas DiPietro, a 15-year veteran and the traffic enforcement coordinator for the county’s Northern Police District, has heard every excuse in the book.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Anne Arundel County
        

Last week, an article about preliminary 2010 crime data released by the FBI contained two errors concerning Baltimore's rankings. Though newspaper corrections are typically terse, I wanted to fully acknowledge and explain my mistakes, which came to light after seeing an article on The Atlantic's web site* about the rankings. 

My article said that Baltimore had the fifth-highest murder rate, but it in fact had the fourth, surpassing Detroit by a slim margin. My own calculations showed this, but I failed to notice. Baltimore had a murder rate of 34.85, while Detroit's was 34.46. There's a disclaimer in here, though it doesn't excuse the mistake: The FBI used population figures that are different than the recently-released Census data. The FBI put Detroit's population at 899,447, while the 2010 Census had it much lower at 713,717. Baltimore's population was listed as 639,929, while the 2010 Census had it as 620,921. Using those new population figures, Baltimore goes back to No. 5 with a murder rate of 35.91, and Detroit's jumps to 43.43. But I'm not sure when or if those population differences will be reflected. So as far as this week's data goes, I erred.

I also wrote that Baltimore had the seventh-highest violent crime rate, when it actually had the eighth-highest. There were 233 cities to consider, and I had compiled a list of likely candidates from prior year lists and looked through the data for new additions. I left out Little Rock, Arkansas, which catapulted to the top 10, placing it between Oakland, Calif. and Baltimore. The Census vs. FBI population question doesn't affect Baltimore's place behind Little Rock.

The FBI, of course, cautions against ranking cities, because of a variety of factors that make them difficult to compare. Not among those warnings is weary reporters who misuse the data.

*While we're pointing out corrections, though, the Atlantic article also claims that Baltimore's crime mostly occurs in the "Front Street" neighborhood, "a world away from the new office towers of companies like financial giant T Rowe Price on Pratt Street." There is no Front Street neighborhood, and the street itself spans only a few blocks along The Fallsway between downtown and East Baltimore - hardly the worst area in the city. WBAL in 2009 also referred to the "Front Street neighborhood" - which was inexplicably placed in South Baltimore - when referring to a dubious ranking of most dangerous neighborhoods.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Want to demonstrate at the Inner Harbor? Make sure you're firmly in McKeldin Square. That's a patch of land near Pratt and Light streets, the one with the fountain. Want to hand out leaflets? Make sure they're of the non-commericial kind, and that your on the prominade but away from the water, and not near the aquarium.

The rules for what you can say and how you can say it at the Inner Harbor's premier tourist attraction are complex, and confusing, and vary from place to place. The area in front of the aquarium, for example, is considered private property, as a Baltimore school teacher discovered last week while handing out leaflets supporting vegetarianism.

Security guards and police ordered him to leave. What he discovered is a patchwork of rules governing speech and an eight-year-old lawsuit filed by the ACLU over the issue, which is still being discussed in settlement talks.

Here's a picture taken by the teacher's wife of two friends getting citizen contact forms after being ordered off the harbor by an officer identified only by his his name -- Johnson. Police tell me they're reviewing his conduct -- which can be seen in a brief video here -- but the issue over speaking out at the city's waterfront is awaiting settlement of the lawsuit.

Read the full story here.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Downtown
        

The Sun's Nick Madigan writes:

Although Shaft S. Hunter evidently took very seriously his job as a Maryland state trooper, he always hailed his supervising officer with the same impish greeting.

"Hey, Sarge, what's crackalackin'?" Hunter would say, according to the supervisor, Sgt. Dwayne Lightsey, now retired. Photo at left is from today's funera, by The Sun's Kenneth K. Lam.

"He was full of energy," Lightsey said. "Too much energy."

The recollection was one of a litany of remembrances — many of them humorous, others bitterly sad — at Hunter's funeral service Friday, a week after he was killed in an accident on Interstate 95 in Howard County. The 39-year-old trooper's six children — the youngest 4 years old, the eldest 19 — sat with relatives in the front pews of the New Antioch Baptist Church in Randallstown as the memories rolled by.

"Do you believe I get paid for this?" Hunter's youngest brother, Shaun, recalled the trooper saying during a ride-along in his patrol car some years ago. "I'd do this for free. Don't tell anyone!"

See Nick Madigan's full story.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:04 PM | Permalink
Categories: Howard County