Criminals

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

Have you ever just messed up? I'm not talking about leaving your coffee on the roof of your car. I mean a major, life-altering mistake. Think fiscal cliff-level personal disaster. Now imagine paying for the mistake with jail time - then continuing to pay for the rest of your life by being shut out of every new opportunity to reestablish yourself. That's the life of Marylanders with prior misdemeanor convictions right now, and the General Assembly appears to want them to keep living their nightmares, while taxpayers foot the bill.

I was not downtown during the recent disturbances, but I will take Del. Pat McDonough's word that the groups of young thugs were, in fact, black ("Baltimore and bigotry," May 18). Here is the point I want to make: The fact that they were black had nothing to do with their despicable behavior. In recent coverage of the meth lab bust, did anyone refer to the accused as a group of white drug peddlers? How about Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, or serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, did their "whiteness" have something to do with their behavior?

Timothy R. Streett, a Bel Air lawyer and outdoorsman, died Saturday of complications from cardiac arrhythmia at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center. He was 53. Timothy Ryan Streett, whose father owns Boyd & Fulford Drugs in Bel Air, was born in Baltimore and raised in Bel Air. He was a 1977 graduate of Bel Air High School, where he played varsity football. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1981 from what is now McDaniel College. Mr. Streett earned a law degree from the Shepard Broad Law Center, which is the law school of Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Fla. A solo practitioner, Mr. Streett worked from a Main Street office in Bel Air as a criminal defense attorney for nearly 30 years.

I just read Rosalind Ellis' recent letter regarding the expansion of Beans and Bread ("Neighbors right to worry about Beans and Bread," Nov. 2). It is obvious to me that Ms. Ellis does not personally know anyone who is homeless or out of a job and on the verge of homelessness. She states the "many who came to Our Daily Bread were drug abusers, shoplifters and aggressive panhandlers" and that the "filthy tent city housed criminals who broke into cars and shoplifted throughout the area.

The belly laugh of the past week came from Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden's comment, "You can get a gun quicker than an apple or an orange in my community" ("Senate OKs bill to curb firearms," March 1). He should have added "if you are one of our neighborhood criminals who steal their guns or buy or borrow them from other criminals. " What hyperbole and an outright lie. From my own experience, buying a pistol in Maryland legally is not easy and requires jumping through many hoops. Criminals don't use shotguns or long rifles except in the movies.

I am befuddled and confused about the the responses to Police Commissioner Federick H. Bealefeld III's referring to criminal as "idiots" and "morons." What is the problem with being honest? What would you have him call the people who commit crimes, use guns and destroy property and lives? "Idiot" and "moron" are not racially inflamatory words, nor are they politically incorrect. They are the descriptive adjectives one uses when you are fed up with ridiculous behaviors. Rest assured that if one of Bealefeld's detractors was the victim of a crime, the perpetrators would not be called "idiots and morons" but rather something much more obscene.

There he goes again. The foolishness periodically advanced by Dan Rodricks that more stringent gun laws will somehow cause a reduction in gun crimes ("Adapting to the newest form of gun insanity," July 24) is belied by history, common sense and the real world. Even Draconian gun control regimens imposed by governments of all kinds since the invention of gunpowder have failed to make a dent in the acquisition of arms by those intent on criminality, be they drug traffickers in Mexico or East Baltimore, madmen in Norway or Colorado, terrorists in almost every country in the world, insurgents, justified or not, of all kinds, and those motivated by more mundane factors - lust, greed, envy, revenge, etc. Very few of the huge number of public shootings in Baltimore each year are committed by those who acquired their weapons legally.

In your editorial "Attack on Md. gun laws" (March 7), you state, "Maryland's high gun violence rates ... warrant strict regulations on handgun permits. " But the criminals who are creating the high gun violence rates don't have permits, nor are they concerned in the slightest about getting one. Restricting permits does not affect them in the least; in fact, to some degree it benefits them by telling them that their intended victim is probably unarmed. The restrictions on our Second Amendment rights only affect those of us who want to protect ourselves from these unrestricted criminals.

