Curfew

Amid an emotional debate over keeping youths safe from the violence on the streets of Baltimore, the City Council began working yesterday to reinstate a nighttime curfew.Five days after the police chief suspended Baltimore's curfew for juveniles, the council returned from summer recess to begin revising the law to resolve constitutional concerns.At an emergency session at noon, Councilman Lawrence A. Bell III announced plans to alter the city's year-old law to have it enforced again by the end of the week.

David Johnson of Fells Point said he and his wife were awakened early on Sunday morning at about 2 a.m. to the sound of revelers' voices in front of their residence. He said his wife asked the group if they could quiet down. When the couple awoke this morning, they found two large planters at the front stoop smashed, the soil spilling onto the sidewalk. "I guess their response was to smash our planters," said Johnson, who said he reported the incident to Baltimore City police.

After a similar law was struck down by the state's highest court last week, Baltimore's curfew for juveniles was suspended yesterday by Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier.Since January, 1,177 teen-agers have been detained at a holding facility at the Northern District. Many of those later were arrested on outstanding juvenile warrants.Mr. Frazier said the year-old curfew, aimed at keeping youths off of the city's increasingly violent streets after 11 p.m., was voided after Court of Appeals Judge John C. Eldridge struck down an almost identical curfew in Frederick as unconstitutional.

The delegate from the city's northern suburbs is sounding off again about Baltimore crime, calling for the mayor to resign unless she convenes a "solutions summit" and demanding a "citywide curfew" be put in place. Of course, the city already has a curfew, and a curfew center, which not only holds wayward youth but links staff with parents to determine why the children are out later than allowed. The Sun's police reporter, Justin Fenton, visited the center back in August.

American big-city life now is wrought with so many forms of uncontrolled behavior and dangers that any likely panacea seems worth entertaining.That's why Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly of the District of Columbia recently requested the National Guard be called to help patrol and safeguard the nation's capital. That's also why the Baltimore City Council is entertaining two proposals to strengthen existing curfew restrictions on children.Baltimore already has two curfew laws for children. One makes it illegal for children under age 15 to be in public places or establishments without a cause from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and from midnight to 6 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Keeping young people off the streets late at night is an appealing idea. Making it a crime may not be such a good idea.Adolescents ought to be home by 11 p.m. in most cases, anyway. Certainly they shouldn't be on the streets in the early morning hours. There's not much more than mischief or worse available for them that late. There's also less chance of stopping a poorly aimed bullet. So why not have a curfew for youngsters under 17 years old?The U.S. Supreme Court appears to have set aside the constitutional objections that have been raised, at least to tightly drawn laws such as the one passed by the Baltimore City Council.

Can you keep children off Baltimore's streets at night by passing a law? The City Council, which tentatively approved a new curfew bill Thursday night, hopes so.But many Baltimoreans were skeptical yesterday."

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The government clamped a 24-hour curfew on the capital yesterday, shortly after U.S. forces arrested the bodyguard of a prominent Sunni leader on suspicion of plotting a suicide attack inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. A statement from the U.S. Army said the man was part of an al-Qaida cell "in the final stages of launching a series of ... attacks" that would have used several vehicles and possibly suicide vests. It said a seven-member cell believed to be linked to vehicle bombings in southern Baghdad was planning the attacks on the area that houses the Iraqi government and U.S. and other embassies under heavy military protection.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court cleared the way yesterday for cities across the country to try to fight crime by banning juveniles from the streets and public places at night -- an idea that appears to be spreading rapidly.In a one-line order, with no justice voting to dissent, the court refused to hear a constitutional challenge to a curfew for minors in Dallas, similar to nighttime limits imposed on youths in about 1,000 communities, including some of the nation's largest cities.Baltimore's City Council has been pondering such a measure, but municipal lawyers have urged it to wait until after Maryland's Court of Appeals rules on a juvenile curfew law in Frederick.

Annapolis Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins withdrew his proposed curfew before a City Council vote Monday night and challenged his critics to propose their own solutions to the drug-related violence that has plaguedthe city.With six aldermen voicing opposition to the curfew before the meeting, the measure faced certain defeat."While I don't advocate a curfew, I felt I had better do something," Hopkins told the council. "I'm trying to respond to a problem, but I guess this was not the answer."And to his critics, Hopkins added: "I accept your criticism, I thank you for it, but now I ask you,what should I do?

