Here's Colin Flaherty on recent happenings in Baltimore:



Link to original video: https://youtu.be/h7wmJ7xoGRg

Update
Police commissioner: Slain Baltimore detective was to testify in case of indicted officers

Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis gives an update on the investigation into Detective Sean Suiter's killing. (Lloyd Fox, Baltimore Sun video)
Justin Fenton Justin FentonContact Reporter
Slain Baltimore homicide Detective Sean Suiter was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury in the case against a squad of indicted officers on the day after he was shot, Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said Wednesday evening.

The revelation brings together two cases that have sent shock waves through the Police Department and the city as a whole: the federal prosecutions of eight members of the department’s elite gun task force, who are accused of shaking down citizens and conspiring with drug dealers, and the killing of Suiter last week in West Baltimore, the first of an on-duty officer by a suspect in 10 years.

Davis said Wednesday that federal authorities have told him “in no uncertain terms” that Suiter was not a target of their investigation into the Gun Trace Task Force. He said authorities have no reason to believe Suiter’s killing was connected to his pending testimony.

“The BPD and FBI do not possess any information that this incident ... is part of any conspiracy,” Davis said. He said evidence shows the shooting occurred spontaneously, as Suiter investigated a suspicious person in the Harlem Park neighborhood.

“There is no information that has been communicated to me that Detective Suiter was anything other than a stellar detective, great friend, loving husband and dedicated father,” he said.

Davis also said that Suiter is believed to have been killed with his own service weapon, which was fired at close range, and that there was evidence of a struggle before the shooting.

Police have not identified a suspect or made arrests in Suiter’s shooting Nov. 15. Investigators locked the neighborhood down for several days after the shooting to gather evidence and interview potential witnesses. Authorities are offering a reward of $215,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Police say Suiter and a partner were conducting a follow-up investigation on a triple homicide in the 900 block of Bennett Place when he saw someone acting suspiciously in a vacant lot and approached. The 43-year-old detective, a married father of five, was shot once in the head.

He died the next day.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne...-20171122-story.html

Commissioner Davis cancels the trial board for Sgt White

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...th-article-1.3652038

police spokesman T.J. Smith said in an email Wednesday evening that Commissioner Kevin Davis had canceled the hearing and that White would face no further administrative actions.

Davis' decision came less than a week after a police disciplinary board cleared Lt. Brian Rice

****************

3 criminal trials - no convictions
3 other officers had all criminal charges dropped

federal investigation - no charges

Baltimore police trial boards for 3 officers - no convictions on any violation of policy/procedures

edit: 2 officers did accept several days off w/o pay to avoid a trial board

Judge Barry Williams has been completely validated in his "not guilty" decisions for 3 of the officers.


I wonder if this track record will enter the Appeal Court deliberations on 6 Dec ?

***********************

time line of the Freddie Gray accidental death

April 12, 2015 : Freddie Gray is arrested after police make eye contact with him and another man, and the pair run. Officers put Gray in a transport van. He says several times that he needs medical care during the approximately 44-minute ride to a police district station. An ambulance takes him to a hospital in critical condition.

April 19: Gray dies at the University of Maryland hospital.

April 21: The US Department of Justice opens a civil rights investigation into Gray's death.
April 25: A peaceful march ends downtown, which is followed by some people smashing police car windows and storefronts. Fans at a Baltimore Orioles-Boston Red Sox baseball game are told to stay inside Oriole Park at Camden Yards temporarily because of public safety concerns.

April 27: Gray's family, religious and political leaders attend his funeral. In the afternoon, rioting, looting and arson break out and continue through the night. More than 200 people are arrested. The Maryland National Guard is called up, the first time for a civil disturbance in the state since 1968. A nightly curfew is imposed.

April 29: The Orioles play the Chicago White Sox in a stadium without fans after officials close the game to the public.

May 1: Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announces charges against the officers, saying 'no one is above the law'.

