MOBTOWN BEAT

Annapolis considers tossing the state-run, scandal-plagued Baltimore City Detention Center back into the city's hands

State Del. John Cluster (R-Baltimore County) and state Sen. Michael Hough (R-Carroll and Frederick counties) have become experts on matters involving the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC), the city’...

A campaign to undermine a controversial Baltimore waste-burning power plant appears to be working

In 2010, the Albany, New York-based company Energy Answers (EA) got the green light from Maryland authorities to build the nation’s largest waste-to-energy (WTE) power plant on Baltimore’s...

What happens when a tax refund is sent to the wrong taxpayer?

A woman whose $1,000 state income-tax refund was misrouted has not been able to get the money back, and every institution involved has pointed at the others.

MTA's much-delayed bus-tracker beta launch shows real-time arrivals, at least for the buses it can find

Mass transit news rarely makes people ecstatic, but early last week, local Twitter erupted in exclamation points.

As cremation becomes more common, new regulations could make it harder for crematoria to thrive

It was in the late ’90s when Joseph H. Brown III first noticed a shift in cremation services. Up until that time the funeral ritual—which reduces human remains into bone fragments through...

A 'Yelp' for Migrant Workers: Local nonprofit's tool spreads the word about abusive and deceitful employers and recruiters

Migrants working legally in the U.S. on temporary visas can end up as virtual slaves. They can’t change jobs, they’re often paid less than minimum wage for 80 or more...

Another arabber exodus? After one of the last stables is raided, the future of Baltimore's produce peddlers is uncertain

On a Monday night two weeks after Baltimore City Animal Control officers raided the arabber stables on South Carlton Street in West Baltimore, Dion Dorsey, 37, still can’t believe he’s staring at an empty...

A Baltimore transplant to Atlanta gets caught in a glitzy drug conspiracy, again

Dec. 8, 2011, was the beginning of the end of Eugene Arnell Thomas’ second career as a major drug trafficker. That’s when a young man, Christopher Alves, was murdered in Edgewood,...

Three-plus hours at the City Council Public Safety Committee hearing on police procedures

There are two, maybe three, important things to take from the three-plus-hour hearing on police procedures the City Council’s Public Safety Committee held last Tuesday.

Whistleblower cop Joseph Crystal recalls his battles with Baltimore's blue wall of silence

Faced with a potentially life-changing dilemma, Joseph Crystal asked his parents what to do. “Both my parents were NYPD police,” Crystal says by phone from a law office in New York City.

Baltimore's iconic Pratt Library is getting a 100 million dollar makeover, but where are all of the books going?

In the great wainscotted conference room on the second floor of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Dr. Carla Hayden, the library’s longtime director, apologizes for her casual dress, declines...

The Mosby Effect: The inauguration of Baltimore's new state's attorney was a godly rebuke of her critics

As a candidate last year for Baltimore City state’s attorney, Marilyn J. Mosby cast herself as a crime crusader who, unlike incumbent Gregg Bernstein, would sow dread among Baltimore criminals....

Your 'Rain Tax' Dollars at Work: Baltimore's mandatory stormwater-management improvement plan is out for public review

The City of Baltimore will soon start using almost $80 million in revenues from its stormwater-management fees on property owners—what detractors call the “rain tax”—on 95...

The Year in Murder: 211 murders in 2014

Baltimore had 211 murders in 2014—two dozen fewer than in 2013 but still up from 2011’s low of only 197. When you look back on the year in murders the patterns look pretty similar to...

Whistle-blowing former Baltimore police detective sues department for retaliation

The end of former Baltimore Police Department (BPD) detective Joseph Crystal’s career was well-documented in the media this year, as two of his colleagues were convicted of misconduct arising...

FBI's release of confidential memo about BGF targeting 'white cops' becomes issue in Baltimore gang trial

Buried in Justin Fenton’s article in The Baltimore Sun on Dec. 20 about the killings of two New York City police officers, reportedly by a man who had shot his girlfriend in the Baltimore...

The real battle over protest events in Baltimore are on social media, where control of the narrative is on the line

Following Saturday’s murder of two police officers in New York by Ismaaiyl Brinsley (who announced his intentions via Instagram and included the hashtags “#RIPErivGardner [sic] and #RIPMikeBrown), the...

Kids say the darndest things: 11-year-old's exclamation in play in Mondawmin Mall drug-arrests case

"Shut the fuck up!" Latoya Eaton yelled at her 11-year-old daughter. What the daughter had just said—"That's not my mom's money!"—is now in play in a $4,530 drug-money forfeiture case filed Dec. 9 in federal court in Maryland.