The talk of possibly eliminating the death penalty in the state of Maryland shows that justice is simply a joke and once again the criminals will be emboldened to rape, maim and kill knowing they get to spend the rest of their lives not having to worry about being executed for the horrors of the crimes they committed ( "Death penalty moratorium leaves survivors, convicts in limbo," Feb. 13). Families of victims will get no closure as well as no justice knowing this sad fact. A life snuffed out and taxpayers having to foot the bill for the criminals who may live 20 to 60 years in prison is simply too much to bear!

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

The federal racketeering and drug charges unveiled this week against 25 inmates and guards at the Baltimore City Detention Center raise serious questions about the state's management of the facility. Investigators detailed a pattern of corruption and criminal behavior that was so widespread that for much of the last few years, the inmates were literally running the asylum. It will take drastic action to root out the crooked corrections officers and incompetent higher-ups responsible for this debacle, but that's only a start.

Harford County's top prosecutor said Wednesday that he does not have enough evidence to show that Alexander Kinyua is criminally responsible for killing a family friend and eating his organs last year. A state psychiatric hospital previously found that Kinyua, 22, was not criminally responsible for his actions in a separate assault case because he was suffering from severe psychosis. In the assault case, Kinyua has already been committed indefinitely, and a team of doctors and an administrative law judge would have to agree to his release.

Anne Arundel County police said Tuesday that no criminal charges will be filed against an officer who placed a camera in a boys' restroom at Glen Burnie High School. But the officer involved in the incident, who was not identified, remains on administrative leave. In a statement, police said they had conducted an investigation in conjunction with the Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office, and "based upon the evidence, no criminal laws have been violated, and therefore the officer involved in this incident will not be criminally charged.

We've heard that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But how about keeping guns out of the hands of the bad guys in the first place? Right now, there is no federal law that punishes people who buy guns for criminals who are banned from purchasing firearms themselves. In a recent TV interview, Rep. Elijah Cummings spoke about a guy in Georgia whose girlfriend bought him 64 guns in less than three months. Some of those guns ended up at crime scenes in Maryland, a state in which it is much harder to buy guns.

We have heard that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. How about keeping guns out of the hands of the bad guys in the first place? Right now, there is no federal law that punishes people who buy guns for criminals who are banned from purchasing guns themselves. In a recent TV interview, Elijah Cummings, one of Maryland's representatives to the U.S. Congress, spoke about a guy in Georgia whose girlfriend bought him 64 guns in less than three months.

I'd like to propose a hypothetical situation that too few people seem to be imagining themselves in these past few weeks. Please, consider this story: Through some paranormal revelation, you know that you will be mugged tomorrow at gunpoint. You don't know when exactly. You don't know what your assailant will look like. You only know that your attacker will be armed. As a law-abiding citizen of the great state of Maryland, you cannot go out and purchase a defensive weapon from a licensed dealer.

The article in the Baltimore Sun of April 5 ("Disorder in the court") criticized six judges for misconduct. About a quarter of the story (which took up half a page with a photo of Judge Darrell Russell) had to do with Judge Russell's performing a marriage between an woman and a man who had been accused of abusing her. The offenses of these six judges seem to me to be pretty small beer. In a story of March 20 ("Police say man woke up to a gun in his face"), the contrast between The Sun's treatment of these six judges and the unnamed judge (or judges)

The chicanery in the Maryland House of Delegates' Judiciary Committee last week was shameful ("Gun bill advances to floor of House," March 30). We watched the vote count on Eastern Shore Republican Del. Michael Smigiel's amendment to hold criminals responsible for their violent acts with firearms. What we saw was abandonment of any pretext of democratic process and a conscious choice by lawmakers to protect criminals over law-abiding citizens. It was shameful. Delegate Smigiel's amendment would have toughened the penalties for criminals using guns in violent crimes, and it should have been a no-brainer.

Several recent articles in The Sun have focused on Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposed assault weapons ban ("O'Malley battling for gun controls," March 22). These articles all seem to have a common theme, the push for Marylanders to get on board the governor's agenda. It seems this push for support comes after many thousands of Marylanders who support their Second Amendment rights and disagree with Mr. O'Malley's approach to the state's violent crime issue have stood up and made their voices heard.