May 8: U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announces a civil rights investigation of the Baltimore police force as a whole, looking for patterns of excessive force and improper stops and searches.

September 8: Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announces a tentative $6.4million settlement between Gray's parents and the city of Baltimore.

December 16: A mistrial is declared in Officer William Porter's case after the jury can't reach a unanimous decision after three days of deliberations.

March 8, 2016 : The Court of Appeals rules that Porter must testify against his colleagues while he awaits retrial.

May 23: Baltimore Police Officer Edward Nero is acquitted of assault and other charges in connection to Gray's arrest.

June 23: Prosecutors are dealt a devastating blow when the driver of the police van, Officer Caesar Goodson, is acquitted by a judge. Goodson had faced the most serious charges, including murder, and was portrayed as the officer most culpable by prosecutors.

July 18: The prosecution's case further unravels when Lt Brian Rice, the highest-ranking officer charged in Gray's death, is acquitted by the judge. The judge says prosecutors failed to prove Rice deliberately breached his duty to put Gray in danger.

July 27: Prosecutors announce that they are dropping charges against the remaining officers awaiting trial - Officer Garrett Miller, Sgt. Alicia White and Officer William Porter - saying it was likely they would ask for a trial by the same judge — not a jury — who had clearly demonstrated he did not agree with their theory.

September 12, 2017 : The US Department of Justice announces it will not bring federal charges against the six Baltimore police officers

November 7: Office Caesar Goodson, Jr not guilty on all 21 administrative charges

November 17: Lt Brian Rice is found not guilty of administrative charges Officer Edward Nero and Officer Garrett Miller accept minor discipline in response to administrative charges

November 22: Administrative charges are dropped against Sgt Alicia White

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

Needs a "clean sweep" broom.

quote:

Originally posted by day:

< snip >

3 criminal trials - no convictions
3 other officers had all criminal charges dropped

federal investigation - no charges

Baltimore police trial boards for 5 officers - no convictions on any violation of policy/procedures

Judge Barry Williams has been completely validated in his "not guilty" decisions for 3 of the officers.


I wonder if this track record will enter the Appeal Court deliberations on 6 Dec ?

We's gotsta show dem honkies by burning the CVS!!

Oh, ah....

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.09db91d3ed0e

Lawyers for five Baltimore police officers charged and later cleared in the death of Freddie Gray have asked a federal appeals court to allow their lawsuit against the city’s top prosecutor to go to trial.

A Maryland assistant attorney general argued before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday that as a prosecutor, Mosby has immunity from lawsuits.

Lawyers for the officers told the three-judge panel that Mosby acted as an investigators instead of a prosecutor and isn’t immune from being sued.


A judge has grilled lawyers for five Baltimore officers about why they should be allowed to sue the city’s top prosecutor for charging them in the arrest and death of a young African-American.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the 4th Circuit repeatedly interrupted the officers’ lawyers Wednesday while hearing an appeal by State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. She is asking the court to overturn a judge’s decision to allow parts of the officers’ lawsuit against her to go to trial.

Mosby’s lawyers insist that as a prosecutor, she is immune from the lawsuit.

But the officers’ lawyers say she maliciously prosecuted the officers to ease public unrest in Baltimore after Freddie Gray, a young African-American, suffered a fatal injury in a police van. Three were subsequently acquitted and Mosby dropped the remaining cases.

Wilkinson raised his voice several times, saying allowing the officers to sue Mosby is an attempt at “muzzling prosecutors who have publicly expressed grounds for prosecuting police officers.”

Wilkinson was appointed by Ronald Reagan

pretty thick if he can't see Mosby over charged for political / social justice reasons

waiting to hear more about any resultant decisions

three judge panel heard the arguments. Mosby is asking the court to dismiss the police officers' law suit against her.

