November, 2009

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Washington Post Launches Local Crime Blog

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

On Tuesday, the Washington Post launched a new blog dedicated to covering the local crime scene in the District and surrounding areas. The Crime Scene’s mission, according to the site, is to be a place for readers to interact with crime reporters and follow issues relating to public safety.

This is long overdue. I hope that the blog doesn’t get bogged down too much into national stories. Despite recent progress in the past decade, DC is still one of the most violent cities in the country and most local residents don’t have a clear picture of true crime narratives happening here. This blog would be well served to dig deep locally and carve out a niche in local crime stories, instead of getting too distracted by high-profile national stories that every other outlet in the country will be sending correspondents to cover (for example, stories like the DC sniper or the Holocaust Museum shooter). While the Post is a national outlet and needs to cover national stories, it tends to devote inordinate resources to these blockbuster cases while the day-to-day crimes happening every day and impacting DC residents in a very direct way are generally ignored.

The Crime Scene arrives just in time. Jim Brady’s local news project looms on the horizon in 2010, and the Post seems to be beefing up its local coverage in preparation for a showdown. It will be fascinating to watch how these reporters use this new space to capture the rougher side of what goes on in the District, and if they are able to lay a solid claim to this beat before the competition shows up.

Posted in Blogging, Crime, DC | No Responses »

Disparities in DC – Crime reports by quadrant

Monday, November 9th, 2009

A makeshift memorial on O St. NW, in DC.

Back in August, Aaron Brazell over at Technosailor did some enterprising digging at Everyblock, a hyperlocal news and statistics site recently acquired by MSNBC. In his post, he reported that if you chop DC up into its quadrants, the number of crimes reported, according to Everyblock is highest in NW DC, a neighborhood that is known to be far safer and more well-to-do than any other part of the city.

Since August, the numbers haven’t really changed. NW has more than double the number of crimes reported in the past month at 1,428 than NE DC, the next closest quadrant, with 701.

According to Everyblock, they are getting their numbers from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), which hosts a searchable crime statistics database on its site. While the MPD’s data isn’t searchable by DC quadrant, it is searchable by Ward. However, Ward borders weave in and out of the quadrants, making the assembly of current crime statistics by quadrant very difficult.

Northwest DC is certainly the largest quadrant in geographic size and population, however there are entire swaths of NW for which crime simply is not an issue, and crime is a far larger problem in Southeast or Northeast DC than it is in Northwest. So why the lower reported crime numbers in those areas?

At this point, the common problem of police distrust in those neighborhoods has to be a contributing factor. I’d be interested to explore the relationship that Southeast DC residents have with the MPD, and what that relationship has in common with relations between residents of East Baltimore and the BCPD.

The other problem here is the relative indifference that residents of Northwest DC have for the rest of the city. It starts with the dearth of coverage given to these neighborhoods, specifically by the Washington Post. I’ve lived in DC since April and have scoured the Post for coverage in Northeast and Southeast DC to get a feel for the other side of the city, and my resulting knowledge of the problems these areas face is nebulous at best. For people in Northwest DC, Anacostia might as well be another country.

Part of what I’ll be working on in my MA program will try to clarify the crime narratives of areas outside of Northwest DC. Stay tuned.

Posted in Crime, DC | No Responses »

Baltimore State’s Attorney Pat Jessamy Looking to Strengthen Anti-Gang Legislation

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy wants to make the Maryland Gang Prosecution Act of 2007 tougher. Jessamy and US Attorney Rod Rosenstein appeared on WYPR’s Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast in September to discuss how they are prosecuting organized gangs, and how the current legislation places too high a burden of proof on prosecutors.

Last year I interviewed Page Croyder, a former Assistant State’s Attorney in Baltimore. During that interview, she credited Rod Rosenstein with many recent successes in crippling gangs both locally and nationwide. Croyder indicated that much of the local success that the Baltimore area has seen is a result of his office. In the WYPR interview, Rosenstein demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the gang structure and how to attack it in a way that does lasting damage to the organization. He also comments on how a good partnership with law enforcement is crucial to success, a philosophy that Jessamy would do well to embrace.

