The samurai-sword-wielding Johns Hopkins student who killed an unarmed man outside his north Baltimore home last fall was cleared by prosecutors, who said yesterday the student was acting in self-defense and no charges will be filed.
The investigation of the Sept. 15, 2009 incident concluded that John Pontolillo “reasonably believed he was in danger of imminent death or serious bodily injury and was justified in striking Donald Rice,” according to the letter written by Baltimore City State’s Attorney Particia C. Jessamy to Major Terrence McLarney, of the Homicide Section.
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By JENNIFER BISHOP
A legislator’s email warning his northwest Baltimore County constituents about “staggering” levels of contamination from asbestos and other substances at the shuttered Rosewood Center, has advocates for people with disabilities incensed by the irony.
“The State’s assessment found Rosewood to be so dangerous as to recommend that no one trespass on the property,” said Cristy Marchand, executive director of the ARC of Maryland. “The real question is the response that will be made to the hundreds of children and adults with developmental disabilities whose health was threatened by toxic conditions while living for decades at Rosewood Center.”
The mass email, which describes underground storage tanks and environmental seepage at the former institution for people with disabilities, was sent out yesterday by State Senator Robert A. “Bobby” Zirkin (D-Baltimore County.) It’s based in part on a quietly-released environmental assessment from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, Baltimore police offiicials joined a massive, unusually diverse interfaith gathering organized to pray for an end to violence in Baltimore.
What are Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and his department doing as law enforcement officers to stop the bloodshed? They’re engaged in a new strategy to go after “bad guys with guns,” not the drug trade.
This recent piece in the Christian Science Monitor puts it together nicely (for those who haven’t been following local day to day coverage of what Bealefeld is doing.)
It shows how Baltimore, and other cities employing this strategy, are getting promising results. It offers some reason for optimism . . . and for marveling at how this sea change has come in under the radar.
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A crowd of over a thousand at Cathederal of Mary Our Queen. Photo by Elizabeth Suman
By FERN SHEN and ELIZABETH SUMAN
What can religion do to fight violence in Baltimore?
An interfaith group of well over a thousand people came together last night to answer that question — an array of religious leaders and citizens of all ages and races, wearing saris and sweatshirts, blowing the shofar and chanting Vedic calls, reading from the Bible and from the Koran.
The size and diversity of the crowd assembled in the cavernous Cathedral of Mary Our Queen for the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition’s “Vigil Against Violence” — among them mayor-to-be- Stephanie Rawlings-Blake — made the moment feel as historic as speakers said it was.
“We have not seen the likes of this size of interfaith gathering since the civil rights movement,” said Eugene Taylor Sutton, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.
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by GERALD NEILY
Recently, the Brew mentioned a Maryland Transit Administration document that has been floating around Baltimore in certain circles, a “Risk Assessment Report” that describes possible cost overruns for the $1.6 billion Red Line east-west rail project.
A Brew reader challenged us to show the report dated 8/21/09, obtained by a citizen under the Freedom of Information Act from the Federal Transit Administration, so here it is. Perhaps the most accessible — and revealing — part of the 26-page report is a Letterman-esque list – “Top 10 Cost Risks”.
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