The court did not indicate when it would rule.

http://www.wbal.com/article/28...in-freddie-gray-case

Five of the officers sued Mosby. They allege in their lawsuit that Mosby did not have enough evidence to charge them and that she omitted key information about a witness who had observed that Gray was conscious during much of the ride in the police van. They also said evidence was withheld from another witness who said Gray was banging his head against the wall of the van while he was in custody.

The officers also claim that Mosby prosecuted them to ease public unrest after Gray's death.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne...-20180507-story.html

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked a lawsuit against Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby brought by five city police officers who claimed she maliciously prosecuted them after the death in 2015 of Freddie Gray.

Monday’s ruling by the federal appeals court overturned a January 2017 decision by U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis, who ruled at the time that charges including malicious prosecution, defamation and invasion of privacy could move forward against Mosby and Assistant Baltimore City Sheriff Samuel Cogen, who wrote the statement of probable cause in the case. Garbis dismissed other counts, including false arrest and false imprisonment.

Mosby's lawyers argued that as a prosecutor, Mosby was immune from the lawsuit.

The federal appeals court agreed.

“We resoundingly reject the invitation to cast aside decades of Supreme Court and circuit precedent to narrow the immunity prosecutors enjoy,” Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote in the court’s opinion. “And we find no justification for denying Mosby the protection from suit that the Maryland legislature has granted her.

“I support the court's opinion that the people of Baltimore elected me to deliver one standard of justice for all, and that using the legal system to reach a fair and just resolution to Gray’s death was not a political move, but rather it was my duty," Mosby said in an emailed statement.

The officers have 90 days to submit a petition to the Supreme Court to hear the case, according to court documents.

I hope this gets overturned and the officers can go after her with a vengeance

she ruined their lives - seems only fair they get to ruin hers

Infuriating.

The officers had qualified immunity, too.

How'd that work for them?

quote:

May 1: Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announces charges against the officers, saying 'no one is above the law'.

Except maybe you it would seem.

slightly OT, but

https://www.wsj.com/articles/p...-tax-case-1525983129

Baltimore Police Commissioner Darryl De Sousa admitted he hadn’t filed federal tax returns in three recent years Thursday hours after federal prosecutors announced they had charged him criminally in the matter.

Commissioner De Sousa “willfully failed to file a federal return for tax years 2013, 2014, and 2015,” despite working as a salaried Baltimore Police Department employee each of those years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland said in a statement.

“While there is no excuse for my failure to fulfil [sic] my obligations as a citizen and public official, my only explanation is that I failed to sufficiently prioritize my personal affairs,” he said.

Calling his failure to pay taxes “a source of embarrassment for me,” he said he regretted any embarrassment to the city or police department. He said he paid his 2016 taxes and received an extension for his 2017 taxes.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said she has “full confidence” in Commissioner De Sousa and trusts that he would continue to focus on reducing violence in the city.

“As Commissioner De Sousa has explained, he made a mistake in not filing his taxes for the years in question,” Ms. Pugh said. She said he has assured her that he is working “to resolve this matter” as quickly as possible.

Commissioner De Sousa is charged with three misdemeanor counts and faces up to a year in prison and a $25,000 fine for each count, according to prosecutors.

Ms. Pugh put him in charge of the department after firing his predecessor, Kevin Davis, who had failed to reduce the city’s high homicide rate. The mayor said at the time that the police department needed new leadership.

**************

failing to sufficiently prioritize your personal affairs. gets you every time

Clearly the "best candidate" for the job...

quote:

....While there is no excuse for my failure to fulfil [sic] my obligations as a citizen and public official, my only explanation is that I failed to sufficiently prioritize my personal affairs,” he said.

Calling his failure to pay taxes “a source of embarrassment for me,” he said he regretted any embarrassment to the city or police department. He said he paid his 2016 taxes and received an extension for his 2017 taxes.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said she has “full confidence” in Commissioner De Sousa and trusts that he would continue to focus on reducing violence in the city....

