West Baltimore

Margaret M. Ruffin, an outspoken West Baltimore community activist, died of leukemia Monday at University of Maryland Medical Center. She was 77. As longtime president of the Gilmor Homes tenant council, Mrs. Ruffin championed the rights of public housing residents in Baltimore and other large cities. She referred to residents of the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood as "my people." The former Margaret May Jones was born in Baltimore and lived in the city her whole life. She attended Douglass High School and married Howard L. Ruffin, a longshoreman.

Baltimore police are seeking help in identifying a possible suspect in the April 24 shooting death of a 59-year-old man who was shot while sitting on the front porch of a home in West Baltimore. Police identified the victim as Floyd Dorsey, of the 4100 block of Norfolk Ave. He was shot about 10:45 p.m. that night in the 2500 block of Harlem Ave., and died at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Authorities have released few details on the shooting. They said a man approached Dorsey, shot him and ran away.

Hundreds of people lined up on sun-drenched asphalt Saturday to see if they could get regular payouts, in the form of paychecks, from the new Maryland Live! Casino, a slots casino scheduled to open at Arundel Mills mall in about three months. "I hope I get lucky enough to get a position," said Mark Ellison, who's from West Baltimore. "They want people who are willing to go the extra mile so customers come in and enjoy spending their money. " The operators of what will be the state's largest casino hosted a job fair Saturday with the Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corp.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority's mobility program for the disabled looks like an expensive and unnecessary luxury. On a recent 20-minute trip to West Baltimore I spotted three of these vans that were either empty or had only a single passenger. This program must cost millions of dollars; how can we possibly afford it? If there is a justifiable need surely it can be met more efficiently by a private carrier. It seems there could be a good story here about an opportunity to cut excessive government spending.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Baltimore had a rich, flourishing jazz scene. Today, live jazz and devoted jazz clubs are scarce. But the owners of a new club located in a threadbare West Baltimore commercial district are hoping to help rekindle the city's once-dynamic jazz legacy. "We think Baltimore can be a major city for jazz," said Errez Segman, co-owner of the forthcoming venue, Back Alley Jazz. "We want our club to be a household name for live jazz and fine dining, and we think Baltimore's the right city for that."

Men who are recovering from drug or alcohol abuse will be able to avoid being homeless as they try to reclaim their lives next year at a home to be built in Mount Holly.And many in the West Baltimore neighborhoods of Mount Holly, Greater Walbrook, Woodhaven and Windsor Hills are ready to welcome, rather than oppose, their new neighbors."We're fully behind this. There's such a desperate need for transitional housing for those recovering," said John B. Ferron Sr., member and past president of Woodhaven Community Association.

Franklin Lance knows his West Baltimore neighborhood can be great — located near to Druid Hill Park, it's home to the city's biggest shopping mall, a public university, and a network of active churches and community groups. But like so many areas of Baltimore, public safety looms large as an obstacle to growth. So he and his neighbors cheered Monday the announcement that the Greater Mondawmin area has been chosen by the city health department for an expansion of the violence mediation program Safe Streets.

A grass-roots idea to bridge the gaps among racially divided neighborhoods has blossomed into an annual block party in West Baltimore that drew hundreds Saturday to a triangular park in Upton. At the fifth annual Boundary Block Party, sponsored by a coalition of five of the city's central-western neighborhoods, children frolicked near a fountain, a wooden platform served as a stage for local musicians and choirs, and dozens of people lined up for free hot dogs and potato salad.

A West Baltimore housing complex will be the focus of a redevelopment plan funded by a federal revitalization grant as part of a local effort to combat decades of racial and economic segregation, officials announced Friday. Baltimore is one of 17 cities receiving Choice Neighborhood Initiative planning grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Working with urban design and planning firm Goody Clancy & Associates, Jubilee Baltimore Inc. will use the $213,000 and additional contributions from the city of Baltimore and nonprofits to create a redevelopment plan to reconnect Bolton Hill to western neighbors such as Madison Park, Druid Heights and Upton, said Charlie Duff, Jubilee's director.

The word is out and the anxiety is growing. In neighborhoods rich and poor, black and white, neat and messy Baltimoreans are keenly aware that a decades-old, twice-a-week rhythm of their lives is about to be disrupted. Soon the garbage trucks that pick up their trash will clatter down their streets just once a week. Oh, another truck will come a couple of days later, but it will only take recyclables, those mostly non-offending papers, boxes, bottles and cans - not the crab shells, baby diapers, cat litter, moldy bread and bruised spinach you don't want sitting around for the week in between pickups.

