Maryland Gangs

Response to JUTP: Safe Silver Spring Summit Recap

2009-05-19T06:31:00.005-04:00

Dan Reed posted a recap of the Safe Silver Spring Summit by Hans Riemer, who ran against Valerie Ervin for the District 5 seat on the Montgomery County Council in 2006, and who later went on to join Barack Obama's presidential campaign as its National Youth Vote Director.

Apparently there was a lot of conversation at the Safe Silver Spring Summit about kids not having any space downtown. This is my response, which I posted in the comments section of Dan's blog. I wanted to say it a little bit louder so I'm also posting it here, and adding a few more comments.

Many years ago when Downtown Silver Spring was just an idea, I said repeatedly, to anyone who would listen, that we needed recreation for young people downtown.

Again and again, I was shot down. The reason given? That would draw all the poor black kids from DC. So-called progressive people actually said that.

When DTSS was being planned, the needs of kids were simply not part of the conversation...not for very long anyway. It wasn't a priority, either by the powers that be or by the community.

Could that be the reason that everything kids ever loved downtown was only "interim" and ultimately destroyed?

The East of Maui Skatepark, the Interim Playground, the turf, skating on Ellsworth -- all were taken away.

And even after 935 Bonifant was demolished and Montgomery County spent a small fortune on leveling and sodding that field, making sure to make it nice for someone, did anyone consider doing something creative for kids there?

I know it's important for doggies to have a place to poo, but I think kids are a little bit more important.

I'm just saying. I mean, the doggies do like that field.

Having spaces for kids to be is important. But kids also need things to do, and not just the kids who can afford the $200-$300 a week for Montgomery County Rec Department camps.

Malcolm X said...

2009-05-18T20:43:00.011-04:00

"If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad."

Americans are outraged about violence in our streets, while our country has brought horrible violence to others abroad. No one knows, and we may never know, how many civilians died in Iraq as a result of a war that was premised on a lie, and on greed. Countless babies, children, young people, old people suffered and died, at our hands, in our name.

We tortured people. We many never know how many, or who the victims are, or what the legacy of that depravity has been. But it would be reasonable to assume that lives were destroyed, and that there were some who survived physically but lost their minds.

America did that. We intentionally inflicted extreme pain, and we did it again and again. One guy was waterboarded 183 times in one month.

Concurrent with the escalation of our violence abroad, the streets in America's ghettos were getting hotter. The war on terror drained all of our resources, and the neglect and disregard for the kids in the hood was exactly as depicted on The Wire, when Mayor O'Malley, oops I meant Carcetti, couldn't get a dollar out of the FBI to help with a boatload of murders in Baltimore, because everything was about the war on terror.

Effective programs were shut down in favor of faith-based funding, and many of the kinds of programs that I saw turn lives around in the 70s, could no longer get funding, and as doors were shut and opportunities dried up, people in the ghetto were pushed into creating their own economies, whether they were legal or illegal.

With more neglect, fewer opportunities, (virtually no opportunities for felons), and more people being pushed into underground economies, more competition was created, resulting in more violence.

And as things were getting hotter in America's ghettos, no one knew, no one paid attention. Because here is where we see the depth of the racial divide in this country — the fact that large numbers of people live in environments filled with such challenges and issues and suffering that most of those Americans who are more fortunate, don't even have a clue about.

And the press can't report on the hood intelligently, because they have no understanding of it and no connections in it. And so they don't go. They stay safely on the outside, peeking in every now and then, when there's bloodshed to report.

And through an almost complete lack of context in reporting, limiting stories to who shot who, who got stabbed, and how long someone's going to jail for, America gets to remain comfortably unaware of the root causes, and sees only the end results, of the suffering that engenders more suffering.

Whether it's neglect or abuse, or other forms of emotional trauma, or repeated exposure to violence, ghetto kids suffer greatly, and few receive any help or counseling of any kind.

But even more difficult to negotiate than the benign neglect that allows this suffering to continue (and to in effect, perpetuate itself), is alienation. Being that FARMs kid. Being that renter. Being that kid who can't be in the same programs. Or that kid who doesn't have a home.

That happened just today, when a local kid sent out an email viciously attacking another student.

Some kids face so many difficulties in their young lives, with no way to process or heal their pain, and yet, they're expected to grow up and be just fine.

But human beings aren't made like that.

I started this post with a quote from Malcolm X, and I'll end it with another.

"You break a man's legs, and then wonder why he can't walk."

My Prayer

2009-05-17T01:00:00.002-04:00

Dear Lord, I ask that you keep all of our children safe. Those who are not in gangs, and those who are.

Hey Dude, Where's My Privilege? Race and Lawbreaking in Black and White

2009-05-15T20:56:00.003-04:00

Racists hate Tim Wise...for the same reason I adore him. It isn't easy finding a white man who speaks so forcefully, truthfully, and brilliantly about race. And it's impossible for racists to refute him.

by Tim Wise
May 11, 2009, 9:34 am
Envision the following, if you can.
Imagine that a group of black youth were to descend upon a college town, take to an open field and proceed to smoke pot--lots of it--just as they had announced they would, at the very time they had promised to be there. Thousands of them, lighting up, virtually daring police to enforce the law and arrest them.
Now, in such a scenario as this, how long do you think it would take for the cops to call their bluff?
If you've paid any attention whatsoever to the so-called war on drugs, you'll almost instinctively know the answer. It is people of color who have always borne the brunt of drug crackdowns, even though whites use drugs at rates that are equal to or higher than the rates for the black and brown. So, for instance, although whites comprise more than 70 percent of all drug users (slightly higher than our share of the population), and blacks and Latinos combined make up about 25 percent of users (less than their combined share of the population), it is the latter two groups whose members comprise about 9 in 10 persons incarcerated for a possession offense in the U.S. No, black and brown youth couldn't get away with mass lawbreaking of this type for very long.
But when a bunch of white stoners announce their plans for a big pot-fest, known alternately (depending on which of several such events we're talking about) as 420 Smoke-Out, or the 420 Festival (the 420 being a not-so-secret code for cannabis consumption), and then proceed to break the laws against such an event just as promised, nothing happens. No arrests, no citations, no wading into the crowd by overzealous cops intent on bashing the heads of the hooligans arrayed before them. Of course not.
Just like there is very little in the way of law enforcement response when white college students riot on their campuses, as they have done over 150 times in the past fifteen years, and never over important political matters of social injustice, or war, but rather, because of the outcomes of sporting events or crackdowns on underage drinking. White folks, you see, get pissed when you interrupt our right to party.
And so in Boulder, Colorado and Santa Cruz, California just a few weeks ago (on April 20th, 4/20 get it? No irony here, just maddeningly predictable pothead behavior), thousands of people--statistically speaking, nearly all of them white, and with virtually no black folks, other than perhaps an occasional Bob Marley pic on a t-shirt--showed up to spark up: part of an annual pot pilgrimage that has been going on for several years now, always with the same, unarrested result.
Now don't misunderstand, I've indulged my fair share of weed, and I'm not one to advocate the criminalization of such activity, as I think it both a waste of justice system resources and overly punitive. Yet none of that is the point. The point is this: people of color simply could not get away with such a flagrant disrespect for the law, no matter how stupid that law may be. But white hacky-sack kickin' hippies who continue to believe--against all evidence to the contrary--that patchouli can actually cover up body odor? Well, they can get away with damned near anything.
Oh sure, to read the headline in the student paper at UC Santa Cruz, you might think there had been some jackbooted overreaction by the cops to such behavior. After all, "UCSC Cracks Down on 4/20 Festival," makes it seem as though perhaps the administration had decided to actually arrest people, or even suspend or expel them for engaging in blatantly illegal behavior. But no. Upon reading the article one learns that by "cracking down" the author meant that the campus would erect barricades, enforce parking rules, limit use of school shuttles and ban students from having friends crash at their dorms overnight. Damn pigs, what a police state! Apparently the folks at Santa Cruz haven't gotten the memo on how to deal with scofflaws such as these. To wit, the reaction by Colorado-Boulder officials who sprayed them down with water from a sprinkler system a few years back. Although some among the assembled may have experienced the dousing as oppressive--after all, it might almost constitute a bath if one were to get wet enough--for most, the occasion was likely viewed as a welcome respite from an otherwise hot day.
Though I tend to agree with those who claim pot has very little negative health effect upon its users, it does appear to have rather serious consequences for cognitive function, which would normally be, ya know, a problem at a college. Indeed, at the big Boulder smoke-out in 2008, white users demonstrated a drug-induced vapidity that would be viewed as culturally pathological were it exhibited by students of color. So, for instance, despite CU Boulder being a highly selective university, they managed to admit the likes of Emily Benson, who told a reporter she actually came to the school "for the weed atmosphere," and to be part of the pot legalization movement. Not for an education, mind you, but to get high. And for this, she took a spot that could have been given to a hard-working black or brown kid instead, or a working class white kid for that matter with more serious daily concerns than the munchies. Call it, stoner affirmative action: a form of preferential treatment extended to many of the whites at Boulder apparently, including one young woman who expressed her disappointment upon learning that the cookies and muffins being handed out by one of her classmates at the 4/20 fest weren't "magical," as in, filled with even more of the drugs she had already ingested. Bummer: now she'll have to make do with that one blunt and some Adderall. How will she survive such an indignity as this?
Meanwhile, as the aforementioned Ms. Benson (from the Kansas City area, and whose parents must be so proud of her) indulges her habit, and as thousands of her white classmates do too--many of them styling each other's hair in dreadlocks, because nothing goes better with white privilege than cultural appropriation--it is students of color who continue to be told they are the unqualified ones, that they are the ones who are unjustly taking up space at elite schools, that their acceptance into such places is "lowering standards" and cheapening the value of a college degree.
The irony of it all couldn't be more perfect: a bunch of white college students clamoring for the legalization of pot, not realizing that for them it already is, in effect, legal.
Continue reading »

Safe Silver Spring

2009-05-15T07:03:00.013-04:00

The Orwellianly named Safe Silver Spring summit will be held tomorrow at Montgomery College.

I'll be waiting for the obligatory follow-up article from the Gazette next week, on how Silver Spring is so much safer than everyone thinks.

