On Friday I had the chance to sit down to lunch with the Aging Newspapermen’s Club, a group of former Baltimore Sun reporters, rewrite men, and photographers.   The group convenes every Friday at Enrico’s sports bar, at the corner of Pratt and Haven in East Baltimore, to trade war stories, catch up on each other’s latest ventures, and talk an impressive amount of shit.

All in good humor, of course.

I was invited by Rafael Alvarez, a 20 year veteran of the Baltimore Sun’s city desk and a true Baltimore original.  During my visit, Alvarez recounted the time that he and David Simon pulled an epic April Fool’s joke on their faithful rewrite man David Ettlin, who was also at the table in the back room of Enrico’s.

Alvarez and Simon had conspired with the spokesman for the Baltimore County Police Department to call Ettlin with a hot story about a former steelworker who stabbed his estranged wife through the heart with his Oral-B 60 toothbrush.  Ettlin breathlessly typed up the story with the phone pressed to his ear as Alvarez and Simon howled in laughter across the newsroom.  Ettlin recalled the details of the gag as if it had been phoned in to him yesterday.

The gang traded gifts for the holidays.  Among them: a framed and remarkably unflattering portrait of Bill Marimow – a former Sun editor whose name didn’t exactly stir feelings of holiday cheer,  a photocopy of an old Baltimore News American cover story featuring the unfortunate (and, many agreed, deliberate) headline typo of “pubic affairs”, and a shrinkwrapped copy of the last edition of The Evening Sun (pictured above).

This story is a bit short, since I opted to spend most of my time listening instead of scribbling notes. Truth is, it was a helluva way for a journalism grad student to spend an afternoon.

Thanks guys.

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?

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.

Baltimore City has over 30,000 vacant homes.  These empty houses serve as tangible barriers to the recovery of blighted neighborhoods who have been set upon by drug dealers and prostitutes who often use the houses as impromtu brothels or stash houses.  Residents are driven out of the city by the rising crime problem, and the problem worsens as more vacants appear.  Absentee landlords buy up the properties, and let them rot as they wait for the opportunity to flip the houses when the neighborhood turns around, which, of course, it never does.  As the city’s population decreases, so does its tax base, which is critical to the city’s economic health.

Mike Miller, CEO of the Chesapeake region’s arm of Habitat for Humanity, appeared on the Baltimore Rapport podcast last week to discuss how the city’s surplus of vacant housing is more than a problem of aesthetics, and how his organization is trying to connect working people to these empty homes.  When people are able to own their own homes in these kinds of neighborhoods they can build wealth, the community can stabilize, and there are actual stakeholders in the viability of that community.  People that own their own homes care more deeply about what’s going on in their neighborhoods than renters, or squatters, or whoever is haunting the vacant rowhouses of countless Baltimore neighborhoods. Mitchell also mentioned that when the ownership rate in a neighborhood increases, things like crime and education are also positively impacted.  He blamed the market of speculators that are passing off the deeds to these vacants to one another, never occupying or improving them, holding out for a payday. The segment was a fascinating reminder that the more visible consequences of an unhealthy city – crime, low-performing schools, homelessness – begin with things like vacant rowhomes.  Listen to the full podcast.

Another site, Baltimore Slumlord Watch, documents absentee landlords who have allowed their properties to fall into disrepair.  The site features updates on landlords facing legal proceedings for various violations, as well as photos of their properties.  A great resource.

There is also a remarkable website called Rebuilding Madison, about a man who purchased a former crack house in West Baltimore, rehabbed it, and turned a back room into a police substation/break room in an effort to combat the rampant drug dealing in the area.  Sadly, the crime and the city’s lack of support in fighting it became too much for him, and he gave up the fight, selling the house and reluctantly closing the substation with it.  The site is a heartbreaking narrative of an idealist slowly worn down by the bureaucracy and broken promises of the Baltimore City government.  It’s an important read, because not much has changed and these problems continue to plague the city.

Ryan Boddy (at right) discusses the synthesis of brewing beer and creativity.