Jessamy expressed reservations about the current law, and how it makes it difficult to determine who is in a gang, and who is not, in a court of law. She recommended an enhanced punishment for those who recruit young people into gangs, and also mentioned a drafting committee that has gotten recommendations from police, prosecutors across the state that is looking at a new law. Harford County public defender Kelly Casper expressed concern that an enhanced anti-gang statute would encroach on civil liberties. Jessamy was firm in her recommendations, and, perhaps for the first time ever, I agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment. Kelly Casper is the Harford County public defender. I have to ask – what on earth does she know about the realities of fighting a losing battle against gangs in Baltimore City?

Posted in Baltimore, Crime, Pat Jessamy | No Responses »

The Differences Between How Crime is Covered in Baltimore and DC

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

After living in DC for the past eight months, I’ve noticed a distinct difference in the way crime is covered in the local media in the two cities.

In Baltimore, there seems to be more attention paid to violent street crime, or crimes related to gangs and the drug trade. Crime coverage seems to be more unified, with an eye toward emerging trends and how crime is rising and falling in various neighborhoods. Because of this comprehensive coverage, I now know that the Black Guerilla Family is a strong Baltimore gang, and that the Tree Top Pirus are a local sect of the national Bloods gang. I know that there is an old rivalry between the drug crews of the east and west sides of town, with the occasional New York interloper thrown in, who could face violent interference from either faction. I know some of the worst drug corners, and places where violent crime occasionally spills over into more well-to-do neighborhoods. This is especially remarkable when you consider how dramatically the Baltimore Sun newsroom has been downsized by buyouts and staff cuts, and that the Sun is the only daily in town.

In DC, crime is essentially non-existent in many NW neighborhoods, and coverage of the violence taking place in other neighborhoods must be sought out and found. Most crime coverage is being treated one case at a time by, for example, the Washington Post. I have no feel for the highest crime areas, aside from a neighborhood called Trinidad where there were nationally publicized police blockades last year due to an outbreak of shootings. There’s almost no linear coverage of gang crime or the drug trade, though both are problems here. The most I can find are one-offs of shootings. The Post seems to be more focused on white-collar crime. This city is pathologically obsessed with national politics, and that obsession hampers the public’s knowledge of what is going on in its own backyard.

The new local news venture owned by Politico and helmed by former Washington Post editor Jim Brady would be well advised to take a close look at the metro crime beat when the new site launches. It’s being neglected and many stories are going unreported.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Responses »

History Repeating: Baltimore City Police Department Fails to Inform Public of Rapes, Declines UK Reporter Interviews

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

The Baltimore City Police Department continues to act as its own worst enemy as it struggles to earn the public’s trust.

A fine piece of reporting by Justin Fenton in today’s Sun gives the full rundown on a recent string of rapes and break-ins taking place over the past two weeks spanning several neighborhoods in East and Central Baltimore. Fenton is a great young reporter and gives the full details in his story, and there is one line that is particularly revealing on how the department makes information available to the public:

“The eight attacks, which police confirmed after receiving inquiries from The Baltimore Sun, stretch back to…” (article continues)”

We are only now aware of these attacks because the Baltimore Sun connected the dots and took this to the department to find out if there was a possible connection. This is especially remarkable if you consider that the department was blasted for dragging its feet in notifying the public of a similar outbreak of attacks last year in Mount Vernon. When criticized for a lack of transparency, BCPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi is quick to tout his use of Twitter and Facebook to announce shootings and other violent crimes after they’ve happened, however nothing of the recent sexual assaults was mentioned on these networks. Guglielmi defends the department’s response to the recent attacks in a Sun editorial board blog post today.

Another story in today’s Sun demonstrates the public’s diminishing access to critical information from the BCPD. As part of a reporter exchange program, the Sun is sending Justin Fenton over to the UK and has welcomed British reporter Mark Hughes. The British have a deep fascination with the crime culture of Baltimore due to the wild success of The Wire in the UK. Today, Hughes posted on the public rift between the BCPD and the Baltimore State Attorney’s office, led by Patricia Jessamy. Jessamy naturally blamed the police for the poor performance of her office, which declines to prosecute 10,000 of the 55,000 cases it receives from the BCPD (for some revealing insights into how Jessamy’s office truly works, I suggest reading former assistant state’s attorney Page Croyder’s blog). Hughes offered to do a ride along with the BCPD and an interview with Commissioner Bealefeld, giving the department the chance to tell its side of the story.

Both requests were denied.

Posted in Baltimore, Baltimore City Police Department, Crime | No Responses »

Jason Policastro

stories from street level in Baltimore and Washington, DC