Apparently, the organizers of this event only think of kids as sources of threats to the community's safety, since the only mention I saw of youth in the entire program is Youth: Schools, Truants and Kids Hanging Out.

Montgomery County Rec Center Camps

2009-05-14T23:01:00.009-04:00

I went to the Montgomery County Department of Recreation web site to see what kinds of activities they're offering for kids this summer. Lots of fun and lots of camps — science camps, nature camps, arts camps, all kinds of camps...that most poor kids are pretty much shut out from.

Below are some screenshots from the PDF of MoCo's summer camps brochure. The first screenshot was included to give you an idea of the incredible variety of camps available, and the second was to give you a sense of how unaffordable they are for many families, particularly minorities — even many families who are not low-income (I am not poor, but I can't pay these prices.) And on the Arts & Performing page, where you see prices of $248 and $305...those prices are for one week of camp.

These camps were clearly not set up to serve many of our children, particularly our at-risk youth. And that's why many of them will likely look like this promo photo from MoCo's web site, (and the same as most magnet programs in MCPS) where you see one black kid:

So many choices indeed.

I know lots of kids who would love to do some of the camps in the screenshot below. But with these prices, it isn't gonna happen.

On Neighborhoods, Kids, and Summer

2009-05-14T07:07:00.007-04:00

Before my family moved to the projects when I was a kid, we lived in an area of DC that was a black neighborhood, and most people were poor, but it was by no means a ghetto.

This was back in the Black Power days of the 70s, and the Black Power movement was strong in DC. We lived in the Dupont Circle area, and back in the day, much of that area was all black. You didn't see white people unless you walked West past Connecticut Avenue.

It wasn't just a matter of fashion that you would see red, black and green, the colors of black liberation, everywhere, and dashikis and natural hair.

But the area wasn't defined by what people wore or how they styled their hair. It was a real community. People knew each other, cared for each other. There was a toy lending library, regular clothes give-aways (there was a parking lot that would often be covered with clothes to be given away), and an active rec center with paddle tennis, soccer, and other activities for kids.

It seemed that almost every kid in my neighborhood was involved with an arts program that mostly got girls into dancing, and boys into playing djembes and conga drums. Several of their performances were held at the Kennedy Center, and the program was a huge source of pride for the kids in the area.

When I was about 12, we moved from that neighborhood to the projects -- a barren, godforsaken hell-hole overrun with crime, and absolutely nothing for kids to do.

In Montgomery County, some kids will spend this summer and others in various camps, having their days filled with fun activities.

Many other children in Montgomery County, those whose parents can't afford hundreds of dollars a week for camps, will have pretty much nothing to do.

Back in the day, Jim Crow in MoCo

2009-05-12T19:25:00.002-04:00

I recently tried to get my father to share his memories of Jim Crow in Montgomery County in the 1950s and 60s, but when I asked him about it he got real quiet and his mood changed, and his tone became strange, and I sensed it was a bad idea to press him any further. All he would say is that it was the usual type of exclusion, i.e., restaurants, water fountains, etc.

But I know it was more than that because while my father seems to be forgetting, he has told me more in the past, like about getting us kicked out of some Chesapeake beach, and I can't remember the details, but apparently something happened at Glen Echo. More beaches used to be private back then, and I think my parents planned for my mother (who is white) to go in first with the kids, knowing we were less likely to have a problem without my father. And then I guess the plan was for him to come a little later, hopefully without attracting attention. But the plan didn't work and once my father got there, we all got kicked out.

And I know that things like finding a place to live was bad enough in DC (and DC was considered the least racist among any area jurisdiction), and that he didn't even consider trying to move us to Montgomery County.

My father was trying to move us away from Jim Crow. And to do that, he put us on a plane and traveled thousands of miles away, to a place where everyone spoke a language we didn't know, because he believed it was a kinder place. A more enlightened place.

It wasn't. Jim Crow's ugly cousin was raising hell over there, and within a few years we were back in the States.

Now in his seventies, I see in his spirit a weariness, that owes its existence to him having to struggle so hard to keep his head up. That Jim Crow stuff, it steadily chipped away at his pride, little by little.

Regarding the City Place problem. If groups of white children can regularly go in that mall without ever even hearing from the security guard in question (they do), there is just no reason for so many black children to be having problems. And this treatment of black children, and the negative expectations before a child even gets in the door, can't continue.

Why I'm not posting right now

2009-05-12T07:23:00.002-04:00

I'm not posting anything new right now because I want to keep the City Place story near the top. This is too important, and I don't want anyone to miss it.

UPDATED: Jim Crow in Silver Spring

2009-05-09T18:47:00.019-04:00

If you don't believe me that kids in general, and minority kids in particular, have reason to not feel welcomed in Silver Spring, check out what four black boys say happened to them when they tried to go into City Place Mall on May 7th, 2009. Some background on this story below the video.

UPDATE 5/10: Click here to read the email sent to City Place Manager Gary Brewer on February 18th — in which I complained about similar incidents three months before these boys say it happened to them.

In case you didn't follow all of that, the boys said they entered the mall and were first told they had to leave because they were wet (it was raining), and then because they were carrying a ball. They left the mall and dried off, stashed the ball and went back to try to get into the mall. According to the boys, the security guard told them they still couldn't go in and started yelling at them to get out.

At some point the boys came across another security guy, and that dude told them they could be in the mall. When the kids told the first security guy what the other one said, he told the boys he didn't care what the other security guy said, and they needed to get out of the mall.

Minority kids at City Place Mall

On Tuesday February 10th, one of my children and I witnessed a group of black boys coming into City Place Mall through the Ellsworth Street entrance. A security guard stopped them and told them they couldn't go into the mall...because one of them was carrying a ball. (The kid was carrying a basketball, but he was only carrying it -- it hadn't been bounced at all.) The boys told the security guard that they'd put the ball in a backpack, and at first he continued to say they couldn't go in, but at that point it seemed as if he became aware that I was watching him, and he told the kids they could go in.

A few days later, I was eating in the City Place food court and a group of young black people were sitting next to me. They were complaining vehemently about that same security guard, and about being harassed for no reason. I don't know the specifics of their story, but I found it interesting that I just happened to sit next to some people who had problems with the same security guard.

Over the next week, I saw 5 different groups of people being harassed by this security guard, and they all happened to be young and black.

On Tuesday, February 17th, I watched as the 19 year-old son of a close friend was being harassed by the same guard. This young man is a freshman in college, has lived here his whole life and has contributed to this community in many ways, and has even done activism work abroad. He was carrying a scooter -- a kid's toy -- and the guard had a problem with that. The guard told the young man he had to close it up, and that in the future, he could not come into the mall with the scooter. I was behind the guard listening to what was going on, and at that point I spoke up and asked him where the "no scooter" signs were. He insisted they had them, but of course, they don't exist. It seems this guy makes up mall rules as he goes along, and whatever he says to young people, is what the rule is at any given point. And apparently, mall management allows him to do this.

Also on February 17th, I spoke with a number of young people who work for Gandhi Brigade, which has a space inside City Place Mall. All of those I spoke with are minorities, and they told me they had been harassed by this guy for years.

On February 18th, I wrote to Gary Brewer, Manager of City Place, and relayed to him the harassment that I had witnessed and had reported to me.

I never got a reply.

On Thursday, May 7th, I saw a group of four black boys being yelled at by the security guard. I spoke with two security guards who gave me conflicting accounts of what happened, and the one who allegedly told the boys they couldn't go in the mall, the same one who was the object of all of the other complaints, basically said he didn't do it — he said the boys were playing with the ball and that's why he told them they couldn't go in the mall. But I had previously witnessed him telling a different group of black boys they couldn't enter the mall because they were carrying a ball, and I saw that entire incident and I know they weren't playing with the ball.

5/10 Update: Email sent to Gary Brewer

to garybrewer@cityplacemd.com
date Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 3:04 PM
subject Abusive behavior by security

Mr. Brewer,

In the past week, I've seen more than 5 incidents of one of your security guards, aggressively harrassing people coming into your mall. They all happen to be young, and they all happen to be minorities.

Why can't young minorities go into City Place without being harrassed? Why can't I carry a child's toy, a scooter into the mall? You used to sell them. And if I can't carry a scooter into the mall, why is there not a very visible sign letting me know that BEFORE I come into the mall? Why is your security guard regularly threatening your customers, and threatening to confiscate their belongings? That's against the law, and he should not be threatening any such thing. Why can't I, or a young person, particularly a young minority, carry a ball into the mall? Will I be harrassed and hassled if I happen to be playing ball with my child, and we choose to stop into City Place for a bite to eat?

Every single minority young person I've talked to in the past few days has a story about being harrassed by this security guard. His behavior reflects extremely poorly on City Place Mall management. I intend to discuss this serious issue with other members of my community.

Interesting Comment About MoCo Cop Who Lied in Court

2009-05-09T18:31:00.003-04:00

Rspeed makes an important observation — Officer Hoffman says her testimony conflicts with the video because the events in question happened a year ago, and she's not remembering them clearly. But, if what she wrote in the police report is the same as her testimony, seems to me that's pretty clear evidence that the inconsistencies had nothing to do with her memory.

rspeed said...
Disgusting. Does anyone have the police report? I'm sure that excuse about the case being old will fall apart as soon as we find that it has an identical description of the event.
MAY 9, 2009 2:08 AM

Baltimore: Police Investigated for Leaving Boy in State Park

2009-05-08T07:43:00.003-04:00

BALTIMORE, Md. - Baltimore police have suspended two detectives accused of driving a teenage boy to Patapsco Valley State Park in Ellicott City and leaving him there.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says Milton Smith III and Tyrone Francis, members of the Violent Crimes Impact Division, have been assigned to administrative duties, as is customary when officers are under investigation.

Howard County police say officers were called around 8 p.m. Monday to the 8300 block of Baltimore National Pike, which runs through the state park, where officers met a teenage boy. Howard police say officers took the boy to his home in Baltimore.

Guglielmi says the internal affairs was notified Tuesday and immediately requested an investigation and the city state's attorney's office was also notified.

About that violence in area schools...

