Essex

An Essex man pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges for hanging a dead raccoon on the porch of a black family in Middle River two years ago, according to a plea agreement released by the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday. Joshua Wall, 20, hanged the raccoon by a noose on the family's porch in April 2010 after a fight between a child who lived with Wall and the son of the victims' family, according to the agreement. Wall conspired with four unnamed people, but he was the only one charged in the incident.

An Essex man has been indicted on civil rights charges stemming from an April 2010 incident in which a dead raccoon was found hanging from a noose on a Middle River family's front porch. According to the indictment, which comes nearly two years after the incident, Joshua Wall conspired with four unnamed people to hang a dead raccoon from the familiy's porch on April 29, 2010.  Wall is the only person charged in the case; the other co-conspirators are listed only by their initials.

A 63-year-old woman and a 41-year-old woman believed to be her daughter died Monday night in a fire in an Essex rowhouse, Baltimore County firefighters said. The Fire Department has not identified the victims. Neighbors said two women, Carolyn Himmelheber, and her daughter, Stacy Himmelheber, lived in the house at 907 Arncliffe Road. Fire investigators on Monday night were continuing to investigate the cause of the blaze, in which two dogs died as well. Friend and neighbor Joyce Page, 73, said she had seen smoke wafting onto the street and went out on her porch to see where it was coming from.

In another example of state and local government's abuse of power, Baltimore County officials have taken it upon themselves to evict pilots from the Essex SkyPark, a site they have occupied for 60 years. All of the members of the Essex SkyPark Association are middle-class, hard-working people who have been responsible members of the Essex community. The real truth is that county officials are exercising their power for money. The county's intent is to use the 500 acres of the air park as a forest mitigation bank to charge county developers fees to offset their environmental responsibilities.

Baltimore County police have identified the victims of a fatal fire Monday in Essex as a mother and daughter. Carolyn Lee Himmelheber, 63, and Stacy Lynn Himmelheber, 40, both lived at the rowhouse in the 900 block of Arncliffe Road in the Middlesex neighborhood. Investigators estimate that the fire caused $25,000 of damage to the two-story brick residence, originally owned by Carolyn Himmelheber's parents. The women had lived there nearly all their lives. The home was not equipped with smoke detectors, investigators said.

I read with dismay your story about Baltimore County's plan to close Essex SkyPark ("Members fear Balto. Co. will shut Essex Skypark," Jan. 5). The narrative focused on old men flying old airplanes out of an old airport in Essex. But if the airport were in north central Baltimore County and the pilots and aircraft owners were politicians, developers and attorneys, the story line no doubt would have celebrated a historic landing field in beautiful pastoral Baltimore County, with a fleet of carefully restored antique aircraft flown by a cadre of experienced and dedicated aviators.

Tom Katzenberger calls the Essex Skypark "a blue-collar airport" - a place where the pilots have dirt under their fingernails. "All of us change our own oil," said Katzenberger, who owns a small concrete construction company and flies a 1996 Maule, a four-seat airplane. "All of us fix our own flats. " Katzenberger and other members of the Essex Skypark Association recently learned that the waterfront airport could be lost, and with it an aviation tradition that they say they couldn't afford to continue elsewhere.

Having been assigned to Precinct 11 in Essex for the last four years until my retirement in November, I am very familiar with the school resource officers at Chesapeake High School who were involved in the use of pepper spray to break up a fight between two students ("How much force is too much?" Dec. 16). Both officers have been at the school for years; they know and care about the kids and work well with the administration. And you can be assured that In the Baltimore County Police Department, every incident like this one is critiqued and evaluated to see if the officers acted properly, whether additional training is needed and whether things should be done differently in the future.

Joseph Eugene Hamilton Sr., who coached baseball teams at the Community College of Baltimore and Essex Community College, died Nov. 17 of pancreatic cancer at Harbor Hospital. The lifelong Locust Point resident was 77. Born in Baltimore, Mr. Hamilton, who was known as "Pete," was raised on Fort Avenue in Locust Point. After graduating from Southern High School in 1954, he went to work as a building superintendent at Whitman Requardt Associates. During his 46-year career with the Baltimore engineering company, Mr. Hamilton, who retired in 2000, missed only four days of work, family members said.