Showing posts with label Baltimore City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baltimore City. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Raising Money To Keep Poe's Baltimore Home OPEN

A quartet of Washington-area bands is planning an Oct. 7 concert to benefit Baltimore's beleaguered Poe House.

The concert, set for the 162nd anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's death, will feature the bands Lenorable, Nunchucks, Dance for the Dying and Lions & Tigers & Whales. It is being by organized by Washington-area fans of the famed poet and master of suspense.

"When I heard about the funding problems at the Poe House, I immediately went into action mode," said Kai Hsieh, one of the concert's organizers, who describes herself as a frequent visitor to the house. On a recent drive through Baltimore, she and a friend noted the many Poe influences scattered around the city — including the NFL football team named for one of his poems — "and we certainly don't want the Poe House closed down, especially with all Poe has influenced," Hsieh said.

The Poe House and Museum, in which Poe lived for several years with his aunt and in which he met his young cousin and future wife, Virginia, has had its city funding cut and could close next year if an alternate source of money is not found. Baltimore City recently approved a study to look at ways of turning the house into a self-sustaining museum and cultural institution.

Poe died in 1849 after being found wandering the streets of Baltimore, disheveled and wearing someone else's clothes.

The concert takes place at Washington's Velvet Lounge, 915 U St. NW. Tickets are $8, with the music set to begin at 9:30 p.m. Information: www.velvetloungedc.com

Source;  http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/music/bs-ae-poe-benefit-20110920,0,5963838.story

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Churches Come Together For Gun Buyback

At a recent Pocomoke City citizens meeting the Police Chief scoffed at having any type of gun buypack arrangements for the town. And I know that Baltimore is much larger, crime is through the roof there but come on..........Do you really want to wait until crime is WORSE in Pocomoke to try to do anything?

OH, I bet you would be surprised at what some may find in their yards when a weekend is over. And you know what? I just bet there might be a gun or two in that city. Maybe the best thing to do is give it a try........or is it that you don't want to attempt it because it costs money?

Two churches took 42 working firearms off the street Saturday during a gun buyback sponsored by The Catholic Review newspaper in hopes of curbing violence in the city.

"Any weapons we get off the street is a good thing in this time, in this neighborhood," said the Rev. Peter Lyons of St. Wenceslaus Church in the Middle East neighborhood of Baltimore. Violence in the community just east of Johns Hopkins Hospital, he said, erupts "every weekend it seems."

At St. Gregory the Great Church on North Gilmor Street in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood, the Rev. Damien Nalepa said 26 guns were collected, "the second-highest" take among the half-dozen or so buybacks the parish has held.

For four hours, the churches accepted automatic and semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles for $100 and any other working gun for $50. Church officials hoped more people would come forward in the coming days.

Those who participated were not asked any questions. The firearms are handed over to police, who check serial numbers against those of weapons that have been used in crimes. Then the guns are destroyed.

"Some people thought they weren't loaded, but in two cases, they were," Lyons said. He hoped the possibility of cash for the holidays would entice people to turn in guns, and said his church would likely hold another such event in the future.

To promote the buyback, fliers were distributed at nearby community centers, including the Oliver Recreation Center and Safe Streets locations. The Safe Streets organization, funded by the city, aims to mediate disputes before they turn violent in troubled neighborhoods.

Gun buybacks have been debated in Baltimore at least since 1974, when Mayor William Donald Schaefer called such programs "innovative."

In 2000, Mayor Martin O'Malley questioned whether such measures were effective, saying the initiatives tended to collect "a lot of garbage guns."

But five years later, the city spent $100,000 on a buyback program.

"If we can save one life or spare one child from being harmed by playing with a gun, then it's worth the effort," O'Malley said at the time.

Since then, several churches have organized buyback initiatives.

www.baltimoresun.com

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Tow Truck Drivers Hold Vigil

Horns blaring and yellow lights flashing and twirling, a caravan of tow trucks from a dozen companies filled the 500 block of Mosher St. in West Baltimore Sunday night, the same block where 23-year-old Andy Joyce was shot to death two weeks ago while making a service call that his boss says would have netted the young driver $15.

It was part trucker rally, part vigil, an effort to return public attention to a senseless tragedy and to help police identify a suspect in the unsolved murder.