2009-05-08T06:32:00.007-04:00

If this much violence is going on in schools, what will happen when schools let out for the summer, and all of those same kids have time on their hands and nothing to do?

Wouldn't it be more logical to be proactive and give them something to do?

Danger zones: Violence a daily fact of life in area schools

2009-05-07T20:46:00.007-04:00

By: LEAH FABEL
Examiner Staff Writer
05/07/09 12:05 AM

Students get into a fight, commit a sexual offense or are caught with a deadly weapon an average of almost once a day at some area high schools, according to recent data compiled from suburban public school districts.

And surprisingly, middle schoolers are involved in even more violent episodes than students in high schools, according to the data.

At Suitland High School in Prince George’s County, nearly 250 suspensions were handed out for fighting in 2007-08 and a dozen for bringing weapons on campus. At Alexandria’s George Washington Middle School, officials reported 168 incidents of fights or serious personal offenses, such as bullying or sexual harassment, averaging nearly one incident per school day.

More than 140 suspensions were issued to students at Montgomery's Francis Scott Key Middle School in Silver Spring for attacks, threats and fights — the most in the county. Following close behind was neighboring White Oak Middle School, with 123.

Both Key and White Oak feed into Springbrook High School, where last week two students were charged with arson and conspiracy to commit murder in an alleged plot against their principal and a guidance counselor.

"The reason kids assault other kids is because they think they can get away with it," said Lisa Snell, director of education at the Reason Foundation. "There are places where that doesn't happen because adults take seriously enforcing rules when things go wrong."

More at WashingtonExaminer.com »

Visitors to this blog

2009-05-07T00:39:00.012-04:00

Most of the visitors to this site are home users, and in my statistics software, all of those people are lumped together under whoever their internet provider is, i.e., Verizon, Comcast, etc. But when people view the site from certain kinds of organizations, I can see that someone from that organization has been to my site. For instance, the Washington Post owns its own servers, so when someone visits from there, I'll see that in my traffic reports.

Also, if someone visits my site by clicking a link at another site, i.e., Google or Facebook, I'll see the name of the site where they clicked the link (but I won't know the exact page.) And in my reports I've been consistently seeing that beyond home users, the majority of my visitors come from educational institutions. I'm happy about that because it means either students or educators are visiting the site.

Here are a few from the past week:

montgomery county public schools
baltimore county public schools
university of maryland
american university
duke university
fairfax county public schools
harford community college
howard university
montgomery college
morgan state university
mount saint mary s college
orange county department of education
alabama a&m university
alamo community college
austin independent school district
baltimore city community college

Most of the remaining traffic comes from Google and Facebook. The Facebook traffic is of course, more intentional, in that they're looking for this site, whereas with Google it's just people stumbling into this site after searching on keywords.

Because of the story about ex-bangers working with kids in Bermuda, I've gotten hits from there. And because of the Yonata Getachew story (that's the kid who wanted to kill/maim his principal and counselor), I've gotten hits from Ethiopia.

"The Power of Youth"

2009-05-06T23:14:00.010-04:00

I saw that phrase in a headline for an article and I noticed that I immediately felt a negative reaction. It's a worn-out catchphrase that people use when they're trying to con you. Most people who say it don't believe in it. They believe in the power of the symbology of youth, politically speaking, but they don't really believe kids have much power, in and of themselves.

And the truth is in our society, that phrase, is utter bullshit. Youth do not have power, politically speaking. Youth cannot vote and so politicians pay them no mind. The lives of children are completely controlled by parents, teachers, school administrators, and few children have any real say about what they do or when they do it. Legally, they have almost none. Parents can force just about anything. Parents whine about not being able to hit their children (as if that's the only way to discipline a child) but other than hitting a kid, there isn't a whole lot a parent can't do.

So where is all this power of youth? In photo opps? In that sense kids do have power. It looks great to have cheery photos of smiling kids to help you sell whatever it is you're selling. But that's not real power. That's mere imagery.

Kids should have power. But power means being able to make decisions. And that means, we as adults have to learn how to listen to what they're saying.

Kids in this community have been talking very loudly lately. But I'm not so sure anyone's listening.

MoCo Cop Lied in Court

2009-05-06T22:36:00.004-04:00

56 year-old George Zaliev of Rockville, might have spent a year in jail — for being drunk while sleeping in the back seat of his car.

I don't get this story. I don't understand why Officer Dina Hoffman testified 11 times that she found Zaliev in the front driver's seat, and charged him with DUI, when this man did absolutely nothing wrong.

The implications of this story are mind-boggling. Who else did Officer Hoffman lie about? Who might be in jail now, wrongfully, because of her testimony?

And, the most mind-boggling part of this story — as the investigation into Hoffman's actions continues...she continues to work.

A Montgomery County Police officer faces a perjury investigation after she testified in April that she found a man arrested for driving under the influence behind the wheel of a parked car. A recording from a security camera showed he was in the back seat, lying down, with his feet out the open passenger side door when she approached him.

"We are aware of the allegation and will be conducting an investigation," Montgomery County Police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said Wednesday.

The Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office referred the case to the Howard County State's Attorney's Office because county prosecutors might be questioned, said Seth Zucker, a spokesman for the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office.

George Zaliev, 56, of Rockville, was arrested about 7:30 p.m. May 3, 2008, for DUI at the parking lot of Sarkissian Interiors at 8537 Atlas Drive in Gaithersburg. A preliminary breath test showed a blood alcohol content of 0.15, nearly twice the legal limit.

At his Montgomery County District Court trial, Officer II Dina Hoffman testified 11 times that she found Zaliev in the front driver's seat. She said shook him awake and he was not cooperative in doing field sobriety tests.

Zaliev's attorney, Paul E. Mack of Columbia, used a laptop computer to show a video from a security camera at Sarkissian that recorded the arrest.

The security tape, reviewed by The Gazette, shows Hoffman arrived and immediately walked up to Zaliev lying in the back seat.

A message left for Hoffman was not returned immediately. A three-year veteran, she continues to work while the allegation is investigated.

More at Gazette.net »

I Don't Want No Scrub

2009-05-06T21:49:00.008-04:00

This mess is hilarious. A few of my favorites from Top 10 Signs the Man You're Dating is A Certified Scrub.

I don't want no scrub
a scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me
hangin' on the passenger's side
of his best friend's ride
tryin' to holler at me

1. He is in "transition."
Sistas hate to hear that dreaded word, which translates to unemployed. If a man says he's in "transition" then he has no job and more than likely can't name a profession, skill or trade that he's practiced for more than 3 years, consecutively. If he is an able body and free of felony convictions, he should be working, end of story.

3. He has trouble explaining/verifying his living situation.
If you've been seeing a guy for more than 90 days and you have yet to be invited his place, you have a bonafide live-in ex situation. Run. Or, if your dude is squatting at various family members pads and can hardly remember where he last left his toothbrush and toiletries, not only is he a scrub, he's a scrub with no direction. Run fast.

6. He's dropping an album.
Eww. If you're man spends most of his time in the studio rapping about things he's never done and doesn't have, he has to go. If one more dude says he does music and bears no fruits of this labor, other than a beat up chain and party flyers, it'll be too soon. How long has he been dropping this album again?

8. He hollers broke but frequents the booty club.
If your man says he "ain't got no dough" but still finds the cash flow to tip them h*@s, he needs to get his priorities straight. Ladies, buy a stripper pole for the crib; fellas, make it rain at home, problem solved.

9. He hollers broke in designer fabrics.
If the man you're dating rocks premium denims, the latest J's and a fresh line-up, and never has any money to contribute to the bar tab or dinner dates, chances are he didn't buy half of what he's wearing. Now he's trying to cake you. Run away, quickly.

10. He hollers broke, again.
If homeboy says he's running low on cash, but has every video game system with a closet full of cartridges and joysticks to boot, he's not the one. No one wants to completely do away with the testosterone release of Madden, but the line has got be drawn somewhere. His game collection should not be the only small fortune he's acquired.

More at LiveSteez.com »

Investigative Voice: MS-13 Gang member who threatened police in the country illegally

2009-05-06T21:36:00.003-04:00

An MS-13 gang member who allegedlly threated to kill a Baltimore City police officer is in the country illegally, authorities have determined.

Sources have told Investigative Voice that the gang member, who told a city police officer he had killed a police officer in his native country of El Salvaldor and would do the same to him, is now being processed for deportation, sources said.

Authorties have yet to determine if a second man alleged to have threatened the officer is also an illiegal immigrant.

Courtland Milloy: A Law That Tears Black Families Apart

2009-05-06T21:27:00.003-04:00

I know you betta preach.

The lowest-level drug offenders convicted for crack, are punished 300 times more harshly than kingpins.

Such blatant, boldfaced racism in 2009, and some people are still confused enough to think we're now "postracial."

There's a law that some experts say contributes mightily to the destruction of low-income African American families and neighborhoods. It's not a law that specifically prohibits them from getting a job or a loan or buying a home or voting. But the effect is often the same.

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 doesn't sound as onerous as, say, the Black Codes of the late 1800s, which legalized arbitrary imprisonment to limit the movement of newly freed slaves. But when it comes to ruthless incarceration, nothing compares with this federal drug law: It has subjected tens of thousands of black people to lengthy prison terms for possessing ridiculously small amounts of crack cocaine.

"If you want to know why black children are overrepresented in foster care at four times the rate of the national population, then look no further than the mass incarceration of black people," Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP, told me recently. "The vast majority of them are nonviolent drug users, many first-time offenders. Instead of providing them with the treatment they need, we send them to prison, often breaking up their families in the process."

More at WashingtonPost.com »

Baron Davis: Breaking the Cycle of Inner-City Gang Violence

2009-05-06T21:16:00.004-04:00

If you've been reading this blog, you may have noticed a pattern in some of the stories I've posted — most of the people I've written about who are actually doing something to make a difference in the lives of at-risk youth, are black. Skateboarder Stacy Peralta, creator of the Bloods and Crips documentary that Baron Davis helped to make a reality, is one of the few who is not.

