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Tag: Baltimore

  • Inner-Harbor Cop Fired

    This is the officer (not “man” or “dude”) who got pissed at a young white skateboarder.

    Peter Hermann reports:

    Last month, a three-member police panel called a trial board held a hearing and found Rivieri, a 19-year veteran, guilty of failing to issue the youth a citizen contact receipt and failing to file a report, but not guilty of using excessive and unnecessary force and uttering a discourtesy.

    The panel recommended that Bealefeld suspend Rivieri for several days. But Bealefeld has the discretion to up the penalty, and he opted to fire the officer whose actions were displayed on video and seen around the world.

    Three years after it happens the guy gets fired? Is there more I don’t know? Seems way too harsh to me.

    I wrote about the incident here.

    We don’t know what happened before the video starts. … Did the cop already tell the kids three times to stop skateboarding in the Inner Harbor? Did the kid flip off the cop right before the video starts? I think there are lots of possible situations that could justify the cop’s behavior.
    …
    Now let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the video shows the whole story. If that’s the case, then the officer handled the situation horribly. If your goal is to get three kids to stop skateboarding, there are much better ways to do it.
    …
    Still, sometimes a person does need a lesson. Sometimes an arrest isn’t appropriate. Or legal. So as good police, you’ve got to put on an act: yell, threaten, cajole, lecture. All these are part of the job. But it’s important to have an objective when you deal with a situation. Then you have to figure out the best method to achieve your goals. Yelling for the sake of yelling isn’t good policing.

    I heard a lot of cops talk like this when I was on the street. Sometimes it wasn’t needed, but sometimes it was. If you fired every cop who ever talked like this, you’d have about six cops left in the Eastern, and I wouldn’t be one of them. Sometimes this language and attitude is needed. Probably not in this case… but who am I to say?

    Rivieri gets to keep his pension, right?

  • Killing Mexicans

    Seems to be the latest sport in East Baltimore. Martin Reyes, who wasn’t Mexican, is the fifth Hispanic shooting or homicide victim in the area in less than two month. All the victims are Honduran. And moved into a neighborhood that desperatelyneeds an influx of hard-working non-criminals.

    The killer (is there where I’m supposed to add, “alleged”?), African-American paroled drug dealer and schizophrenic Jermaine Holley, told police he “hated Mexicans.” No doubt this guy also addresses the Korean corner-store owner–just about only person willing to run a business in the area–as “Chinaman.”

    Reminds of the joke where the Goy is put on the freight train to the concentration camp in Nazi Germany (stop me if I’ve told this before…). The guy next to him says, “What a tragedy.” And the Goy turns to him and says, “No. For youit’s a tragedy. For me it’s a mistake!”

    The Latino victims here, known at least in the New York area as “walking ATMs” because they get paid in cash and don’t call the police, are often illegal immigrants. And them moving to Baltimore is the best thing to happen to that city since the crab cake.

    The 200 Block of North Kenwood? It seems like a well-kept up block. And one of the rare brick streets left. Homes sell for roughly $125,000, according to Zillow. But I wouldn’t live there or on any block on the East Side that start with N for north. On Kenwood, the boarded up buildings start on the 300 Block and on the 500 Block homes sell (and plenty are for sale) for $60-70,000.

    Why do immigrants move near the ghetto? It’s not because they like getting robbed and killed. It’s because it’s cheap. And desperate landlords (who keep leaving because of crime but can’t sell their homes) don’t ask too many questions. And seeing how the Eastern District has lost probably close to 75 percent of it’s population, there’s lots of room. Who else in moving tohere?

  • Somebody Snitched

    And Ronnie “Skinny Suge” Thomas get sentenced to 20 years in the Federal Pen.

    Ronnie was the not-so-smooth talking star and co-producer of the 2004 “Stop Snitching” video which had its moment of fame when basketball player Carmelo Anthony was featured in the first DVD.

    From the Sun: “Eight other people associated with the videos have been prosecuted in federal court, including a cameraman and other prominent stars, most of whom are now in prison for 10 or more years on drug and gun convictions.”

  • Baltimore Arrest Settlement

    Seems like the city got off easy by having to pay $870,000 and promise to do the right thing.

