Police

Eastern District Craziness

I have no special insight into this. I really don’t know what to make of it. My first thoughts are give the guy a break. The deputy major of the Baltimore Police Department’s Eastern District has been suspended pending an internal investigation into allegations that he failed to disclose a series of text messages he exchanged with a man sought…

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Stories of the Eastern

I got Badges, Bullets & Bars in the mail and started reading it. I am amazed (maybe pleased is a better word) to find that one story — a police urban myth I constantly heard — is true. There are many crazy stories cops tell. And every squad has its own ghosts. Most of the stories are probably true (you…

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The Company of Others

When I was a cop in Baltimore, I kind of assumed I was the only active police officer going for a PhD at one fo them fancy graduate schools. I wasn’t. I’ve also assumed I’m the only former Baltimore police officer to write a book based on time in the Eastern District. I’m not. I’m not certain why I only…

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It’s official: Obama is a great black

The Great Blacks in Wax Museum unveiled their Obama statue. Pictures in the Baltimore Sun. That’s Rep. Elijah Cummings on the right. He’s flesh and blood. Now you might think I’m writing The Great Black in Wax Museum because of some thinly veiled hipster irony in this supposed post-racial era. Actually, no. I just like the museum. And yes, unlike…

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Police

Crack House

I first published this a year ago when nobody read my blog. It’s worth a rehash. #1) 1900 Block of E Eager. 1906 E Eager is the third house (with awning) from Mr. George’s corner laundromat. Two short blocks North of Johns Hopkins Hospital, this corner (Wolfe and Eager) is one of the “hottest” (but hardly the only) drug corners…

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Six shot, one dead

Baltimore Sun reporter Peter Hermann doesn’t exactly crack the case, but he does provide a bit more insight and analysis than you usually find in such a story. Read it here.

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Murders down in Eastern

Buried in a small story in the Sun: “Nineteen people have been killed in the Eastern District this year, half as many as at this point last year.”

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There used to be city here

It’s sad to think about cities being abandonded. I hate to make the Eastern District stand for everything that’s bad. It’s bad in East Baltimore. But it’s also bad in St. Louis, East St Louis, Detroit, Gary, Camden, Newark, the west side of Chicago. The list goes on and on. Just two generation ago, this area was packed full with…

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More Eastern Pictures

Thanks to Konrad for taking (and bringing me!) these. There aren’t too many streets with pretty trees. Alas, the trees don’t stop bullets. But the streets with trees tend to be less abandoned.