By 9 p.m., about 40 white trucks and red trucks from Quick Response, Greenwood, Universal, Frankford, Ted's, GRI, MEI, Mc-N-Mc, Mel's, AAA, Cherry Hill and Auto Barn towing companies were parked on both sides of Mosher Street. A 75-ton truck from Auto Barn filled the middle of the block and raised a crane adorned with a U.S. flag awash in flood lights.
Andy Joyce had worked only a few weeks for Gordon Kelly's Quick Response towing company when someone shot him once at close range, killing him instantly in the cab of his truck at the corner of Mosher Street and Druid Hill Avenue. The gunman took nothing — not Joyce's wallet, nor the two cell phones in the truck, nor its global positioning device. "I'd never had a driver assaulted," said Kelly, who organized Sunday's event. "To the best of my knowledge, I don't know of a tow truck driver ever being murdered in the city, or even assaulted. And what makes this so unique was that Andy was out on a friendly call, trying to help somebody. This wasn't an impoundment; it wasn't a repossession. This was a motor club call for help. Andy didn't want to do repos or impounds. He didn't want confrontations with people."

Andy Joyce answered a service call on Mosher Street, in an area with many abandoned rowhouses, about 12:30 a.m. Nov. 1. The owner of the disabled vehicle — a woman with a small child — gave Joyce the keys to her car and got a ride home, police told Kelly. More than an hour later, a passerby noticed the Quick Response truck's driver-side door open and the driver slumped against the steering wheel.

Joyce, the father of a 7-month-old boy, was pronounced dead at the scene. Baltimore police said they found his truck with its bed down, ready to load the disabled vehicle. "Andy had activated the bed of the truck and he had pulled cables back, but he had not attached them to the car," Kelly said. "Something made him leave the cables and go back inside the truck."

Kelly told the crowd of mostly drivers and family members Sunday that Joyce would have received $15 out of the $50 his company charged for the call.

No arrests have been made in the killing, which is why Kelly decided to organize Sunday night's vigil — to draw attention to the $5,000 reward offered for information leading to the arrest of a suspect.

"Collectively, as a society, we have to do something to stop all this violence," said Andy Joyce's father, Mike Joyce, a Verizon manager. "And the other thing is, Andy was just performing a service. He was a service guy, like so many others out here — like the BGE workers, like the mailmen, the trash collectors — like so many people out here. They are neutral entities, just performing a service for others. [The vigil] is a way of saying, 'Look what you've done to someone who was performing a service in the community.' "
www.baltimoreson.com

Friday, October 1, 2010

Man Commits Suicide During Arrest

WESTOVER — A man who was wanted by three police agencies on drug possession and credit card theft shot and killed himself Friday morning as Somerset County deputies tried to take him into custody.

Deputies arrived at the home of Ronald John Melcher, 60, of Marumsco Road, Marion, around 8:30 a.m. and saw Melcher exit the front door and walk toward a vehicle in the driveway, according to Maryland State Police.

Melcher refused to obey the deputy’s verbal commands to stop and he continued toward the vehicle, all the while yelling that he was not going back to jail, police said.

Deputies then used a Tazer on Melcher, who fell into the passenger compartment of the vehicle.

As the deputies attempted to take Melcher into custody, they saw him pull a .38-caliber revolver from within vehicle.

A deputy ordered Melcher to put the gun down, but he shot himself in the head and was killed instantly.

None of the Sheriff’s Office personnel at the scene were injured.

Melcher was wanted by Maryland State Police in Salisbury for drug possession, Baltimore City for drug possession and Virginia State Police for credit card theft charges.

He was also a suspect in a criminal investigation being conducted by the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office.

The state police Princess Anne barrack, along with MSP homicide unit, crime scene and IAU personnel, were asked by the sheriff’s office to investigate the case which is continuing.

www.delmarvanow.com

Friday, September 17, 2010

Police Say Son Was Upset Over His Mother's Care

Paul Warren Pardus spent restless nights with his ailing mother at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and when he believed doctors had failed her, the 50-year-old shot her physician before killing his mother and himself.

Pardus was a fixture in the room since last week, after his 84-year-old mother, Jean Davis, was brought there for surgery related to cancer treatment. While speaking to Dr. David B. Cohen around 11 a.m., Pardus pulled a semiautomatic handgun from his waistband, shot Cohen in the abdomen and ran into her hospital room.