I grew up in South Central LA. It's where my family is, it's where many of my friends are and it's where I learned to play basketball. Having grown up in this area, I know what it's like to be surrounded by gang violence, so when Stacy Peralta approached me to produce his documentary, Crips and Bloods: Made in America, I jumped at the chance to get involved. I had two goals for the film. First, I wanted to show people about why we have gangs in our inner cities, because unless you understand the history you can't address the issue. And second, I wanted to show people what we can do to resolve this.

Until we stop looking at these kids as monsters we will never break the cycle of gang violence. People need to understand that in communities in which family units have broken apart and there are few, if any, economic opportunities, gangs become like surrogate families, identities.

Throwing people in jail is not going to solve this problem. As NFL great and youth advocate Jim Brown says in our film, "If more police or jails were the solution, the problem would have been fixed 30 years ago." If we are going to address this issue in a meaningful way, we need a new approach.

More at HuffingtonPost.com »

Seriously Long Sentences

2009-05-06T20:52:00.002-04:00

24 year-old Patrick A. Byers Jr. got life with no parole for the murder-for-hire of witness Carl Lackl. Will the state get time too, since the state allowed Byers to have access to Lackl's address? Is Maryland going to jail for that?

And 30 year-old MS-13 member Victor Ramirez got 60 years for racketeering (and that includes 3 murders.) Ramirez had been sent here from El Salvador to strengthen MS-13 in Maryland.

NY school evacuated after boy's bathroom suicide

2009-05-06T20:21:00.003-04:00

I know what it feels like to want to check out. I just wish we didn't have so many kids feeling the same thing.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- A high school student with ammunition and homemade explosives in his locker used a sawed-off shotgun to kill himself in a campus bathroom while classes were in session, forcing police to evacuate the school while they checked to see if the shooting was part of a more sinister plot.

After a gunshot rang out around lunchtime Tuesday, officers raced to the Canandaigua Academy, where students were being told over the intercom system to remain in their classrooms. The officers later evacuated the school in Canandaigua, a city of 11,000 residents just southeast of Rochester, taking the students to a nearby middle school.
The shooter, 17-year-old senior Thomas Kane, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police Chief Jonathan Welch said. An investigation would determine if other students were involved, he said.

More at WashingtonPost.com »

Many of county's blacks, Hispanics ineligible for after-school activities

2009-05-06T07:08:00.007-04:00

Administrators have been "examining" this problem for years, and it's the same as it ever was. And the students who are shut out from what they need most — after-school activities, are more likely to get involved with crime and become truants. We know that. But in this community the have-nots aren't high on our list of priorities, and year after year we continue to write these children off to the streets.

Rather than focusing on our children in crisis, our government considers it more important to worry about how people park their cars.

Administrators examining the problem, official says

Gazette.net
by Marcus Moore | Staff Writer

School system administrators are working to get more black and Hispanic students involved in after-school activities, after a recent report showed that those pupils were chronically ineligible.

The disparity is alarming, because students who are chronically ineligible for extracurricular activities — defined as ineligible for two marking periods —are more likely to be disinterested in programs that prepare them for college and the workforce, according to the report, released in December by the school system's Office of Shared Accountability.

Also, ineligible students run a greater risk of dropping out of high school, researchers wrote in the report.

Under school board policy, students with a grade-point average of less than 2.0 are ineligible for after-school activities, which include sports, band and clubs.

Continue reading at Gazette.net »

Safe Summer Youth Crime Prevention Initiative: 40 Days of Increased Peace

2009-05-05T06:29:00.007-04:00

DC did it. Montgomery County needs to do it.

If we really want to have a Safe Silver Spring, we need to start by having a Safe Summer. Here's a 2006 DC press release.

June 13, 2006

Safe Summer Youth Crime Prevention Initiative: 40 Days of Increased Peace

Press Conference & Kickoff with Special Police Announcement

Join Chief Charles H. Ramsey, Assistant Chiefs Willie E. Dandridge (East, 6th & 7th Districts), Brian Jordan (Central, 1st & 5th Districts), Peter Newsham (North, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Districts), along with members of the clergy, the community, parents and students, who will come together at a local Boys and Girls club to announce the city's largest crime prevention partnership of the summer, with a special police announcement.

When: Wednesday, June 14, 2006
(last day of school for DC's public schools students ½ day)

Where: #14 Boys & Girls Clubhouse of Greater Washington
(Richard England Clubhouse, 4103 Benning Road, NE (next door to 6D)

When: 2 pm (Press Conference), 3-6 pm (Kickoff events)

Information: Yvonne Smith, yvonne.smith@dc.gov, (202) 645-5333 / (202) 645-5568

Details about this year's unique press conference: On the very last day of school, which will be the first day of the summer break for DC's youth and young adults, the Metropolitan Police Department and their community partners in crime prevention will hold a press conference, followed by a series of more than 300 events around the city for more than 40 consecutive days, designed to promote the safest summer yet.

Over 40 partners, including the city's Department of Parks and Recreation, Children's National Medical Center, Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington, Court Services and Offender Supervision, US Department of Justice, East of the River and ROC-Central's Clergy Police Community Partnerships, Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington, and many more will support the summer initiative with a focus on crime prevention and intervention among the city's youth, specifically to reduce juvenile arrests, which, oftentimes, result from poor supervision and boredom among youth during the summer months. Events will target all areas of the city with a focus on saturating the city's crime hotspot neighborhoods, with a concentration on educational and recreational outreach, which will include visits from the Department of Parks and Recreation's Skate Mobile and the citys Mobile Library.

Immediately following the press conference, the first events of the summer will take place, inside and outside the facility, with summer camp registration, arts and crafts, construction of a quilt for peace, volleyball, live entertainment with a famous local radio and television personality, free giveaways, and much more. Summer master calendars will be distributed, as well as safety pledge cards for youth, along with a "40 Days" hotline for people to call each day to obtain a listing of free summer events. The hotline is (202) IM Bored (462-6733).

The citywide effort hopes to celebrate its safe summer success at this year's National Night Out events, Tuesday, August 1. For a complete list of "40 Days" events in all seven police districts, visit the MPDC website.

When the Cellphone Teaches Sex Education

2009-05-03T23:09:00.009-04:00

We can't emphasizes safe-sex messages enough. This program that answers teens' questions about sexual health via text messages, was started with a $5,000 grant and advertising from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

THE special cellphone, set on vibrate, begins to whir. Throughout North Carolina, anonymous teenagers are texting questions to it about sex.

“If you take a shower before you have sex, are you less likely to get pregnant?” asks one.

Another: “Does a normal penis have wrinkles?”

A young girl types: “If my BF doesn’t like me to be loud during sex but I can’t help it, what am I supposed to do?”

Within 24 hours, each will receive a cautious, nonjudgmental reply, texted directly to their cellphones, from a nameless, faceless adult at the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina, based in Durham.

There goes the phone again.

“Why do guys think it’s cool to sleep with a girl and tell their friends?”

James Martin, the staff member who has text-line duty this week, is 31, married and the father of a toddling son. He hesitates. How to offer comfort, clarity and hope in just a few sentences? He texts back. “Mostly it’s because they believe that having sex makes them cool,” he types, adding, “Most guys outgrow that phase.”

The Birds and Bees Text Line, which the center started Feb. 1, directing its MySpace ads and fliers at North Carolinians ages 14 to 19, is among the latest efforts by health educators to reach teenagers through technology — sex ed on their turf.

More at New York Times »

Maryland in Top 20 for highest rates of STDs

2009-05-03T21:19:00.003-04:00

Wrap it up people.

Capital News Service
May 3, 2009

WASHINGTON - Maryland ranked in the Top 20 states for a second year with the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea and placed fourth for syphilis, according to the latest data from the Maryland health department.

"We've been hovering in the top five [for syphilis] for the past few years," said Barbara Conrad, sexually transmitted disease prevention division chief for the Maryland Health Department, who expects 2008 data in the next month.

Maryland ranked fifth for primary and secondary syphilis, second for congenital syphilis, 14th for chlamydia and 18th for gonorrhea in 2006.

In 2007, Maryland had 345 cases of primary and secondary syphilis with a high concentration of cases in Baltimore City and Prince George's County.

More at BaltimoreSun.com »

DiamonbackOnline Guest Column: From prison to college

2009-05-03T21:15:00.003-04:00

KENNY BRIDGERS

Issue date: 4/21/09
Section: Opinion

Educational institutions are relying more and more on disciplinary methods to suppress what many consider typical adolescent behavior. In so doing, some youth are guided directly from school suspensions or expulsions to a path of convictions and prison sentences. These are the characteristics of what researchers have termed the "school-to-prison pipeline," through which young people are increasingly funneled into the juvenile justice system. The non-profit student organization Justice for D.C. Youth's mission is to advocate a fairer and more effective juvenile justice system in Washington with the goal of shifting the city's priorities from incarceration to education. Through my work with JDCY, I attended a conference about this issue where we learned that, in the United States, a black man born in 2001 has a one in three chance of going to prison in his lifetime and a Latino man has a one in six chance.

Since spring 2007, in an effort to combat such startling statistics, JDCY has been constructing a new pipeline. The Prison to College Pipeline is a political education and leadership development program designed to work with youth who've been directly impacted by Washington's juvenile justice system. JDCY trains students from this and other universities to volunteers to tutor, facilitate workshops and coordinate other events using a pedagogical approach that emphasizes popular education and arts activism. Once a week, volunteers go to Oak Hill Youth Center, located just more than 10 miles away from the campus, to assist youth in cultivating the skills and knowledge needed to serve as positive leaders in their communities. Youth who participate in the P2CP build and express awareness of social, cultural and political issues while increasing academic skills and social supports in preparation for college and other post-secondary educational institutions.

More at DiamondbackOnline »

California's Juvenile Injustice System

2009-05-03T19:49:00.004-04:00

This can't continue.

State sentences children as young as 14 to life without parole. A state Senate bill would bring some sanity to the situation

LA Times
April 30, 2009

Children, even really bad ones, are different from adults. That basic truth is the foundation of our juvenile justice system, which seeks to protect society from violent youth while recognizing that they haven't yet developed an adult's brainpower, resistance to peer pressure, judgment and thus moral capacity. It's the underpinning of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 ruling in Roper vs. Simmons, which banned execution of inmates for crimes they committed as children.

