Warren Brown, a criminal defense attorney who had initially tried to help broker a deal for the Blackwell brothers' safe return, said yesterday he heard at that time from "surrogates" of Mayor Sheila Dixon and Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III who wanted him to help prevent future retaliation.
"They were happy with the [homicide] numbers and didn't want to see a change in that," Brown said. "Of course, I have no influence with those people [in the drug world]. But I strongly suspected there would be a response and a response to that response."
Brown said other, similar kidnappings have occurred in the city - they just receive less publicity. He said he did not know whether a ransom had been paid for the brothers' return. "I think the police knew that it wasn't the first time there'd been a kidnapping [in the city drug trade in general]. The response was predictable," he said.
On April 1, Stephon and Sterling Blackwell were among 10 people - including their mother - who were held at gunpoint at a Catonsville home for eight hours. Police said at the time that they were investigating reports that a woman was sexually assaulted during the home invasion. Six masked gunmen kidnapped the brothers and, as they were leaving the house, fired shots at the Blackwells' older brother, Steven "JR" Blackwell Jr., as he arrived, police said at the time.
The kidnappings drew widespread media attention as authorities issued an Amber Alert for the brothers. Several local and state law enforcement agencies assisted Baltimore County police in the search for the boys, even as others in the house declined to cooperate with authorities.
Two days later, the older Blackwell regained custody of his brothers and drove them to Baltimore County police headquarters. Police could not say whether relatives paid a ransom for the brothers' return, and the boys told authorities little about their ordeal. But the investigation into the kidnappings remains active, according to Cpl. Michael Hill, a county police spokesman.
"We continue to get more information on the case," Hill said. "We have been conferring with city police."
At the time, county authorities attributed the incident to Baltimore's lucrative heroin market, where it is not uncommon for people involved in the illicit drug trade to be robbed or kidnapped and held for ransom. Such victims rarely cooperate with police in follow-up criminal investigations.
