Death Threats

Mitch Ross, the supplement maker who allegedly provided deer antler velvet spray to Ravens inside linebacker Ray Lewis, said during a news conference Friday that he's received death threats from angry Ravens fans. Ross didn't provide any specific information about the alleged threats, though. "It's unfortunate that I'm getting death threats from Ravens fans," said a sleeveless Ross, who was wearing a black skull cap and displaying bottles of the spray and other products, including performance chips, which aren't banned by the NFL. "I got duped by Sports Illustrated.

Mitch Ross, the supplement maker who allegedly provided deer antler velvet spray to Ravens inside linebacker Ray Lewis, said during a news conference Friday that he's received death threats from angry Ravens fans. Ross didn't provide any specific information about the alleged threats, though. "It's unfortunate that I'm getting death threats from Ravens fans," said a sleeveless Ross, who was wearing a black skull cap and displaying bottles of the spray and other products, including performance chips, which aren't banned by the NFL. "I got duped by Sports Illustrated.

NEW YORK -- Federal officials have warned judges, prosecutors and court employees across the city about death threats made by the murderous Medellin drug cartel, in the wake of the recent killing of a top cartel lieutenant in Colombia.The reports of threats against U.S. court and law enforcement officers were contained in a memo issued by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in New York.Queens court workers who attended a Tuesday night meeting to discuss the threats said they were told the bounty for the murder of a court employee would start at $1,500, while the assassination of a judge could merit a $10,000 reward.

During Heather Kirn Lanier's two years in Baltimore as a neophyte teacher, she taught at a city high school that backed up against Mount Olivet Cemetery. She could clearly see tombstones from her classroom window. Each time Lanier took in the view, she could practically watch another one of her illusions being buried. She's written about her experience at the former Southwestern High School from 2000 to 2002 in a new book called "Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach for America.

The family of a Baltimore police officer charged with murder is appealing for his release from jail while he awaits trial, saying other inmates have made numerous death threats against him."He's been getting death threats, he's had trash thrown on him, and he's been spit on. He's living in fear every day," said Connie Kulbicki, 36, the wife of Sgt. James A. Kulbicki. "He's in jail with people that he helped to put in there."The officer will be in Towson Circuit Court today to appeal his cash bail of $750,000.

A 16-year-old girl who provided information to authorities in connection with the overdose death of a Westminster High School student has received two death threats and has been repeatedly harassed, her family said.After the latest threat Monday evening, school authorities granted senior Jennifer Sarsfield permission to finish classwork at home for the final three weeks of courses at Westminster High.Shelley Sarsfield, Jennifer's mother, said yesterday it is "grossly unfair" that her daughter has become "imprisoned," while a girl charged in connection with the death of 15-year-old Liam O'Hara has been allowed in school.

TOKYO -- Add one more name to the list of authors facing persecution: Yu Miri.She is barely known in the United States, but her situation highlights the costs of a certain kind of fame, and the ugliness of a certain brand of racism. Since winning Japan's top literary prize in January, she has become the target of death threats from people who want her to stop writing.Yu is facing a different problem than have Salman Rushdie, accused by Iran of blasphemy against Islam, or Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, exiled by the Soviet Union for his political views.

A Mount Rainier man, accused of making life-threatening calls to a Westminster girl who is a witness against one of his relatives, unwittingly provided state police with a tape recording of his voice, court records show.James F. Boone Jr., 39, of the 3300 block of Chillum Road was arrested by state police Friday on a criminal warrant and released after posting $15,000 bail in District Court in Hyattsville, a spokeswoman for the Prince George's County court said yesterday.Boone was charged with intimidating a witness, obstruction of justice and telephone misuse.

Kada el-Frih is a Muslim trade unionist who fled Algeria after receiving death threats, spent a decade in Germany and was in danger of being sent back to near-certain assassination in his home country. He now finds himself living in Baltimore. In a Catholic convent. The parishioners of St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church in Northwood have opened their collective arms to embrace el-Frih, 50, his wife, Kheira, and seven of their nine children. Since the fall, they have provided the Muslim family with shelter in a temporarily empty convent, found jobs for the parents, shuttled the children around the city and generally helped the el-Frihs navigate life in their new home.

During Heather Kirn Lanier's two years in Baltimore as a neophyte teacher, she taught at a city high school that backed up against Mount Olivet Cemetery. She could clearly see tombstones from her classroom window. Each time Lanier took in the view, she could practically watch another one of her illusions being buried. She's written about her experience at the former Southwestern High School from 2000 to 2002 in a new book called "Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach for America.