That doesn't stop California from locking up children as young as 14 for life without even the most remote possibility of parole. There are more than 200 such offenders living out their lives in prison here, with no chance -- despite any maturing, any repentance, any burgeoning awareness of the wrongness of their actions -- of asking for parole, even decades into adulthood. That's costly, cruel and foolish.

Knowing they will live and die in prison, people who acted in the rashness of youth have no hope of returning to society, and therefore no reason to learn, or grow, or mature, or reform. But surely their example will dissuade other youth from crime? Nonsense. Kids who can't imagine next year can't imagine life in prison and can't be expected to make decisions based on something as obscure to them as parole.

More at LA Times »

Gangs vs. Wannabes

2009-05-03T16:18:00.005-04:00

Interesting comments on why neighborhood cliques can be more of a problem than actual gangs.

• • •

Neighborhood groups can be even more dangerous than street gangs because financial interests dominate street gangs. They have an incentive to stay off law enforcement's radar.

But neighborhood "cliques" don't. They imitate the gang culture they get from TV, music and the Internet. They want to avenge every insult.

"An organized gang with a hierarchy has colors and meetings and stuff," said Pinellas sheriff's Detective Anthony Gentile. "But what we see in these neighborhood cliques is they just get out of control, they go crazy."

Some of it is age, said former gang prosecutor Aaron Slavin. There's a word for neighborhood teens who imagine themselves in a gang: "wanna-bes."

"That's the kid that has the problems, who wants the attention, who wants the glorification," Slavin said. "I'd be more scared of that person doing something stupid than the actual true gang member."

• • •

More at St. Petersburg Times »

Off-Topic News: Kelis Files for Divorce From Nas

2009-05-03T11:35:00.005-04:00

I don't know if any of those "irreconcilable differences" has a name, but I've done some work in the music industry and I know someone with the success, money, and fame that Nas has will have much more sexual opportunity than what's good for him.

The Associated Press
3:31 PM EDT, May 1, 2009

LOS ANGELES - The milkshake has gone sour between Kelis (KEL-ees) and Nas (NAHZ).

Kelis Rogers filed for divorce Thursday in Los Angeles. She's expecting the couple's first child in July.

Documents show the couple was married in July 2003 and separated in April. Rogers is seeking to have her hip-hop husband pay her attorney's fees and spousal support.

She cited "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the split.

More at BaltimoreSun.com »

Shame: Pregnant Mother With Sick Children Forced to Wait and Wait for Food Stamps, Medicaid

2009-05-03T01:44:00.011-04:00

Miracyle Thompson is the mother of two small boys -- and both have Sickle Cell Anemia. She first applied for Medicaid in November, and when she didn't have a response after 3 months, she applied again on March 3rd (she did receive Medicaid shortly after that — but for herself only, not for her boys.) And yet in April, this:

Then, on April 5, according to the lawsuit, she received a letter that her family's applications had been held up because of an "agency delay beyond our control."

Why did Miracyle Thompson have to wait so long to get benefits she was eligible for, and that federal and state law says she should have had much sooner:

Federal law says food stamps should be provided to eligible families within 30 days of application and Medicaid within 45 days. State law says food stamps should be provided within seven days and Medicaid within 30 days.

This story is so heartbreaking because Sickle Cell Anemia is a brutal disease that causes intense, recurring pain attacks. The attacks can come at any point and can last for days, and the pain has been likened to terminal cancer or childbirth. Sickle Cell can attack any part of the body — any of the organs, and even the brain, which can lead to stroke.

Because the sickling is caused by a mutation of the hemoglobin gene, the most a doctor can do when a patient has an attack is to hydrate them and medicate the pain. They cannot stop the sickling process, in which blood cells that are normally round become sickle shaped and sticky, and unable to smoothly flow through arteries to oxygenate the organs and the limbs. The blocked blood vessels can cause infections, organ damage, necrosis, and other serious problems.

Why would the state allow those precious little boys to suffer without treatment and medication when they've been struggling with such a devastating disease?

I don't understand how anyone could let those kids go without the care they needed for so long.

More at WashingtonPost.com »

Smart Communities: Crime and Summer

2009-05-02T21:37:00.013-04:00

I found this year-old post on a great blog called Smart Communities that has lots of creative advice on how to bring about civic change in communities. The post is old, but it brings up issues we need to be thinking about in our community.

Unless something is done, thousands of mostly-minority kids will have absolutely nothing to do this summer. That's so unfortunate because we could direct these kids into activities that can help them develop and grow, mentally, physically, and creatively. And regardless of the activity, interactions with teens always present opportunities to teach them — not school lessons, but things like how to love themselves, and how to express and maintain their ethnic identities in positive, creative ways, and how to see beyond the environments many of them find themselves in now. There's so much opportunity to help our kids and contribute something positive to their lives. And when you make those kinds of efforts, and accept them exactly as they are, change will happen. Transformation is inevitable in a community where everyone feels accepted.

And it's really very simple. Kids need activities. They need to have skateboarding, midnight basketball, swimming, soccer — athletic and artistic activities. Chief Bratton from LA has been pimping his "Summer of Success" program lately, but his story really is very convincing, of how the program drastically reduced violence. And the program was pretty simple — lots and lots of activities for kids. And if we don't give kids positive things to be involved in, we could end up having a very long, hot summer.

June 20, 2008

Tomorrow is the first day of summer. Along with the mosquitoes invariably comes an increase in crime--youth crime to be exact. Just this week a promising athlete was shot outside his high school graduation while we were in Philadelphia. In an interesting article recently in The Economist, the writer profiles the increase in crime and what Chicago is or isn't doing about it. That city had 36 shootings during the April 18-20 weekend. America had 37% more gang-related murders in 2006 than in 2000 while the overall crime rates are lower. Essentially gang violence heats up in the summer as members have time on their hands and feuds are fueled. The typical response more police and more summer jobs is hampered this year by the economy. So what to do on this eve of summer? The article suggests that Boston has done a very good job getting a handle on the problem. In the 1990s Boston targeted gang violence by offering services and help to gang members but assured them that gang violence would be met with the severest penalties. If there was a gang murder, the police would go after the killer and the gang. In other words the gang business was at risk. This strategy has worked. Youth murders have dropped significantly.

Arts and Enrichment

2009-05-02T13:46:00.004-04:00

For many kids in Montgomery County, the only exposure they have to arts and enrichment is what they get in school. (And in recent years, a lot of enrichment activities such as field trips have been reduced because of No Child Left Behind.) I've known kids who cycled all the way through from kindergarten to senior year, and almost never participated in an after-school activity. And I've seen many children who spend their summers with no structured activities at all.

All of the children I've known over the years who were unable to participate in activities, were minorities. They couldn't participate because of costs and transportation issues. And there are far too many minority children who could be excellent dancers, musicians, painters, actors, writers, if only they had a chance to develop those skills through access to instruction.

I believe that when a child develops an artistic talent, the whole person grows and evolves, and the child becomes more aware, more conscious, and grows into a more thoughtful human being. I think we should encourage more kids to become artists, and help them find ways to do that.

DOD Analyst Gets Robbed Tryin' To Get His Freak On

2009-05-02T12:10:00.010-04:00

LOL.

I grew up next door to a woman who referred to herself as a "trick ho'". She stood out on the corners looking for dates like the actual prostitutes...but she wasn't selling a thing. She carried a large pair of scissors and used them to rob her 'clients'.

It began as a hot date through one those the phone chat lines, but ended in extortion, kidnapping and robbery, prosecutors said.

Mexico captures powerful Gulf cartel hitman

2009-05-02T12:04:00.000-04:00

MATAMOROS, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico captured a suspected leader of the ruthless Gulf cartel who is wanted in the United States, the latest arrest in its army-led war against drug gangs, the government said.

Police and soldiers on Wednesday caught Gregorio Sauceda, a former policeman turned drug smuggler who had a $2 million reward on his head, in a house in the border city of Matamoros near Texas, along with his wife and an arsenal of weapons that included a rocket launcher, the public security ministry said.

Sauceda, 44, is considered to be a founder of the Gulf cartel's brutal armed wing, the Zetas, which is notorious for beheading rival smugglers. He was flown to the capital, Mexico City, after his arrest.

More at WashingtonPost.com »

Ontario, Canada: Immigrant boy charged for hitting bully

2009-05-02T11:35:00.006-04:00

So a Korean boy says that a white kid shoved him, called him a "(expletive) Chinese", and punched him in the mouth. The problem for the bully was, the kid he punched had been taught how to fight by his father who was a highly trained martial artist. The boy must have been good, because his father told him to only punch with his left hand. He did that — and with one punch, the bully's nose was broken.

The really cool thing about this story is that 400 mostly white students walked out of school, protesting the Korean boy's treatment and the fact that he was charged with a crime. After their protest, the police reopened the case.

I don't believe in advocating violence. But I say the bully had it coming.

KESWICK, Ontario, April 30 (UPI) -- A small Canadian town in southern Ontario is divided over charges against an Asian immigrant youth who responded to a bully's punch with one of his own.

The confrontation occurred April 21 in Keswick, 40 miles north of Toronto, between two 15-year-old boys during a game in the high school gymnasium. Neither boy can be identified, The Globe and Mail said.

More from UPI »

Tai Lam's Killer Pleads Guilty

2009-05-01T22:31:00.007-04:00

I don't imagine it was Hector Hernandez' conscience that compelled him to suddenly come clean. My guess is that his boy flipped, and the police used that to pressure him to cop a plea, while threatening to throw the proverbial book at him if he didn't. (There are plenty of other charges he could have gotten along with murder two.)

A man suspected of being an illegal immigrant pleaded guilty today to charges that he fatally shot a 14-year-old honors student aboard a Montgomery County transit bus in Silver Spring, officials said.

The shooting last fall fueled a debate that led to a new policy for how Montgomery police handle potentially illegal immigrants.

Hector Hernandez, 21, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Tai Lam. State guidelines call for Hernandez to receive a sentence of between 15 and 45 years, prosecutors said.

About a month before the Nov. 1 shooting, Hernandez was arrested for possession of a switchblade and threatening a student at Northwood High School in Silver Spring. His status as an alleged illegal immigrant went undetected at the time.