In other words, the Baltimore Chief of Police willfully ignored his civic and legal responsibility to file and pay taxes. But the Baltimore Mayor has full faith and condifence that the criminal Police Chief will reduce violent crime rate. The police chief is the city's chief law enforcement officer, but he can't follow the law himself.

May 25, 2018

Baltimore's leftist prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, now gets a cop killed

After as loathesome and odious a performance as the Freddy Gray fiasco, you'd think Baltimore's youthful state prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, would have learned a thing or two about the stupidity of race-baiting in the name of cop hatred. Her malicious prosecution of six officers in the Freddy Gray case, where there was no evidence any of them killed the guy (and juries refused to convict), led to a de facto police strike that made Baltimore a crime hellhole.

Well, in her case, no. Turns out she's learned nothing from her past incompetence, and doesn't seem to be bothered a bit by her latest blunder, letting a thug off who later killed Officer Amy Caprio by running her over in a stolen car during the course of a burglary. If the cops were alienated by the Freddy Gray frameup of them that she cooked up, they're going to be even more alienated now.

The chief of Baltimore's juvenile services, Sam Abed, pointed the finger at Mosby in the fiasco, saying she let 16-year-old hardcore offender, Dawnta Harris, off, even when the juvenile justice officials begged for it not to happen. Given that all of these people are leftist bleeding hearts of some kind, that's saying something. According to the Baltimore Sun:

Maryland’s secretary of juvenile services says the justice system failed in the case of a West Baltimore teen charged with murder in the death this week of a Baltimore County police officer.

Secretary Sam Abed blamed the courts on Wednesday for sending 16-year-old Dawnta Harris home earlier this month as he awaited sentencing for stealing a car, against recommendations from his staff.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” Abed said. “It’s preventable.”

Mosby, who's currently running for re-election and seems to be failing miserably at it, is lashing out, claiming her office had nothing to do with the problem of why a thug got let out and subsequently returned to his customary life of crime and killed a cop while doing it.

It caps a career premised on one bad judgment after another, punctuated with continuous cowardice to the howls of the mob and its rejection of actual justice.

First, she allowed herself to be influenced by Soros money seeking to place bad prosecutors into office with her soft spot for letting criminals out of jail in the name of 'justice.' Error one.

Then, when tough-mindedness was called for in the Gray case, she chose to bow to the baying mob, and launched bad prosecutions against six innocent cops in the Gray case. She consorted of course with then-White House consigliere, Valerie Jarrett, for advice. The result was a disaster. Her cowardice started riots, for one thing, and made Baltimore a wasteland where businesses (and the tax base) fled. Error two.

Then she saw one jury after another reject her specious arguments, dropping all of the cases left following her third failure to convince a jury that anything she argued had merit. Error three.

The cops sued for malicious prosecution, and though they didn't win (another bad ruling), Mosby was kept gummed up in courts and of course cost the city millions. Error four.

Now she let a thug out of the slammer against the arguments of juvenile services (who knew this guy well, with Abed calling him a 'one man crime wave) and off he went and killed a cop. Error five.

It's an astonishing record of incompetence and harm.

It's encouraging to know that Baltimore's voters seem to be onto her, and her re-election campaign is floundering. But if Baltimore doesn't throw this lethal, blundering, puppety fool out, they will deserve whatever happens to them next from her. She's a one-woman crime wave and amounts to a plague on the entire city of Baltimore.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.co...d.html#ixzz5GWa7TC14

http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne...-20180523-story.html



Records obtained by The Sun show that Dwanta Harris stole a car in Baltimore in December.

Records show the teen was charged with stealing a second car in January and a third in February.

Harris was found guilty in March of stealing the first car. Charges in the second and third cases were dismissed.

3 stolen cars

The court sent him to an unsecure youth shelter in Montgomery County, records show. Prosecutors said in court Tuesday that he left the shelter, stole another car and was arrested.

4 stolen cars

In April, Abed said, his staff recommended that a court order Harris held in a secure juvenile facility while he awaited sentencing for stealing a car. Juvenile services caseworkers warned that Harris was a risk to public safety, documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun show.