    About 100,000 people were arrested each year in first half of the 2000s. Last year the number was down to about 70,000, which is still a lot. By comparison, New York City had 341,000 arrests in 2009. That means the Baltimore arrest rate is about 2.5 times higher than the rate in New York City. Of course, Baltimore has a murder rate about six times higher and has a lot more public drug dealing. So it’s not easy to conclude what that all means.

    When I was a cop, I had a half-hour meeting in City Hall with a certain high-ranking elected official. At one point I remember telling him, “You know, you can’t arrest your way out of this murder problem.” He looked at me quizzically and said, “Why not?” Anyway…

    Perhaps the days of locking people up for just standing around are over. But police need an “or-else” to get people to follow lawful orders. So if loitering arrests decline, I predict arrests for disorderly conduct (the catch-all charge in New York City) and failure to obey a lawful order will go up.

  • Baltimore Officer Not-Guilty in 2008 Shooting

    So finds a Baltimore City Jury. The story by Erica Green in the Sun.

    Sanders testified that Hunt assaulted him during a drug arrest at Hamilton Park Shopping Center two years ago, and that if Hunt hadn’t reached for his pocket while running away, the five-year veteran wouldn’t have shot him twice in the back.

    The jury began deliberating Friday afternoon and returned the not-guilty verdict a little more than three hours later.
    …
    At the time of the shooting, Hunt was on probation for assaulting and eluding a police officer. He faced two years in prison if arrested again.

    Belsky [Sanders’ laywer] emphasized that the case was all about whether his client acted reasonably.

    “This is a good man who did nothing wrong,” Belsky said after the verdict. “The state’s attorney’s office should spend its time trying to foster good relations with the Police Department instead of prosecuting good police officers. That’s how we’ll solve the crime problem in Baltimore.”

  • What Flags?

    Off-duty Baltimore officer Gahiji Tshamba, the guy who seems to have emptied his glock at and into a man for touching his girlfriend seems to have a bit of a history. “Investigators found13 bullet casings at the scene and the officer’s gun was empty. Nine of those bullets ended up hitting the ex-Marine, which some say is excessive.”

    The problem is not drinking and carrying a gun in a bar. The problem is being drunk while having a gun, a temper, and really bad judgment!

    Meanwhile another Baltimore officer is on trial for an on-duty shooting. This case is not so clear cut and knowing nothing, I’m not willing to comment. But he is the first officer to be put on trial for an on-dutyshooting since the Lexington Market police-involved shooting of James “Don’t Shoot that Boy!” Quarles (I saw that video in the police academy–one officer shot, many didn’t).

    [Update on the life and career of Officer Tshamba.]

  • Dirt bike crashes into car. Car driver assulted.

    This dirt bike thing in Baltimore continues to be out of control. I can’t believe that 10 years after I first saw packs of these going around, they’re still a problem.

    I mean, other cities don’t have this problem. What makes Baltimore so unique?

    To ride an illegal dirt bike, especially on the sidewalk or through parks, needs to be an arrestable offense. Pursuit needs to be an option. And forfeiture laws need to be made so that people lose their bikes (and these bikes not auctioned back to city people).

    Now these are three suggestion that go against what I normally believe in. But continued tolerance of this danger is more of a risk. Baltimore’s dirt-bike culture needs to be stopped. And that will take one summer (maybe two) of aggressive enforcement.

    This is a clip from 2007:

  • Gating Baltimore Alleys

    My mom sent me this story. We were kind of talking about these alleys not too long ago.

  • Only in Baltimore

    How come when I see a headline “Woman Loses Home Over $362 Water Bill” I just know it’s talking about Baltimore? Where else could this happen? Sho ’nuff…

  • Crime and arrests down in Baltimore

    A good article by Ben Nuckols about crime in Baltimore and the good things happening under Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld.

    In a blighted west Baltimore neighborhood, Lt. Ian Dombroski turns his unmarked police car around a corner and sees several men standing outside a liquor store. They scatter immediately.

    Dombroski knows they’re probably selling drugs, but he keeps driving. Five years ago, he said, officers who happened upon a similar scene wouldn’t take such a selective approach.

    “We’d all jump out, grab all the junkies, find out who had the drugs on ’em, lock ’em up, and that might be three or four drug arrests right there,” Dombroski said. “And we’d go, ‘Good, those are numbers.’”

    But under Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, officers in one of the nation’s most violent cities are no longer being told to beef up arrest statistics. The number of arrests has declined the past two years. Yet homicides and shootings are down, too — to totals not seen since the late 1980s.