Violence

Breakdown of family real key to violence The subtitle to Sunday's editorial regarding juvenile homicides noted that "officials need to recognize that this isn't just a policing problem" ("Death at an early age," Jan. 4). However, our society, as well as The Baltimore Sun, needs to recognize the primary source of the problem - the breakdown of the family. While I recognize the importance of government programs in the fight against violence in our urban, poor communities, many of those same well-intentioned programs have, over the last five decades, played a deadly role in undermining intact families among the poor.

Baltimore police are seeking to padlock a city motel deemed to be a public nuisance, officials said. Police have asked the owners of the Executive Inn, in the 3600 block of Pulaski Highway in East Baltimore, to attend a hearing at police headquarters to address "repeated crimes of violence taking place at the business," according to a news release. In 2008, police made at least 16 drug-related arrests and responded to more than 30 calls about violent crimes there. A 35-year-old man was found dead in a room at the motel in May 2007.

Detective Sgt. Allen Adkins and Detective Darryl Turner had two options yesterday: According to their investigation, the 48-year-old woman, a chronic drug user being sought on a warrant, might have been in one East Baltimore apartment. Or, maybe another, just three doors down. Adkins approached the first door, pounding loudly as a light snow fell on an otherwise still morning, while Turner went to the other. The occupants of both apartments, groggy and semiclothed, eventually answered and reported that they hadn't seen the woman in months.

The rally was called "Voices Against Violence," and the voices cut through the icy cold air with a somber fury. The mayor spoke and the police commissioner spoke and the children spoke and the advocates spoke. They wanted the people to rise up and the violence to stop. They wanted more money for programs to help youth and for the governor to not cut back on money for schools. They wanted a symposium on education, health and jobs. They shouted the word "Life" and a man called Brother Truth led them in rhyme: "Too many mothers have cried; too many fathers have lied; too many children have died."

A melee at the Metropolitan Transition Center that sent 18 prison inmates to area hospitals on Friday with stab wounds involved a dispute between the Bloods gang and Sunni Muslim prisoners, according to corrections sources. Maj. Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the prison system, acknowledged for the first time yesterday that a gang might have been involved in the violence that erupted at the state-run prison in Baltimore. But, noting security concerns, she would not provide more detailed information.

Dan in Real Life Rating -- PG-13 for some innuendo. What it's about -- Single dad raises his three girls, one of whom is in the middle of her first crush, but finds love himself at a big noisy family reunion. The Kid Attractor Factor -- Very cute kids, comically chaotic reunion. Good lessons/bad lessons -- Before giving advice on young love to your kids, maybe consider how messy your own love life can be. Violence -- None. Language -- Disney clean. Sex -- Suggested, yearned for. Drugs -- None.

The murders were occurring almost daily, but when the surge of violence claimed the lives of two innocents - a young mother and a high school band director - people rose up to say, "Enough!" From ministers to moving men to high-schoolers, they gathered by the hundreds until they marched on City Hall, 3,000 strong, to protest city officials' lack of urgency. This wasn't Baltimore; it was New Orleans. And while the emotion on display in the Big Easy recently wasn't unlike the anguish felt in Baltimore when an off-duty police officer was gunned down, the collective response was markedly different.

Firehouse Dog Rating -- PG What it's about -- Famous movie dog goes missing and finds a new home with a kid and a fire station. The Kid Attractor Factor -- An Irish terrier, in action. Very cute. Good lessons/bad lessons -- Don't judge a dog by his collar. Violence -- Dogs and people in peril, a couple of punches are thrown. Language -- Canine bodily function jokes. Sex -- A suggestion of doggie harems. Drugs -- Champagne. Parents advisory -- Benign kiddie comedy with a few too many bathroom-humor jokes.

Harford County police are investigating the shooting of a 31-year-old Edgewood man, the latest in a string of violent crimes in a southwestern Harford County community that police have called the epicenter of gang violence. Police responded to reports of a shooting at 4 a.m. Saturday and found Andre Overton shot in the neck inside his home in the 1800 block of Edgewater Drive. Overton was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, said Sgt. Christina Presberry, a spokeswoman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office.

Arthur and the Invisibles Rating -- PG What it's about -- A boy resolves to rescue his grandpa and find the family fortune in the tiny, underground world of fairyfolk. The Kid Attractor Factor -- Animated underground sprites, A Bug's Life-like action. Good lessons/bad lessons -- You're never too young to be someone others can depend on. Violence -- Animated, not graphic. Language -- Clean. Sex -- None, though Madonna voices a hot cartoon princess. Drugs -- None. Parents advisory -- A bit complicated for a cartoon children's fantasy, but the characters are cute.