Since that time, Montgomery police have adopted a policy of referring to immigration officials the names of all suspects arrested for violent crimes and handgun offenses.

Baltimore: Two High School Students Arrested for Concealed Deadly Weapons

2009-05-01T06:29:00.003-04:00

Baltimore Sun: Students face weapons charges

by Jonathan Pitts
May 1, 2009

Two Fallston High School seniors were arrested and charged with possession of a concealed deadly weapon when Harford County sheriff's deputies found each with a fixed-blade knife at the school Monday, authorities said. Nathan Gee and Victor Gee of Fallston, twin brothers who are 18, were released on their own recognizance Monday afternoon. Police said administrators called the county sheriff at 9:30 a.m. with a report that Nathan Gee had been seen with a weapon. A deputy pulling the student from class found a 7-inch fixed-blade knife on him, along with two smaller knives, police said. A similar 7-inch knife was found in Victor Gee's locker, said Sgt. David Betz. The Gees described themselves as knife collectors who brought the weapons to school for protection, Betz said. Police turned up "no credible threat" to the brothers. Betz said rumors the brothers possessed bomb-making instructions at the time of arrest were false, as were reports that either had made threats to the school. Spokeswoman Teri Kranefeld said the school system's policy in weapons-possession cases is an automatic 10-day suspension.

Poet Maya Angelou Visits Youth at Oak Hill Detention Center

2009-05-01T06:16:00.004-04:00

Wow. More of this, please.

The Future, Not Past, Is What Counts, Poet Advises Oak Hill Center Youths

By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 1, 2009

Maya Angelou has dozens of honorary doctorate degrees, speaks several languages and is recognized all over the world for the more than 30 books she's written.

But when she visited the Oak Hill Youth Center in Laurel yesterday, Angelou told dozens of young men that she was not all that different from them. She was abandoned as a child, raped at age 7 by her mother's boyfriend and became a teenage prostitute.

Life isn't about taking back, she said, but adding to what already exists. "Be yourself," she told the teens, who have all been deemed delinquent. "Try to be the real you, a man or woman who can do more than you think you can do."

Angelou, in town for a fundraiser for a charter school bearing her name, spent more than half an hour lecturing and listening to students such as Darius Watts, a 10th-grader at Oak Hill Academy, who said that he's reading "Animal Farm" and studying the Russian Revolution. At his previous school, outside Oak Hill, no one forced him to do class work, much less read the classics and study world history.

"No one seemed to care about us," Watts said. "We were never held accountable."

Oak Hill Academy, the school at the Oak Hill center, is run by the See Forever Foundation, the nonprofit that manages Maya Angelou Public Charter School in the District. Vincent N. Schiraldi, director of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, which oversees Oak Hill, has made it a point during his four-year tenure to expose many of the city's most delinquent youths to what many don't get at home: arts, culture and activities such as hiking and canoeing.

"You're smart enough and deep enough to understand Dr. Angelou," he told the youths in introducing her. "People always underestimate you."

Angelou said she know what it is like to be underestimated and judged dumb. After she was raped, Angelou said, she didn't speak for years, and many wondered what was wrong with her.

More at WashingtonPost.com »

Rockville: School Closed Over Swine Flu

2009-05-01T06:11:00.003-04:00

(WUSA) -- Montgomery County Public Schools have announced that Rockville High School will be closed Friday by order order of State of Maryland and Montgomery County health officials.

9NEWS Now has learned from Montgomery County Public School officials that a learning disabled student who attends Rockville High School has a probable case of H1N1 flu. The student is the ninth probable case to have been reported in Maryland.

Rockville High School will remain closed until further notice.

A press conference with more details on this latest probable case of H1N1 flu will take place at 10:30 am Friday at the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services.

I'll keep saying it, we have amazing teens in our community

2009-04-30T22:20:00.005-04:00

Local Community Helps in One Boy's Fight To Survive

Thanks to the support of his community, a Silver Spring boy is not only surviving but thriving after a potentially fatal virus attacked his heart.

Kansas: Feds Again Target Foreign-Born Gang Members

2009-04-30T21:58:00.005-04:00

This is a continuation of what the Feds started in Chicago, targeting foreign-born gang members for arrest. Looks like US Attorney General Eric Holder is trying to keep the Mexicans from building infrastructure.

This was officially part of a program that's been in place for years called Operation Community Shield. But these latest arrests seem to be the results of some of the first investigations to take place under Holder's leadership.

ICE arrests 17 immigrants in Kansas gang sweep

Eds: UPDATES with details about criminal past, comment from federal prosecutors, arrest numbers nationwide.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- Immigration and police authorities have arrested 17 illegal immigrants in Wichita during an operation targeting foreign-born gang members.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday it teamed with Wichita police to make nine arrests on Wednesday. Eight arrests were made earlier during the sweep's planning phase.

All the arrests involved Mexican men with criminal pasts that included convictions or arrests for involuntary manslaughter, assault, burglary, unlawful possession of drugs and firearms and battery, the agency said in a news release.

The men were allegedly members or associates of street gangs known as Kings of Destruction, Players For Life, Sureños-13, and the Vato Loco Boys.

Four cases were referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution of aggravated identity theft and illegal re-entry and eventual deportation, ICE said. All the men were placed into deportation proceedings.

No charges had been filed in those cases, said Jim Cross, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas.

The sweep was part of Operation Community Shield, a national campaign by ICE to partner with state and local law enforcement authorities to fight criminal street gangs.

Since its inception, the program has been credited with the arrest of more than 12,500 street gang members and associates belonging to more than 900 different gangs, ICE said. More than 150 of those arrested were gang leaders and 2,272 were MS-13 members or associates.

Question from a Reader: Why Did You Start Your Blog?

2009-04-30T20:22:00.007-04:00

First I want to clarify that 2 other people post here also — I'm in Silver Spring, one is in Wheaton, and one in Baltimore. We all post under the same handle because the other two are chickens, and don't want you to know who they are. But I started the blog, and I'll be happy to tell you why.

The bottom line is that I love kids. All kids. Good kids, bad kids, any kind of kid. I love them when they're well-behaved and when they're not.

And I don't want a single child getting hurt.

I grew up in one of the most violent areas in DC, and I've seen way too much. Time and again, I've seen the sad progression of a baby being born perfect and beautiful, filled with all of the hope and potential of any other child, only to be beaten down by his environment, and by the constant lack, fear, frustration, and deprivation that most ghetto kids experience.

Most often, by the age of 2 they're sullen and withdrawn. Or sometimes they're overly rambunctious, with signs of a lack of impulse control already starting to show. By 5, you can look at them and see the heaviness in their spirits, as they to struggle to understand complex concepts about life that many adults don't even understand. And by 12, many are already petty criminals, learning the ins and outs of the criminal trades.

And at no point through those years, do those kids actually get to be kids.

I can only really speak about where I'm from, and that was certainly the case there, but I've heard from many other people from other hoods around the country, about similar conditions and similar experiences.

I'm involved with job training and mentoring, and through that work I've talked to many gang-bangers, from many parts of the country, and some of the stories they tell of how they came up and the things they've experienced, are some of the most heart-wrenching stories I've ever heard. I thought I had been through something, until I started talking to gang-bangers.

There are many issues kids in ghettos have to deal with, and when you're constantly surrounded by violence and vice and there's nothing positive going on in your community, it's very hard to see anything positive for yourself. It's hard to hope, to dream. And so much of your mental energy goes into dealing with the most basic survival issues — like the need to eat, and the need to stay alive, that there's very little space in your mind left for positive thoughts.

Growing up where I did, I watched this movie, again and again, seeing lives be devastated and destroyed simply because they were children and they had no choice about where they lived. And where they lived was a godforsaken hellhole that their government had forgotten about and written off.

So crime continued and no one cared. Trees rotted and died and no one cared. And children...who could have been anything, who had just as much potential as any other child, ended up dying or going to jail, or being addicted to crack before they were 25.

When you've watched this movie one too many times, it just makes you wanna holler.

Springbrook High School: The Flip Side -- Phenomenal Talent, Braxton Cook

2009-04-30T19:54:00.009-04:00

While Springbrook High School is in the news because of Yonata Getachew and Anthony Torrence, and their sick and twisted plans to kill and maim school staff, here's the flip side — one of the many reasons Springbrook staff and students should be proud.

Braxton Cook has been selected as Grammy Jazz Ensemble Saxophonist!

For anyone who doesn't know, the Grammy Band is one of the most prestigious youth bands in the country, and getting in establishes Braxton Cook as one of the best young saxophone players in the nation.

Bernd Debusmann on Prison Reform

2009-04-30T19:42:00.004-04:00

Regardless of what crime someone has committed, I don't believe there's a soul alive who deserves to be locked up in our prisons in their current state. They are just that bad. If you've never had a loved one do time, and you've never heard, in detail about what really goes on in prison, you probably don't know. And beyond the violence inmates have to deal with, our prison system makes it virtually impossible for anyone to be rehabilitated.

Drugs, elephants and American prisons

Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Are the 305 million people living in the United States the most evil in the world? Is this the reason why the U.S., with 5 percent of the world’s population, has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners and an incarceration rate five times as high as the rest of the world?

Or is it a matter of a criminal justice system that has gone dramatically wrong, swamping the prison system with drug offenders?

That rhetorical question, asked on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Virginia Senator Jim Webb, fits into what looks like an accelerating shift in public sentiment on the way that a long parade of administrations has been dealing with illegal drugs.

Advocates of drug reform sensed a change in the public mood even before Webb, a Democrat who served as secretary of the Navy under Republican Ronald Reagan, introduced a bill last month to set up a blue-ribbon commission of “the greatest minds” in the country to review the criminal justice system and recommend reforms within 18 months.

No aspect of the system, according to Webb, should escape scrutiny, least of all “the elephant in the bedroom in many discussions … the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200 percent.

More at Reuter's »

Postracial Nonsense: Drug Law Disparities

2009-04-30T19:22:00.004-04:00

I really don't get how anyone can think that just because we have a black president, we are now "postracial." So what, all of those pesky disparities disappeared overnight? Like the disparities in pay, in hiring (even when the qualifications are the same), in access to health care, in quality of treatment even when people do have health insurance, in getting bank loans, in renting or buying a home, in infant mortality, in life-expectancy. I could go on and on -- there are glaring disparities in virtually every area of life.

