Violence

Matt Fortese came 75 miles from Hagerstown to meet Taylor Queen at Camden Yards. She drove more than three hours from Virginia. Their second date was going well, Queen said, until an hour of taunting from two fans boiled over into an altercation that left Fortese fighting for his life. Fortese, a lifelong Yankees fan who wore his team's cap to Wednesday's game, suffered severe head trauma and a skull fracture. He was listed in serious condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center Saturday.

After leading a life of crime, being charged with murder and being shot, Howard McCray was ready for a change. In 2008, he began working with Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he had been treated for gunshot wounds, to reach out to other victims who come through the hospital to help them reform. The work he did with Shock Trauma's Violence Prevention Program received national attention, with McCray appearing on CNN and National Public Radio. “I'm a changed man,” McCray said in the CNN segment.

The Arab world is quaking for democracy. Tunisia has led the surge; Egypt, Bahrain and Libya follow in its footsteps. Arab revolutionaries must learn from the events that have unfolded in every struggle for one's unalienable rights in the past, from that of Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. Reports continue to pour in ascribing violence to governments under siege. Libyan armies have even bombed certain parts of their own capital. Revolutionaries must consider the government's resort to violence as a weakness.

When Carter Scott was born, his family was embroiled in allegations of violence: His father was sitting in a jail cell, accused by two relatives of killing a cousin. Just over a year later, Carter's mother, Christina White, filed for a protective order alleging that his father, Rashaw Scott, beat her and slammed her head into a door. And in May, the 1-year-old boy became the victim of deadly violence when he and his father were shot in what police said was a targeted attack. The father survived; the son died.

Once again, Thomas Schaller, offers his far left opinion regarding the rhetoric of the last few weeks ( "Violence on the right: more evidence," Jan. 25). The major flaw in Mr. Schaller's opinion is his great assumption, like others of his ilk, that his cited list of incidents prove a direct cause and effect connection to the political right's "violent rhetoric. " He also references David Neiwert's book as support for his opinion; he's a professor at Columbia University (farther left-leaning than Mr. Schaller)

I have never served in law enforcement, but I want to offer a few suggestions in an attempt to curtail the rampant violence percolating in Baltimore: •Decriminalize marijuana. Too much manpower is wasted in pursuit of the penny-ante marijuana users and dealers. This energy wasted in chasing these people could be more positively utilized within the ranks of our frustrated police department. •Assign large masses of street patrols. If I were Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, I would park half the police cars and assign these officers to foot patrols.

The Sun's Mary Gail Hare reports this morning more violence: Two shootings in the city Tuesday have left one man dead and another critically wounded. A 22-year-old man was shot multiple times in the torso shortly before 6 p.m. in the 4800 block of Northwood Drive near Winston Avenue in Govans. Police said the victim was approached on the street by an unidentified man who fired at him with a handgun. The victim remains in serious condition at an area hospital.   At 10:05 p.m., officers responded to a report of a shooting in the 4100 block of Norfolk Ave. in the Forest Park area.

I'm writing you to express concern over how the media has covered the death of South African Reeva Steenkamp ("Pistorius breaks down in first court appearance," Feb. 16). She has been sexually objectified, and her loss of life has been trivialized. I ask that you please avoid sexualizing her in this publication, avoid glorifying the man who stands accused of her murder, and be more acutely aware of how you report violence against women generally - an issue that impacts at least a billion women worldwide every year.

In his op-ed column of Jan. 25, Thomas Schaller itemizes acts of violence by the right ( "More evidence of violence on the right" . Apparently he denies that the left deserves equal scorn. Really? What about the extremely violent deaths inflicted by liberals on millions of unborn babies? These killings far overshadow the comparatively few killings committed by conservatives. Furthermore, while killings committed by conservatives are condemned by the vast majority of right-wingers, those committed by left-wingers are supported and condoned by the vast majority of leftists.

