Mobtown Beat
Mobtown Beat
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Murder Ink: 7 murders this week, 218 murders this year
While violence elsewhere captures national attention, Baltimore City's violence continues at record levels. Aside from the murders, there were also 18 non-fatal shootings this week, including a triple-shooting on Sunday. Tuesday, Aug. 8 1:21 a.m. Tyrese Davis, a 15-year-old African-American boy,...
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Baltimore City Power Rankings: down for Trump, Amerikkka, Pugh, up for Baltimore Bloc
⬆︎ Baltimore Bloc Baltimore came out in a big way for a rally-turned-impromptu-march in solidarity with Charlottesville. On Sunday, about a thousand people took to the streets of Charles Village following a rally at Wyman Park Dell near the Lee-Jackson Monument. Organized by Baltimore Bloc, the...
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On Baltimore's climate of fear and righting systemic wrongs
Between Pratt Street and the waters of the Inner Harbor lie three beams recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York. The marble base on which they rest bears memory to the 68 Marylanders whose lives ended there on Sept. 11, 2001. I never knew those people, but I watched them...
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Baltimore City Power Rankings: Baltimore Ceasefire edition
⬆︎ Erricka Bridgeford Bridgeford, the public face of Baltimore Ceasefire, had a lot on her plate this weekend, but she handled it with grace. She said what needed to be said—focusing on community, trauma, and joy—rather than what was "supposed" to be said, showed up at the spot of the first homicide...
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Murder Ink: 7 murders this week, 211 murders this year
The murder-per-day pace continues despite the best efforts of community mediators and police. Four people were shot at noon on Aug. 2 at the intersection of Broadway and Eager Street. One 30-year-old man was in such bad shape that homicide was notified, although since then there has been no update....
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Something for Nothing: An open letter to residents within the Western District
I'd like to talk a little bit about the enthusiasm with which you seemed to greet the changes made to the new police station. I saw you last week when I went to tour the Western District. You bustled along next to me as we gathered into repainted corners, and waved makeshift fans in the hot, overcrowded...
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Baltimore City Power Rankings: Up for Tyrone West's family and Marc Steiner, down for Trump, more
⬆︎ The West Family The family members of Tyrone West, a man killed in police custody in July 2013, have been tireless and dedicated fighters for police accountability and are in many ways the bedrock of Baltimore's uprising-fueled protest movement. Last week, the family settled a wrongful death...
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Community Mediation: Organizer Erricka Bridgeford talks Baltimore Ceasefire
Erricka Bridgeford, one of the organizers of Baltimore Ceasefire, a loose, grassroots campaign against gun violence with the slogan "Nobody kill anybody," admits that people could still lose their lives during the event's Aug. 4-6 run. "We know that there are so many systematic reasons that people...
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Murder Ink: 10 murders this week, 205 murders this year
Baltimore blew through a morbid milestone last week, notching its 200th murder victim of the year. Baltimore police reinstituted special teams to suppress crime in violence-prone areas, but mandated that they wear uniforms. As always, there were many non-fatal shootings and many guns seized. For...
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Monorail!!!: Elon Musk is here to save us with Hyperloop—but not really
Elon Musk, former PayPal exec with possible young blood enthusiast Pete Thiel, seller of electric cars to the 1 percent, tech bro evangelist, and aspiring star boy, caused a minor stir in Baltimore last week when he tweeted that he received "verbal govt approval" to build a Hyperloop connecting...
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Baltimore City Power Rankings: Up for Artscape and down for Baltimore Police, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and this awful, awful weather
⬆︎ Artscape Though the sun didn't always cooperate and the weather was kind of gross when it did (see below), another Artscape has come and gone, bringing together thousands of Baltimoreans to enjoy art, games, food, drinks, music, and much more. Credit to BOPA for picking two great headliners...
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This Is What Baltimore Gun Cases Look Like: City Council ponders 1-year mandatory minimum while courts offer their own logic—or illogic
In Baltimore you can already get five years for carrying a gun but Mayor Catherine Pugh wants a mandatory minimum—a citywide mandatory one-year jail sentence for anyone caught carrying a gun illegally within 100 yards of a school or another "place of public assembly," even if it's their first charge....