One piece of constructive criticism.  At times, the event was in danger of veering off into a podium for forwarding political agendas or indulging personal hobbies.  I think it’s great that certain artists are into surprising or unexpected media, or that we’re trying to amend the arcane wine and beer shipping laws in Maryland.  But when Baltimore is a city facing monumental social problems like crime, youth violence, and drug abuse, filling a room with the city’s young and creative types to talk about surviving a zombie attack can ring a bit hollow.

That said, I applaud what Mike Subelsky and his co-founder, Patti Chan are doing.  I hope that Ignite continues, and that future presenters bring a bit more gravitas to this worthy event.  Let’s harness the community brought together by this event to affect change where it’s really needed.  Ignite #5 is March 4, 2010.

Many will remember the controversial decision made by department spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi back in March to stop releasing the names of officers involved in the shootings of civilians, putting an end to a practice that had been in place for the life of the department.  When challenged, Guglielmi claimed that officers involved in shootings were at risk for retaliation, citing 23 threats against officers in 2008.  What he failed to mention, and what former Baltimore Sun crime reporter and Wire creator David Simon revealed in a remarkable Washington Post story on the new policy back on March 1, was that none of these threats was in response to a police-involved shooting.  Inconsistencies plagued the department’s stance, and deepened its adversarial relationship with the same citizens it is tasked with protecting.

Perhaps more importantly, the policy comes at a time when detectives cannot convince a witness to take the stand because of the city’s entrenched witness intimidation culture.  ”Do as we say, not as we do” doesn’t exactly motivate a kid on a bike who just saw a drive-by and knows that if he wants to live, he’ll keep his mouth shut.

And today, Justin Fenton at the Sun has done a follow-up story on the mysterious death and disappearance of 16 year old Annie McCann one year after her death.  The family is claiming that the BCPD has botched the investigation, and has written letters to the Mayor’s office in the hopes of re-opening the investigation.  Perhaps most interesting is how Annie’s father was pushing to prosecute the teens that claimed to have moved Annie’s body to take her car for a joyride, but that the BCPD talked him out of it, saying that they and the State Attorney’s office would take another look at charging the teens, or at least interrogating them, which never happened.  The teens have not been charged or questioned yet.

Even if the BCPD cannot charge these teens in the murder of Annie McCann, or even determine that she was indeed killed and didn’t take her own life, they’ve failed to fully convince the teen’s parents, and more importantly, the public, that this case was handled as professionally and thoroughly as possible.  By intervening in the family’s attempt to press charges against the teens for auto theft in the hopes of learning more about their daughter’s death, the department now must face questions on its motives.  Was this an attempt to prevent another unsolved murder in the stat column?  An attempt to cover the botched investigation?

The department only has itself to blame for its failure to earn the people’s trust in Baltimore City, and the situation isn’t improving.

Very cool step for the Baltimore blogging cognoscenti.  I hope to be there next year.

Several things going on here.  This shows that the black community in Baltimore has no faith in O’Malley, Dixon’s predecessor as former Mayor of Baltimore.  Marvin Cheatham, president of the Baltimore NAACP chapter, even goes as far as saying:

“Here you have a predominantly African-American city. What if the governor appointed somebody white? … Would he appoint someone Irish to be the mayor?”

This reveals how black leaders view O’Malley in Baltimore City: an opportunist who made plenty of promises to their community while running for Mayor, and, once elected, began plotting his campaign for governor.  I can’t say I blame them. 

Nevertheless, to make this statement now adds a little more to the already considerable racial chasm in Baltimore.   The fact is, this move is unecessary.  As Linskey reports, the city’s charter overrides the state constitution on this matter, and the city council president would be appointed Mayor in case of Dixon’s removal. 

More racially-charged politicking in Baltimore City.

Sheila is not amused by corruption charges.

The Baltimore Marathon took place this past weekend.  Leading up to the event, the Baltimore Sun’s crime reporter Peter Hermann did a story on the various crimes that have taken place along the route.

Mayor Sheila Dixon took offense, and sent Hermann an email scolding him for the article.  Hermann defends the piece here, noting that someone was indeed shot a block from the marathon route on the day of the race.

Perhaps Sheila was angry about the upcoming corruption trials that she’ll be subject to soon.  Seems to me she has more important matters than telling crime reporters to whitewash city problems.