Victims of a 'unique' Baltimore parking problem fight the law, and the law wins

Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke (14th District) thinks it might take an act of Congress to adjust Baltimore’s parking laws.

Pot decriminalization brings sharp drop in arrests in Baltimore City

On Oct. 1, the Maryland law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana went into effect. In Baltimore City, law enforcers immediately started making far fewer arrests: nearly a fifth...

As campaign-finance rules change, Baltimore developer Edward St. John floods Maryland politics with cash

In April, the Maryland Board of Elections made a momentous announcement: In order to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the total amount of money Maryland political donors may lawfully...

On the night of Ferguson grand jury decision, the MICA community grapples with racist graffiti

Less than two hours after the verdict of the Darren Wilson case was announced in Ferguson, Missouri, on Nov. 24, more than 200 MICA students, as well as members of the administration, faculty, and...

Baltimore's All-State Career School is in federal law-enforcers' cross-hairs

All-State Career School, a trade school in Baltimore for would-be truckers, healthcare workers, and others seeking a route to gainful employment, is apparently under federal criminal investigation...

Transgender Victims Remembered: Despite legal progress, 233 were killed in anti-transgender violence over the last year

Two lines of people holding unlit candles stretched down the long center aisle at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore last Thursday. As the service attendees—more than a hundred total&...

Whose Poop?: A new project measures sewage and dog waste entering the Jones Falls from stormwater

A slight scent of detergent is in the air as Alice Volpitta, Water Quality Manager for the clean-water advocacy group Blue Water Baltimore (BWB), takes a few careful steps down the top of a poured-...

WYPR management hires union-busting law firm to quash union efforts

Workers at the NPR-affiliated radio station WYPR are raising questions about the station’s policies in the wake of their failure to form a labor union. At the forefront: How does a station...

DPW rushes into the modern age of service delivery--with QR codes?

Baltimore residents who really, really need a way to pay their water bill faster are in luck. Baltimore City’s Department of Public Works announced a QR code-based system this week, showing its...

As City Council and public clamor for police body cameras, mayor hires group to clarify questions raised

The video, posted on YouTube, shows the kind of behavior police officers sometimes encounter. A woman in a...

It Takes a Village: Educators, unions rally for continued funding of community schools

Administrators, teachers, union organizers, community leaders, politicians, and students—including cheerleading squads and step teams—were among those gathered in front of City Hall on...

Anatomy of a car stop: Baltimore police explain their position to city council public safety committee

More Baltimore police should handcuff suspects temporarily for the officers’ safety. Police can park a suspect’s car to save them the towing and impoundment fees. Any time a police...

New Regulations Encourage Rush To Judgment On Impounded Dogs

Tyrone Staten says he watched, helpless, as two pit bulls ripped his daughter’s Shih Tzu apart on Ramsey Street on the evening of Sept. 15. His daughter “dropped the leash, she dropped...

Baltimore's narcotic history dates back to the 19th-century shipping-driven boom, quietly aided by bringing Turkish opium to China

With its longstanding reputation as a high-volume heroin town, Baltimore’s modern black-market economy is openly opiated, driving sizeable budgets for maintaining the criminal-justice apparatus...

Baltimore City Council considers bill to ban vaping wherever smoking's not allowed

A bill to restrict the use of vapor products, often called “electronic cigarettes” and “e-cigs,” is before the Baltimore City Council, prompting a well-attended Oct. 7...

Developers are anxious to tear down the Mechanic Theatre and McKeldin Fountain, even without a plan (or money) to replace them

The McKeldin Fountain (dedicated as The Waterfall), which is expected to be demolished in the next year, sits between the northbound and southbound lanes of Light Street at Pratt. Its upper reaches...

Civil rights hero Helena Hicks is barred from an exhibit about civil rights heroes

The irony was lost on no one, least of all Dr. Helena Hicks. "Those white people who were with me suddenly got a taste of what it was like to be barred from a public building," she says. "They got a rude awakening. Especially from a bunch...

Love and Death in Liberia

Six years ago, you meet a woman at Red Emma’s.  She passes through Baltimore a few times after, always doing medical studies and going on about African street kids. There is a loose...

High Stakes

It’s the highest-stakes lottery poor people play. Winners can get their rent paid for life. Losers may end up sleeping on the street. The last chance to play was in 2003.