A good start to getting to this postracial paradise some people think we're now in, would be to get honest about those disparities, and to start getting busy changing them.

...

The sentencing inequality has come to be known as the "100 to 1" ratio, in which possession of five grams of crack, the weight of two small sugar cubes, triggers a mandatory five-year prison term, while a person carrying 500 grams of powder cocaine would receive the same sentence.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who chairs the subcommittee, noted that more than half of federal inmates are locked up for drug-related crimes, including high ratios of African American offenders. In 2007, Durbin said, 82 percent of people convicted on crack possession charges were black, and 9 percent were white.

"These racial disparities profoundly undermine trust in our criminal justice system and have a deeply corrosive effect on the relationship between law enforcement and minority communities," Durbin said.

More at WashingtonPost.com »

Springbrook High School: Getachew's Hatred for Counselor Motivated Him to Plot Murder

2009-04-30T18:55:00.003-04:00

Springbrook High School student Yonata Getachew despised his counselor and hated his principal for siding with her in a conflict, and that's what drove him and Anthony Torrence to plan murder.

It makes me sad and angry at the same time to see how deeply in denial the families of these boys are. Anthony Torrence's mom: "Not my son," she said. "He wouldn't hurt a soul." Um, yes, he would hurt a soul, and apparently he almost did. And Mesfin Belaw, Getachew's uncle, said "He's our baby, he's our boy. He's obedient, very caring for his mother."

It's heartbreaking to think about what these families are going through, and what they'll have to endure in the future. But they don't seem to have a clue who their children are.

Bermuda: Former gang-bangers take their message to schools

2009-04-30T06:09:00.004-04:00

Jeff Osborne an ex-Blood (speaking) and Craig Winters-Dixon an ex-Crip, deliver an anti-gang message to students at T.N. Tatem Middle School.
Photo by Mark Tatem.

Students were captivated by the powerful words of three former Los Angeles gangsters yesterday as an ex-Blood and ex-Crip united to deliver a message of anti-violence.

Wearing red and blue du rags, Jeff Osborne and Craig Winters-Dixon partnered up to address a special assembly at T N Tatem Middle School.

They were joined by Pepe Montenegro, a former member of Mexican gang The Avenues, to warn youngsters not to glamourise 'gangster' rappers and a lifestyle of guns and violence.

The three men were invited to speak in Bermuda this week by non-profit group CARTEL Challenging and Reclaiming the True Essence of Life.

CARTEL was founded two years ago to raise awareness of the growing gang problem on the Island and to educate youngsters away from anti-social behaviour.

It was launched by Pastors Leroy Bean, Lynn Landy and Kirk Trott, and hopes to gain Government funding in the future.

There are generally six known gangs on the Island 42nd Street, Southside, Eastside, Westside, Rockaway and Whitewall.

Mr. Trott said: "You can see from what's happening in Bermuda, from the murders we've had, that gang violence is getting worse. It's so big here but people are turning a blind eye.

"What we are hoping to do is get into these areas where there is a gang mentality, and get into homes and schools. If we don't do anything about it then there will be more innocent people getting hurt."

This week, Mr. Osborne, Mr. Winters-Dixon and Mr. Montenegro are visiting schools, prisons and community forums across the Island to give personal testimonies on the realities of gangster life as opposed to the 'glamour' of rap music videos.

Their visit to Bermuda also marks the first time Mr. Osborne, an ex-Blood, and Mr. Winters-Dixon, an ex-Crip, have teamed up to address a school.

The results had students transfixed yesterday as the pair shared personal stories and performed two hip-hop and beatbox songs which were worthy of their own MTV video.

Students at T N Tatem hollered their approval as the two ex-LA gangsters 'jerked' and sang out their message of anti-violence.

Afterwards, 13-year-old Joshua Commissiong, of Sandys, said: "Everyone knows or is related to someone who is a gang member and so this assembly was very fruitful. The stories they gave, it does bring home the realities of gangster life."

More at The Royal Gazette »

CRITICALLY MISSING 13 YEAR OLD GIRL FROM GAITHERSBURG

2009-04-29T23:20:00.004-04:00

If you're on a school or neighborhood listserve or forum, PLEASE circulate this information as widely as possible.

GAITHERSBURG, Md. - Montgomery County police are asking for help finding a 13-year-old they have listed as "critically missing".

Victoria Ivanova Scheinman was last seen about 7 p.m. Tuesday night at her home in the 9800 block of Mahogany Drive in Gaithersburg, police said. She did not make it to school Wednesday and her family is concerned about her safety, police said.

Scheinman is described as a 13-year-old white female, 5' tall, 95 pounds with shoulder-length black hair. She wears glasses and has braces with green bands. She was last seen wearing a blue tank top, pink shorts with butterflies, and black flip flops.

Anyone who has information about Victoria Ivanova Scheinman's whereabouts is asked to contact Family Crimes Division at 240-773-5400 or the Montgomery County Police non-emergency number at 301-279-8000.

More from Gazette on AM Stabbing in Downtown Silver Spring

2009-04-29T22:22:00.003-04:00

Police are asking for the public's help in identifying a man who stabbed another man Wednesday morning during an argument near the MARC train station in downtown Silver Spring.

Police say the man and the victim were involved in a brief argument when the man stabbed the victim once in the stomach with a knife before 8:49 a.m. The attacker then fled and the victim ran a short distance to the MARC station where he called police, according to Officer Melanie Brenner, a county police spokeswoman.

Two Montgomery County Public School Students Plot to Kill Principal, Bomb the School, and Beat a Female Counselor

2009-04-29T21:50:00.005-04:00

I don't know how to begin to understand this. Whose imagination conjures up something as sick and twisted as beating a school counselor with a bag of rocks and nails?

Two Md. Students Charged in Alleged Plot to Kill Principal

By Dan Morse And Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 29, 2009; 5:55 PM

Two Montgomery County teenagers have been charged with arson and conspiracy to commit murder in an alleged plot to kill the principal at their Silver Spring high school and trigger a major explosion inside the building, authorities said today.

The Springbrook High School students -- juniors ages 18 and 17 -- are suspected of having already set three fires at the school, including one yesterday that led to the discovery of the plot, police said.

According to police, the students planned to throw a nail-filled bomb into the principal's office and were searching for ways to rupture a gas line and then ignite the gas once it filled a room. They also planned to beat a female guidance counselor with a bag containing rocks and nails, police said.

The attacks were to happen in the near future, police said. The students were arrested last night. Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said investigators think the students "really had an intention of doing this."

More at WashingtonPost.com »

9:AM -- Man Stabbed at Silver Spring Marc Station

2009-04-29T20:52:00.004-04:00

Whoever you are, I pray for your recovery.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009; 10:14 AM

Montgomery County police were looking for a stabbing suspect this morning after a man called them from a Marc train platform to say that he had just been stabbed and that he knew the man who did it. The man called for help at 8:49 a.m. from the Silver Spring Station, at 1170 Bonifant St. His condition was not immediately known.

-- Dan Morse

Mo County State's Attorney John McCarthy on Truancy, Gangs

2009-04-29T06:56:00.003-04:00

State's attorney discusses gangs with county League of Women Voters

by Amber Parcher | Staff Writer

Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy didn't go to the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County meeting Tuesday in Wheaton to talk about students skipping school, but truancy ended up dominating his conversation about gangs in the county.

While McCarthy said it's almost impossible to know the rate of crime committed by gang members, the peak time for gang members to commit crime is during the school day and just after school, between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. The peak recruiting age for gangs is middle school, he said.

There are about 40 known gangs and 1,600 gang members in the county, McCarthy said. While members are of a variety of ages, many potential gang members could be diverted from joining gangs by staying in school and taking part in after-school activities and mentor programs.

"I'm a prosecutor and I'm sitting here talking about truancy," he said in front of league members at Wheaton Library.

Keeping children in school should be a priority for everyone in the county, McCarthy said. But he said that is difficult to achieve without county truancy officers or truancy laws.

He said there is a state statute that says parents are responsible for making sure their children age 16 and younger go to and stay in school. But, he added, that statute is used to persuade and pressure parents rather than put them in jail for their child's habitual truancy. Under state law, teens age 17 and older can't be prosecuted for leaving school, he said.

Continue reading »

Germantown Man Accused of Exposing Woman to HIV

2009-04-29T06:13:00.002-04:00

Alleged gang member charged with knowingly exposing woman he met on Facebook

by Patricia M. Murret | Staff Writer

Montgomery County prosecutors have accused a Germantown man of meeting a recent high school graduate on Facebook and knowingly exposing her to human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, by having intercourse with her, according to Assistant State's Attorney Stephen D. Chaikin.

"It is rare, but not unheard of" to prosecute such cases, said Chaikin. Four other such cases have been filed in Montgomery County since 1989, when it became illegal to knowingly transfer or expose another individual to HIV, according to records compiled by the Montgomery County Circuit Court Administrative Office. All five cases have been filed since 2005.

The case marks the second time prosecutors have charged Thomas James Perrera III, 28, of Germantown, with knowingly transferring or attempting to transfer HIV to another person. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment, after being charged with knowingly exposing another person to HIV, in a case involving consensual unprotected sex with a javascript:void(0)woman he was dating, according to court documents.

Continue reading »

"We Define Ourselves When All is Going Wrong"

2009-04-28T20:44:00.004-04:00

Just Up The Pike used Calverton Baptist Church's announcement sign as a topic of a blog post. I can't explain why , but I love those sermon announcements and I've found they often speak to me. I like this one, "we define ourselves when all is going wrong."

I haven't been feeling so good about my neighborhood lately. And while I've talked a lot on this blog about what I don't like, and what I don't want, Dan made me think about using this time as an opportunity to better clarify what I do want. And to just imagine possibilities...where we could go, and what we could become as a community.

And this is what I want. I want to live in a community where children, all children, are treasured, and where their needs are priority and their voices matter.

As the Aquarian Gospel says, "life tarries forward, not backwards."