Quick quiz: What do LL Cool J, The Rock, 50 Cent, Karl Malone, Don King, Lynn Swann, Wilt Chamberlain, Eldridge Cleaver, Peter Boulware, Tony Dungy and Alveda King, (niece of Martin Luther King Jr.) have in common? If you guessed membership in the Republican Party, please go to the head of the class. If you are unable to comprehend how any African-American could make this political choice, please stay after school. You require remedial assistance. In fact, your intolerance is part of the problem - both for the Republican Party and the country at large.

It is 5 a.m. and I can't sleep because of the rage I felt at the letter written mostly consisting of name calling diatribes against columnist Leonard Pitts and President Obama for purportedly playing the racism card ("No racism here, Mr. Pitts," Aug. 11). Rest assured, Mr. Pitts and Mr. Obama might have a better vantage point of what racism looks like, smells like and acts like than right wingers writing from the safety of exurbia and white privilege. I still receive racist e-mails from that milieu purporting that Mr. Obama is the Antichrist, a closet Muslim, a socialist, a proponent of one world government, decorating the White House with esoteric Middle Eastern symbolism and failing to salute the American flag and all sorts of equally ridiculous reality challenged nonsense.

Sitting on a bus in Honduras in 2002, Denis Alvarez Alvarado says he overheard two men in front of him discussing how he was going to die. Unaware that he was there, the men said that members of a gang called MS3 — who had kidnapped Alvarez a few days earlier, beaten him and eventually released him — intended to silence him so that he would not tell police about the abduction. "I left Honduras because I was afraid that MS3 members would kill me," Alvarez, now 32, says in court documents drawn up in his legal fight against the U.S. government to avoid deportation to his native country.

May was the worst month in Ichiro Suzuki's career, as he hit .210 with a .270 on-base percentage. Oddly the Mariners played great, seemingly proving the theory that for a future Hall of Famer he has very little impact on winning. … What does Jair Jurrjens have in common with Lefty Gomez, Randy Johnson and Ubaldo Jimenez? According to Elias Sports, those are the only big-leaguers ever to begin a season with nine straight starts of six-plus innings allowing two or fewer runs in each game.

Browns cornerback Eric Wright, who was torched by Anquan Boldin for three touchdowns in Week 3, recently told The Cleveland Plain Dealer that Browns fans threatened his life last season . Appearing on "The Norris & Davis Show" on 105.7 The Fan this morning, Ravens wide receiver Derrick Mason was asked if he had ever received a death threat . He said no, adding that if you're going to threaten someone, you better do it to his...

Unless you've been stuck in the house with sick kids or trapped there by snow, ice and school closings, you've probably heard about author Amy Chua and her memoir of raising two daughters in the Chinese way, with threats, taunts and unrelenting discipline. The book by the Yale Law School professor, titled "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," has had the not-so-surprising effect of bringing down more anger and abuse on Chua than she ever visited on daughters Sophia and Louisa. And it awoke the dragon of the Mommy Wars from the cave where it had been sleeping since supermodel mother Gisele Bündchen was quoted saying breast-feeding should be mandatory.

DETROIT -- A California federal court jury has just sent a mass message to the 67 million people in the country who use e-mail: Think before you click.If that e-mail you're about to send could be taken as a threat, you could go to jail.And that is exactly what the government hoped to accomplish by prosecuting Richard Machado for his menacing e-mail, Michael Gennaco, assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said yesterday."We thought that it was important to send out a statement to future perpetrators of crimes on the Internet that the federal government is going to take it seriously," he said.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Several anonymous phone threats against designated hitter Chili Davis have prompted Anaheim Stadium officials to expedite plans to increase security measures during games.Angels vice president of operations Kevin Uhlich said the team has received two or three calls directed at Davis, who was fined $5,000 for poking a fan in the face in Milwaukee on July 30."They weren't death threats or anything," Uhlich said, "just some people voicing their displeasure with the punishment -- they thought it should have been more severe."

Citing concerns for safety and the accused youth, an Anne Arundel County judge barred the public from the trial of the younger of two teenagers charged in the May 30 death of 14-year-old Christopher David Jones of Crofton. Judge Philip T. Caroom's ruling, issued Monday, allows the news media at the trial, but with a request that they voluntarily agree not to publish the names of the 14-year-old boy who is charged and names of witnesses who are juveniles. Caroom issued the order after learning of death threats against the 14-year-old while the boy was at one detention center.

Robert C. Rice, the superintendent of the Anne Arundel County schools in the mid-1980s who also served in District of Columbia and state of Maryland posts, died of lung transplant complications Saturday at University of Maryland Medical Center. The Arnold resident was 69. Dr. Rice received media attention in 1984 - including an appearance on Good Morning America - when he defended the need for a three-year-old child with herpes to attend a preschool program. Born in Nevenville, Iowa, he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Northern Iowa and a doctorate in education at Iowa State University.