A Baltimore police sergeant who claimed he was never treated for post-traumatic stress disorder after he fatally shot a man in 2005 has settled a lawsuit against the city, in a deal that allows him to retire with his pension, according to court documents and his attorney. Under terms of the settlement, Richard A. Willard, 45, dropped the federal suit and a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; the Police Department canceled an administrative hearing that could have led to his termination.

Three separate violent acts left two men injured and one dead between Monday night and Tuesday morning in Baltimore, police said. The killing occurred in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore, at about 12:15 a.m. Police were called for a report of an unresponsive person in a home in the 600 block of N. Carey St., and found a 58-year-old man in a makeshift closet in a room where hypodermic needles and plastic bags were strewn around the...

Dr. Norman I. Zipper, a retired Baltimore optometrist active in the Jewish community, died of renal failure May 12 at his Pikesville home. He was 89. Born in East Baltimore and raised on South Ann Street, he was a 1940 City College graduate. As a young man, he worked at the Patterson Park swimming pool and was a 1943 graduate of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry in suburban Philadelphia. During World War II, he was a Maritime Service pharmacist's mate and was stationed on Catalina Island.

A man was fatally shot about 5 p.m. Wednesday in West Baltimore, according to police. Police responded to the 2000 block of Frederick Avenue and found a man suffering from gunshot wounds, according to Det. Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman. The man was transported to an unidentified area hospital, where he died, Monroe said. The location is about two blocks south of Bon Secours Hospital. Homicide detectives are investigating, Monroe said. No further details were immediately available.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for occasional showers and thunderstorms, with a high temperature near 73 degrees. Tonight is expected to bring showers, and possibly thunderstorms, with a low around 63 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM THE WEEKEND... Police report 4 shootings Sunday in Baltimore; at least 1 man killed : A 33-year-old man was shot and killed near the intersection of North Loudon Avenue and West Franklin Street at 4:42 p.m. Sunday, according to the Baltimore Police Department.

A grass-roots idea to bridge the gaps among racially divided neighborhoods has blossomed into an annual block party in West Baltimore that drew hundreds Saturday to a triangular park in Upton. At the fifth annual Boundary Block Party, sponsored by a coalition of five of the city's central-western neighborhoods, children frolicked near a fountain, a wooden platform served as a stage for local musicians and choirs, and dozens of people lined up for free hot dogs and potato salad.

At Tiffany Square in West Baltimore, the flowers were gone and the ground was barren yesterday.Little was there except a red sign to remind passers-by that the triangular island at Rosedale Street and Bloomingdale Road is dedicated to 6-year-old Tiffany Smith, killed nearby last July when she was caught in the middle of a gunbattle between two men.But around the corner, in a rowhouse in the 3000 block of West North Avenue, her family remembers and mourns.And...

A 23-year-old man died after being shot in North Baltimore, one of four people shot Saturday night in Baltimore. The latest violence came on the heels of a weekend that saw a man killed one block north of Patterson Park and a domestic murder-suicide in East Baltimore, as well as a double-shooting in West Baltimore in which the victims were expected to survive. Also, a police officer suffered minor injuries in a single-vehicle accident while responding to a call downtown. The fatal shooting victim, identified as Brian Anthony Taylor, was struck in the 6000 block of Marjorie Lane in the Chinquapin Park-Belvedere neighborhood near the Baltimore County line, according to police.

Forty-four years later, what sticks in Wes Unseld's mind is a reception he got on his arrival in Baltimore as the Bullets' top pick in the 1968 NBA draft. Welcoming, it was not. "I was watching TV in my room at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, and this sportscaster, Charley Eckman, came on. He was screaming and hollering that the Bullets were idiots for drafting a slow, 6-foot-7 center from Louisville," Unseld recalled. "Well, Charlie was wrong. I was 6-foot-6. " Then Unseld, the second player picked in the draft, stepped onto the basketball court and took the skeptics to task.

A 46-year-old man pleaded guilty on Friday and was sentenced 40 years prison for stabbing to death a 91-year-old woman during a break-in last year in Northeast Baltimore. Police had linked the suspect's DNA to under the victim's fingernails and to a cigarette butt discarded outside her front door. "The way we closed this case was right out of a scene from'CSI,'" city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said after detectives arrested the suspect in September, referring to the popular television series that focuses on solving crimes through high-tech forensic techniques The victim, Irene Logan, was found dead in her home in the 4700 block of Moravia Road on Aug. 3, 2011.