The shooting alerts hit the city police commanders' BlackBerrys in rapid-fire succession. Friday at 3:03 p.m., 6:20 p.m., 9:52 p.m. and 11:07 p.m.; Saturday at 1:45 a.m., 3 a.m., 1 p.m., 1:06 p.m., 1:13 p.m., 4:01 p.m. and 9:20 p.m.; Sunday at 11:43 a.m. and 11 p.m. In all, 13 shootings, 15 victims, three of them dead. Amid the bloodshed, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III ordered his top staff to convene Saturday to make sure detectives had a handle on the violence. "I wanted to push to see if we're looking deeper into these cases," he said.

Young victims and perpetrators of violent crime in Baltimore are more likely to skip school, be abused or neglected or have a history of contact with the juvenile criminal system, a city Health Department report found. The study, released Friday and based on data from 2002 to 2007, sheds light on the intractable problem of youth violence in Baltimore and is part of the agency's effort to devise ways to intervene before young people get into trouble. The statistics show that children who were crime victims had roughly the same struggles with truancy and rates of abuse as youths who committed violence, making the two groups practically indistinguishable, said Jacquelyn Duval-Harvey, a Health Department deputy commissioner.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III ordered a renewed crackdown Sunday on suspected gang activity in the downtown area in response to a weekend shooting at Baltimore's Inner Harbor attributed to rival gang members. The Saturday night incident, which took place despite a summer-long increase in police presence downtown, left two young men wounded. Bealefeld said he has directed officers to more aggressively stop and question young people who wear gang colors and misbehave by the waterfront.

The abduction of two Catonsville brothers last year - which police believe triggered a wave of retaliatory killings and other violence, including the shootings of 12 people at a cookout Sunday - was orchestrated by members of a heroin organization who believed their supplier was cheating them, authorities allege in court documents reviewed by The Baltimore Sun. The documents, filed in U.S. District Court last month, shed new light on last year's kidnappings,...

An outreach worker for the Safe Streets program was among 12 people wounded at an East Baltimore cookout Sunday, a development that could cast unwanted attention on a well-regarded group known for mediating conflict out of view of law enforcement. Steven Bountress, director of operations for the Living Classrooms Foundation, which administers the Safe Streets program, said the unidentified worker suffered multiple gunshot wounds and remained in the hospital Tuesday with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

The scene was horrific - in the middle of an East Baltimore cookout, an event to commemorate the death of a young man killed in the drug trade, gunmen opened fire indiscriminately into the crowd, mowing down men, women, children, anyone who got in the way. A dozen people were hit by bullets before the attackers fled. That was Memorial Day, 2001. But move the scene to a backyard perhaps a mile away and change a few details, and you've got exactly what happened Sunday night on Ashland Avenue.

Back one day in 1966, at a house party in North Baltimore's Pen Lucy neighborhood, two teenage boys asked the same girl to dance. One boy lived on Old York Road, the other on McCabe Avenue. The two fought, first inside, then on the street, and a feud began that turned two neighborhood groups into gangs that terrorized a collection of blighted blocks for more than three decades. Street wars between the Old York and Cator Avenue Boys and the McCabe Avenue Boys would become legendary and deadly.

The tragic death of 14-year-old Christopher Jones of Crofton last month was a wake-up call for Anne Arundel County residents that their tranquil suburban communities are no proof against the threat of violent youth gangs. After police arrested two teenage suspects described as gang members and charged them with manslaughter in connection with Christopher's death, community leaders implored their friends and family to resist the impulse to even the score. Those pleas apparently went unheeded, however.

The teddy bears, all 80 of them, are piled in a living room at a home in Northeast Baltimore. Most are hand-me-downs - "pre-loved," Faith Bocian calls them - each representing one of the persons who has lost a life to violence in the city this year. Wednesday night, the bears will be displayed as part of a vigil called "Teddy Bears Crying" at the Baltimore branch of the NAACP at 8 W. 26th St. Each will be wearing a laminated name tag of a victim: "Andre Thorpe, 17, Jan. 2, 2009, 800 block of N. Kenwood Ave., shot; Andrew Goodwyn, 22, 11:10 p.m., March 13, 2009, Normandy Ave. Shot."

It wasn't the economy. It wasn't stress. It wasn't mental illness. It hit me the minute I heard the news - it was ownership. When William Parente beat and suffocated his wife and two daughters before taking his own life, it wasn't just because his shaky financial dealings were about to come crashing down on him. And when Christopher Wood killed his wife and three children and then himself, it wasn't just because he was $460,000 in debt and depressed....