Dirt Bike

From: Gregory P. Kane, Disgruntled Citizen Menaced by Dirt Bike-Riding Scofflaws Re: Dirt bike-riding scofflaws Dear Mayor Sheila Dixon and Gov. Martin O'Malley: It happened soon after I made the turn on to Oakley Avenue from Park Heights Avenue. My first sign that there might be trouble was when I saw the two dimwits standing in the middle of the street at the corner of Oakley and Palmer avenues. "Ah!" I said to myself. "And here we have two more geniuses who have no idea why the word sideWALK has 'walk' in it."

A teen-age male died in Brooklyn yesterday when he lost control of the dirt bike he was driving and hit his head on the concrete. He was not wearing a helmet, police said.The teen was riding his motorcycle in the 4200 block of Thayer St. at 1: 30 p.m. when the accident occurred, said Officer Raymond Howard of the city traffic enforcement section. Police said the teen died at the scene."He was so young, he didn't know how to ride," Howard said.Police said late last night they had not identified the teen.

What kind of parents buy their 7-year-old son a dirt bike in a city where dirt bikes are illegal? If you're inclined to say "irresponsible ones" and feel tempted to put that label on Gerard Mungo Sr. and Lakisa Dinkins, read on before you do. Mungo and Dinkins are the parents of 7-year-old Gerard Mungo Jr. Eight days ago, a city police officer arrested Gerard Jr. after confiscating his dirt bike. The officer took the boy to the Eastern District station, where Mungo Sr. and Dinkins say he spent two hours handcuffed to a bench.

A Park Heights resident was killed yesterday afternoon when the dirt bike he was driving collided with a car in the 3000 block of W. Belvedere Ave.Marvin Watts was traveling east in the westbound lane about 4: 30 p.m. when his bike struck a Lexus, driven by Stephanie Blankenship, 33, of the 3500 block of Cottage Ave., police spokeswoman Ragina L. Cooper said.Watts was thrown to the rear of Blankenship's car, which went into reverse, running over Watts before striking three unoccupied parked cars, Cooper said.

A motorcyclist who was killed Sunday after crashing into a pole at Gilmor and Fayette streets had lost control after swerving to avoid a dirt bike whose operator was carrying a 2-year-old child as a passenger, police said. The victim was identified on Monday as Alphonso Gaye, 44, of Greenbelt, according to Detective Jeremy Silbert, a Baltimore Police spokesman. Silbert said Gaye struck a pole about 5:45 p.m., and said witnesses told police that the motorcycle was speeding.

Two Baltimore police officers were slightly injured yesterday when they struggled with the rider of an unlicensed dirt bike who stole one of the officer's guns and threatened to shoot him, a police official said.Officers Robert Rodgers and Marvin Sneft of the Northeastern District were treated at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Rodgers suffered an asthma attack and Sneft twisted his knee.Dante Curtis, 17, of the 1800 block of Winford Road was charged as an adult with armed assault and robbery, use of a handgun in commission of a felony and traffic charges.

Two 16-year-old boys were seriously injured yesterday evening when the off-road dirt bike they were riding collided with a sport utility vehicle at a heavily traveled intersection in Brooklyn Park, Anne Arundel County police said. The boys were not wearing helmets when the crash occurred about 4:45 p.m. at Ritchie Highway and Hammonds Lane, police said. One was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center and the other to Johns Hopkins Hospital. Their names were not released, but police said one boy was in critical condition last night and the other stable.

Mayor Sheila Dixon apologized yesterday to the parents of the 7-year-old boy whom police arrested after seeing him ride a motorized dirt bike, saying that officers had "better options" available than handcuffing and detaining the child. "Arresting a 7-year-old is not consistent with my philosophy of community policing," Dixon said at a City Hall news conference. "I know that many people in the community are outraged at this, it was a bad choice." The arrest, first reported in The Examiner, occurred about 4 p.m. Tuesday when a city police officer reported seeing a 7-year-old riding a blue-and-white Yamaha dirt bike on the sidewalk in the 2100 block of E. Federal St., said Officer Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman.

They ride in packs, ripping through Baltimore neighborhoods with little regard for traffic laws or common courtesy. Sidewalks are fair game. As are alleys, parks and front yards.Youngsters and dirt bikes -- a dangerous combination that is of increasing concern to residents tired of being drowned out and run off their streets by what is supposed to be an off-road racing cycle.Police say some of the riders are drug dealers darting through narrow public housing pathways. Most are teens on speedy joy rides, flouting the law -- dirt bikes are illegal on Baltimore streets -- and evading the police, who acknowledge the scofflaws are hard to catch.

A widening investigation of dirt bike thefts from the Baltimore Police Department's impound lot on Pulaski Highway has led to two arrests and detectives said yesterday that at least two private security guards have been implicated.The auto theft unit raided an abandoned East Baltimore rowhouse Thursday night and seized 17 dirt bikes and one four-wheel all-terrain vehicle believed to have been stolen from the lot.Investigators said they are unsure how many dirt bikes -- small motorcycles built for off-road use, but commonly driven by packs of teen-agers on city streets -- have been stolen.