A Baltimore judge agreed on April 17, documents show, but a judge reversed the decision on May 10 and sent the teen to his apartment in West Baltimore’s Gilmor Homes public housing project with a monitoring bracelet. He was to remain on house arrest to await sentencing.

Freddie Gray was arrested in the public housing complex known as Gilmor Homes, one of Baltimore's worse illegal drug areas

The Sun could not identify the judge. A spokesman for the courts declined to comment. Juvenile records are sealed from the public. So it remains unclear what caused the courts to send the teen home.

Harris left his home after four days, records obtained by The Sun show. Abed said his staff tried to call him and went looking for him at home and school. The teen didn’t resurface until Monday.

5 stolen cars


Dwanta Harris' lawyer Warren Brown said “He just got in the front and panicked,”

“If he hadn’t ducked, we’d have a police-involved shooting — it could’ve been him.”

can you believe this shit ?

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Dwanta Harris' lawyer Warren Brown said “He just got in the front and panicked,”

“If he hadn’t ducked, we’d have a police-involved shooting — it could’ve been him.”

can you believe this shit ?

Yes. Yes I can. The term "Repeat Offender" comes to mind. Jeezus, our Criminal Justice system is BEYOND broken...[JSMH]

quote:

Dwanta Harris' lawyer Warren Brown said “He just got in the front and panicked,”

“If he hadn’t ducked, we’d have a police-involved shooting — it could’ve been him.”

It was SUPPOSED to be him.

We were just discussing what a shithole Baltimore has become the other day. My family used to have a membership at the Baltimore Aquarium, and went there several times a year.

I and my family will never set foot in that pest hole ever again. And at the rate the city is stepping in shit, tourism dollars will dry up. It would be poetic justice to see the city consume itself, like every other leftist controlled fiasco.

Another pestilential hell hole I wouldn't visit if offered free air travel, lodgings and food.

Anymore than I'd vacation in Venezuela.

opinion piece by Lt. Gene Ryan, president of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #3.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne...-story.html#nws=true

FOP: Mosby's failure led to Baltimore County officer's death

Today, members of the law enforcement community from all over the nation joined with members of the Baltimore County citizen community to honor the life and sacrifice of Baltimore County Police Officer Amy Caprio. In doing so, the question on the lips of almost everyone in attendance was “How could this have happened?” Sadly, there is an answer to that question, and in an article on May 23 in The Baltimore Sun (“Juvenile services secretary says Baltimore County officer's killing shows youth justice system failed”), that is clearly apparent.

There are fingers being pointed at everyone involved, by everyone involved, and yes, there are disappointments aplenty. The failure, however, lies with State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her continuing inability to understand the importance that her office plays in combating crime in Baltimore City.

The safety of our citizens is dependent on a relationship between the Police Department and the judiciary, including Ms. Mosby and her staff, a relationship that honors the common goal of providing for the public protection.

For too long now, that relationship has been strained by Ms. Mosby’s apparent “catch and release” philosophy of criminal enforcement.
Dawnta Harris is the latest on a long list of those who have posed an obvious danger to the community but who have, for whatever reason, been released pending trial or in many instances have not even stood trial.

Whether or not the home detention system used to hinder his movement was equipped with a GPS locator is not the failure in this sad saga. The fact that he was sent home pending trial at all is the true failure here. Mr. Harris has a history of criminal activity and escape. He undeniably presented a danger to our citizens and should have been detained accordingly.

It was the responsibility of Ms. Mosby, as the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, to ensure this outcome. She did not, and we are angry that a brilliant young woman who dedicated her life to public service is now gone from us.

The members of Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #3 have lost a Sister in Blue, and, because of Ms. Mosbys continuing failures, the citizens of Baltimore have lost the sense of security that they so well deserve.

Lt. Gene Ryan, Baltimore
The writer is president of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #3.