AP: Black, Hispanic pay rates widen from whites

2009-04-28T06:00:00.005-04:00

WASHINGTON - Blacks and Hispanics lag behind whites for higher-paying jobs at the largest rates in about a decade as employment opportunities dwindled during the nation's economic woes and housing slump.

Census data released Monday show an increasingly educated U.S. work force whose earnings didn't always seem to match up with its potential.

"The lesson of most economic downturns is minorities are the last hired, first fired. They lose jobs more quickly, and they will be the last to recover," said Roderick Harrison, a demographer at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that studies minority issues.

Among those 25 and older last year, 86.6 percent had graduated from high school, up from 85.7 percent the previous year. It was the biggest increase since 1992, with record percentages of people earning diplomas across all racial and Hispanic categories.

The share of people with at least a bachelor's degree also increased, from 28.7 percent to 29.4 percent, continuing a decades-long rise.

Blacks overall slightly narrowed the gap in 2007 with whites in average salary, but the pay disparity widened for blacks with college degrees. Blacks who had a four-year bachelor's degree earned $46,502, or about 78 percent of the salary for comparably educated whites.

It was the biggest disparity between professional blacks and whites since the 77 percent rate in 2001, when the U.S. fell into a recession due to the collapse of the tech bubble and the Sept. 11 terror attacks. College-educated blacks had previously earned as much as 83 percent of the average salary of whites in 2005.

Hispanics saw similar trends.

Those with high school diplomas earned about 83 percent of what whites make, largely unchanged from a decade ago. But Hispanics with bachelor's degrees had an average salary of $44,696, amounting to roughly 75 cents for every dollar made by whites - the lowest ratio in more than a decade - after hitting a peak of 87 cents to every dollar in 2000.

Continue reading »

Sherwood High School: Another Student Jacked-Up in a Montgomery County School

2009-04-28T05:50:00.004-04:00

Student Stabbed at Sherwood High School

A 12th-grader at Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring pulled a knife on another student and cut him across the face yesterday, leaving the 10th-grader with a wound that required six to eight stitches between his lip and nose, according to school and police officials.

Officers found Isiah Hollins, 19, at his home in the 17000 block of Shotley Bridge Place in Olney after the attack and charged him with assault, possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds and disturbing school activities, police said.

The incident occurred about 11:20 a.m. during a lunch period at the school, school and police officials said. It wasn't clear what prompted the altercation, which was witnessed by other students who reported it to school staff.

The school was put on Code Blue, limiting students' movement, while police conducted their investigation.

The victim, 16, was treated at a hospital and was home by the end of the day, school officials said.

Prosecutor Considering Death Penalty in Lansdowne Attacks

2009-04-28T00:53:00.002-04:00

By Jonathan Mummolo
Originally published at 1:39 p.m., April 27, 2009
Updated at 12:00 a.m., April 28, 2009

Loudoun County's chief prosecutor said yesterday that his office might seek the death penalty for a man charged in the slaying of William Bennett, who was attacked along with his wife last month in Lansdowne.

Over the weekend, Loudoun authorities announced that they had charged two people — Darwin G. Bowman, 18, of Annandale and a 17-year-old male from Sterling — in Bennett's killing.

Two others are being investigated in the beating, authorities said: Anthony R. Roberts, 20, of Middleburg is in custody on charges of burglarizing a gun store April 15, and an unidentified 18-year-old male is being held on unrelated charges.

Continue reading »

Goodbye Tai

2009-04-27T23:43:00.006-04:00

They took Tai Lam's memorial down. Sooner or later, Silver Spring takes away everything kids care about.

All that's left...

How much they love you. Comments from the video...

cupcake311 (1 week ago)
gosh.....hey i wish i coulda known you.... after your death my sister, a friend of yours was devastated........ i feel bad for your family and friends.... mostly yuzin.... WE LOVE YOU TAI SAVE A PLACE FOR US!!! R.I.P
nikigirl96 (2 weeks ago)
i knew him ; he was madd funny i miss him a whole lott =(
RIP i love yuh ,
hardyqirl07 (2 weeks ago)
i never got why he had to go.......
he was so young. He was just startin life and someone came and took it away from him.....even though i know he can't come back i wish it everyday. But at least i know he went to heaven.
R.I.P Tai Lam
petewentzgirl4life11 (3 weeks ago)
HAPPY B-DAY TAI
I MIZZ YUH♥
tragedysigma15 (1 month ago)
ayo...didnt kno you but god i would have loved to.....i feel so bad....for your mom and yuzin mostly....im marthas bf....nice to meet you....or..it would have been nice....rip tai lam...what i wouldve done to stop this.......i hope i can meet you some day...thats why life should be lived by the day,...becuz THIS can happen ....to you...to me ..to all of us....take care up there tai...save me a spot....
EDWIRWRESTLING (1 month ago)
this kind of shit has to stop, because these young people are gettting killed for no reason,MAY GOD THE MOST HIGH BE WITH THIS FAMILY AND WITH TAI...I DONT KNOW YOU BUT R.I.P. Ive BEEN THROUGH A LOT MYSELF,BUT I KNOW YOUR WITH THE MASTER ALMIGHTY IN THE SKY....RIP MAN
blairsenioritis09 (2 months ago)
god tai i miss you soo much
i want you to come back
ily r.i.p
D4Dita (2 months ago)
i feel BAD 4 his family. But more for his mom, Bro becuase his bro was there and so were others but it probaly hit him more cause dat was his bro. His mom had only one son come home and i know dat her sons ment alot to her so them the most !!!!
Comment(s) marked as spam Show
Troublez123456 (3 months ago)
its our bestfriend tai we loved him 2 death n he was murdered in cold blood ily tai lamm !!!

Bandweenie7 (3 months ago)
i have no idea who this is but im very sorry =)
bbymia445 (3 months ago)
r.i.p tai .
i hope yuu are in a better place; everyone loves yuu.
innocent loss ;[
csebrigh (4 months ago)
Merry Christmas Tai..............RIP.
babiprincesa101 (4 months ago)
not to be rude i miss tai too
but what is the name of this song?
cs733 (4 months ago)
fighters by lupe fiasco.
rip tai. 11/1/08. missed so much
radkidmoe (4 months ago)
fighters by lupe fiasco....
LeoGnardo21 (3 months ago)
stfu
idontlikeu222 (4 months ago)
hes awesome
we miss you tai
teletubbies4real (4 months ago)
the first pic was Vyvy right?
mrsxlautnerxbby (4 months ago)
......we love you tai.
plain & simple. youre
in a better place :)

darkexposer (4 months ago)
I remember that night, I saw you downtown and you still couldn't do the handshake we made up. I remember the last thing you said to me, "I'll call you when I get home". I'm still waitin for that call. I wake up every morning prayin that you'll come back,like its a long dream. I'm dreamin till' I die. I'll be there soon...with you...just wait...just wait -R.I.P. Tai Lam
youngking0195 (4 months ago)
damn i miss yu Tai nd I love yu homie yu'll alwayz b in ma heart nd yu'll alwayz live on i wish i could jus b wit yu one more time so i can say goodbye nd we can chill nd jus have fun like we alwayz did i remember wen we jumped bitch niggaz nd get all the bitches but yea now tht yu gone there is nothin for me but i got ma girl nd yu had yurs we love them alot nd yur girl lost yu thts fucked but yea man jus Rest In Peace aiight Tai i love yu nd miss
P.S to ma BIG bro From lil bro Pedro T.

Baltimore: 2nd Slimey Pastor Arrested in Killing of Blind Man for Insurance

2009-04-27T22:54:00.003-04:00

This guy, and this guy, redefine the term "backsliding." I'm not sure they could possibly slide any farther back. I think they'd have to eat people to do that.

Two young, respected pastors hire a hit man to murder a blind and disabled man who was in the care of one of these pastors. They had him killed for his life insurance. Sounds like something a good writer came up with for The Wire.

By Tyeesha Dixon | tyeesha.dixon@baltsun.com
12:02 AM EDT, April 26, 2009

A second man was arrested and charged with murder Saturday in connection with what police said was a life insurance collection scheme that led to the shooting death of a developmentally disabled and blind man.

Baltimore police, in conjunction with South Carolina law enforcement officials, arrested James Omar Clea III, 31, of the 2800 block of Bookert Drive in Cherry Hill about 3 p.m. at a hotel in Orangeburg, S.C. Clea, who was charged with first-degree murder, is suspected of being involved in hiring a hit man to kill Lemuel Wallace, who was last seen alive Feb. 4, according to police.

Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said police are investigating Clea's involvement in the killing, as it is unclear who fired the bullet that killed Wallace.

"He was definitely involved in obtaining a hit man for this murder," Guglielmi said.

Continue reading »

Check out this blog from dude's MySpace to see just what a con artist he is. He's talking about how much God has done for him and how much gratitude he has, and a few months later he's paying to have someone smoked:

Friday, August 29, 2008

Grateful

As I look back over my life and the things that God has done for me. I had to pause for a moment and express my gratitude. For only God could have done the things that he has done and to fix the end the way he did then to come out of the fire with out even the smell of smoke on me no body but God. When it felt like God was not there and forgot about me were the times that he was caring me and my load. When I was about to give up I was reminded of Jeremiah 29; 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not evil, to give you an expected end. So as I prepare and look forward to my end result, I will continue to give God the highest praise. So when you see me praise the way I praise know that I am praise on the promise that God has given unto me. My relationship and level of praise has brought me thus far, so I am going to intensify it go deeper and higher to where God would have me to be. The devil said No, but God said YES. I am going to give God my best praise.

N. Portland firebomb attack brings to light Asian gang presence

2009-04-26T13:00:00.003-04:00

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The firebombing of a North Portland home has exposed the underworld of Asian gangs many we don’t often hear about.

Background: Firebombing

But experts say, area Asian gangs are expanding and becoming more visible.

The groups have typically been overshadowed by larger street gangs, like Crips or Bloods.

As police investigate Wednesday’s firebombing of the home on N. Banks police are learning more about the gang that's reportedly behind the attack.

The homeowner claims a Hmong gang is trying to recruit his sons through intimidation. They've vandalized cars, sprayed the house with bullets and now the violence. No one was hurt in the attack.

"I think they are trying to scare me or give up and join them," he said.

Continue reading »