It is depressing that supporters of Second Amendment rights seldom if ever mention the frequent tragedies, such as the recent killing of the 13-year old girl in Baltimore. Because they do not mention them, one is left to assume they regard them simply as inevitable collateral damage not worthy of mention in discussions of gun control. R.L. Hall

Seeing the article with the folks in Cherry Hill who prayed for the baby is heartbreaking ("Cherry Hill community asks for peace," May 30). Your paper refuses to address the real issues however. Violence is out of control in America. The Los Angeles Times quit tracking murders back in December, 2012. Try and find statistics from Chicago beyond piecemeal neighborhood incidents. Leadership in America consists of a bunch of jaded, power thirsty and criminally negligent talking heads that say whatever it takes to get elected and continually preen for their next election and post-government career.

As Baltimore Board of School Commissioners conducts a national search for a new leader to replace outgoing schools CEO Andrés Alonso, it must consider is what further changes are needed to build on the reforms he initiated. Specifically, it needs to ask whether the improvements in school governance, attendance and teacher evaluation that were hallmarks of Mr. Alonso's tenure are by themselves sufficient to move the system to the next level, or whether a broader strategy is needed that takes into account not just what goes on inside the school building but also addresses the larger issues of poverty, violence and family instability in the communities students come from.

A shooting that killed a man and a triple shooting that injured three people Wednesday night followed another recent stretch of violence in Baltimore. Detective Angela Carter-Watson, a police spokeswoman, said homicide detectives were investigating the first incident, in which a man was found on the ground, shot multiple times in the upper torso, about 9:50 p.m. in the 2800 block of Ashland Avenue, in the Madison-Eastend neighborhood near Bocek Park. The man was still alive shortly after midnight but police said on Thursday morning that he had succumbed to his injuries.

Seven people were shot — at least one fatally — in Baltimore between Tuesday afternoon and early Wednesday morning, with the violence stretching from Brooklyn in the south to Gwynn Oak in the northwest and Darley Park in the east. A man was also stabbed multiple times and robbed of cash, his shoes and his car on Tuesday night near Patterson Park, police said. One man died in a shooting that occurred at about 3 a.m. in the Darley Park neighborhood, said Detective Angela Carter-Watson, a police spokeswoman.

It takes incredible courage for a victim of domestic violence to apply for a protective order. Victims must make their way to the courthouse, often while they are still experiencing the effects of their abuse. At the courthouse, they must write a description of how they were abused, and then describe their abuse again to a judge, often in front of a courtroom filled with strangers. If the judge determines that there has been abuse, the judge will issue a temporary protective order that must be served by a law enforcement officer on the alleged abuser.

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, we heard strong proclamations from the president that "justice will be served. " It should be. Our spirit of justice is based on the principle that punishment should outweigh any benefit derived from perpetrating crime - a premise that has guided our nation since its earliest days. However, we expect more. The punishment should be harsh enough to send a strong message to others that they, too, will suffer if they attempt to hurt the American people.

On June 1, 2010, everything in my life changed. Another young man was killed in Baltimore. He was shot to death in front of his father. He went over to his father's house that morning for a visit. He had an argument with some purveyors of chemical substances, and now he is dead. A verbal altercation over nothing ended in another death in the city. The only difference on this day was I knew the guy. This time it wasn't a nameless, faceless Joe-Nobody-Knows kid. This was a 19 year old boy, and I knew him. He was the father of a beautiful baby girl, and her entire family attends my church.

My sixth-grade teacher could not bring herself to tell the class that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. She returned from having been called to the office to report that "something has happened, but I don't feel that I can tell you what it is. " And so we went on with the remainder of our Friday afternoon lessons in a state of excited wonder. The unfathomable news came to me later, outside the front door of the school, where I was serving on safety patrol. It was on the lips of everyone who passed my station in front of the circular drive, where my duty of keeping students back until it was safe to cross kept me from focusing fully on the magnitude of what I was just now learning.

Nobody blames cars for drunk driving, so why do some people blame firearms for gun violence? Might the term "gun violence" be more indicative of a deep, irrational fear of an inanimate object? W.J. Cooper, Salisbury Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Workplace violence is a serious occupational hazard in hospitals and other health care facilities, a fact that has escaped an unsuspecting public. Nationally, nursing assistants employed by nursing homes have the highest incidence of workplace assault among all workers, according to federal data. For women who work in nursing homes, social services and hospitals, the likelihood of being harmed on the job is like that of women working the late-night shift in convenience stores. To draw attention to these and other hidden risks, the Alliance Against Workplace Violence has designated April as Workplace Violence Awareness Month.