Baltimore police called in extra officers and arrested at least 10 juveniles Saturday night as a crowd that witnesses described as rowdy and numbering in the hundreds walked around Downtown. The arrests ranged from curfew violations to disorderly conduct and assault, said Detective Donny Moses, a police spokesman. The youth massed on downtown streets, from 1st Mariner Arena on the west side to "The Block" on East Baltimore Street, and south through Baltimore's Inner Harbor, Moses said.

The biggest problem schools face is that students arrive in the classroom unprepared to learn Many thanks to Scott Carroll for his down-to-earth examination of the importance of parenting and its relationship to school success ("What kids need most: a culture of caring," Aug. 31). I have three siblings who are or were teachers, two of whom taught in Baltimore City, and Mr. Carroll's thoughts echo theirs. I applaud Mr. Carroll for having the courage to put a spotlight on the real problem in the classroom: students who are not prepared to learn.

It's after 1:30 a.m. on a recent Friday night, and Baltimore's juvenile curfew center is buzzing. One by one or together in groups, children who are out beyond the midnight weekend curfew are being brought in by police. In a side room where records are checked, the youngest strike up a conversation. "How you get caught?" the 10-year-old boy asks. "I walked to the store," the shy 8-year-old seated to his left says. "As soon as I got out, police said 'Come here.' " Asked by a reporter if he is scared to be walking around his East Baltimore neighborhood so late at night, the 8-year-old, who says his name is Khalil, shakes his head no. "There's a lot of kids out," he replies.

As Maryland largest and wealthiest subdivision (and often ranked among the richest in the country), Montgomery County is not usually in the business of seeking advice from its neighbors. That's not mere elitism but much collective expertise at work — a higher percentage of its residents hold post-graduate degrees than any other county in America. As a result, Rockville is home to an activist county government with a fondness for innovation and progressive policymaking. So it comes as a bit of surprise to see the same folks who usually lecture Baltimore on matters of public policy take up a rather well-worn cause about which city residents are more than a little bit familiar: a curfew on teen-agers.

May 18, 1957: Seconds before a 10:20 p.m. curfew would have ended the game, the Orioles rallied to tie the score against the White Sox. It forced the game to be replayed in its entirety at a later date.

Baltimore's Juvenile Curfew Center opens Thursday night, the mayor's office, Baltimore police and the state Department of Juvenile Services have announced. The center, at the Success Academy in the Baltimore school system headquarters on North Avenue, will be open from 11 p.m. Thursdays to 6 a.m. Fridays and from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, except for July 1 through July 3. In 2009, a total of 1,686 youths, an average of 38 juveniles each night, went to the center, which is designed to address curfew violations, according to the state Department of Juvenile Services.

Manchester's Town Council agreed last night to consider strengthening the town's curfew law after several Michelle Road residents complained about extreme cases of teen-age vandalism in their neighborhood.The residents said their homes have been stoned and pelted with eggs, lamp posts have been destroyed, power tools have been stolen from vehicles and road signs have been bent in half.Those who spoke did not identify themselves to the council and declined later to give their names for fear of retaliation.

Minutes after Baltimore's new curfew law took effect, 17-year-old Torrey Nixon sat on her aunt's front stoop in Rosemont, watching her two young cousins and wondering where the police were.There was no police crackdown. No officers rounding up youngsters from street corners and hauling them away."The police should be out in force on the first night to show the kids they aren't playing," Ms. Nixon said late Thursday night. Young drug dealers had just left the corner near Tiffany Square -- named after a 6-year-old girl who was shot to death three years ago and who became a citywide symbol of young crime victims -- she said.

The school inside Baltimore's education administration headquarters will serve as a curfew center this spring and summer as part of a multi-agency effort to prevent youth violence, officials announced Wednesday. Mayor Sheila Dixon, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, schools chief Andr?s Alonso, Maryland Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Donald W. DeVore and Baltimore Department of Social Services Director Molly McGrath gathered at the school, Success Academy, to announce the opening of the Baltimore Summer Curfew Center.

BOISE, Idaho - As they prepared for the Humanitarian Bowl, Maryland coaches knew they would have to stop Nevada's potent rushing attack. What they couldn't have anticipated is that they would spend valuable time and energy to corral and punish seven of their own players - including star running back Da'Rel Scott - who missed curfew a few days before the game. After meeting for 2 1/2 hours with athletic director Debbie Yow, coach Ralph Friedgen told Scott and the other players that none would be permitted to start the game, in which Maryland beat Nevada, 42-35.