Cohen was rushed into surgery but is expected to recover. For three hours after the shooting, police treated the situation as a standoff, in which some parts of the sprawling East Baltimore campus were locked down and others were evacuated. Snipers took to the roofs, as people in surrounding buildings were ordered to stay away from windows and to draw the blinds. Images from the scene were relayed live over international television.

In the end, investigators believe Pardus and Davis were dead the whole time. After sending in a robot with a camera, they discovered the bodies — the bedridden Davis with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, Pardus on the floor, shot through the mouth.

Several Hopkins personnel, some who worked on the eighth floor of the Nelson building, said that Pardus blamed Cohen for paralyzing his mother during surgery. According to one witness who spoke with detectives, he yelled, "You ruined my mother."

"He thought it was [the doctor's] fault, but it wasn't," said a nurse, who did not want to give his name because staff members at the hospital were discouraged from discussing the incident with news media.

Pardus was a single man whose mother had moved into his tiny home in Arlington, Va., about three miles west of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Neighbors said he was a driver for a service for disabled people, but his first obligation was to his beloved mother.

"He was a very kind-hearted man, as far as we could see," said neighbor Teresa Green, 44. "The love he had for his mother showed."

Records show he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Virginia, and he did not appear to have a criminal record beyond traffic violations. In 1998, he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and a website lists him as the holder of a copyright for a screenplay and lyrics to a song called "I Love the Lord." Pardus had identified himself to hospital staff as Warren Davis, his middle name and mother's last name.

Vanessa Allen, who lived across the street from Pardus, said she didn't know him well but also saw him often with his mother.

"I always admired him, how he took care of her. That's why I was so shocked when I found out it was him," Allen said. "I can't believe he would shoot his own mother."

Thursday's shooting brought activity at some parts of the busy Hopkins hospital to a standstill. By midafternoon, floors of the Nelson building had been evacuated and the police perimeter around the hospital had extended several blocks. Police were shuffling groups of people away — some police officers even pushed patients in wheelchairs away from the scene themselves — and employees were visibly shaken and calling family members as they hurried away from the hospital.

Michelle Burrell, who works at a coffee bar in the hospital lobby, said she sent text message to a friend in a room on the eighth floor of the Nelson building shortly after the shooting. She and others had locked themselves in.

"She just let me know she was safe, and that's all I was worried about," Burrell said. She said the scene in the lobby of the hospital was chaotic, with people running for cover, locking themselves in rooms.

Jacqueline Billy, a nurse who works in respiratory care, was on the seventh floor and got in an elevator that took her up to the eighth. She was greeted by police, guns drawn, who ordered her to shut the door.

"I was petrified — the door opened and there are a bunch of guns. You never expect that," she said.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said that tactical teams, which included the Baltimore city police and SWAT teams, the FBI, and Baltimore County SWAT teams, were called in, and had set up a command center within 45 minutes after the incident.

"By all evaluations, everything worked as designed," Bealefeld said.

In the School of Nursing across the street, students sat in a computer room and study lounge, speaking in hushed tones about the scene unfolding across the street.

A group of students, peering through the blinds, noted that large X's had been placed in several windows, presumably to note rooms that were clear. One girl read aloud a text message that said the doctor had died, information that would prove to be incorrect.

Amy Wilson, wearing purple hospital scrubs, sat on the floor of the nursing school's main lobby, beneath a flat screen TV notifying students of a "shooting incident" and instructing them to stay tuned for updates. A member of the support staff in the intensive-care unit, Wilson said staff members often have to call security or police when fights break out among family or others visiting the hospital, but she had never heard of such an attack on a medical professional.

"It's a scary reality" of working at a big institution, said Ashley Salamone, also a nurse in the intensive-care unit.

Cohen was continuing to receive treatment Thursday night. Those who work with him said he was a well-liked and respected orthopedic surgeon who has worked at the hospital for more than a dozen years and was known for performing magic tricks. They said he is a Hunt Valley resident and a father of two whose wife is a nurse at Hopkins.

Ashley Davis, an emergency room employee, said that she saw Cohen as he was rushed off to surgery. "By the time I saw him, he was on a stretcher and people were all around him," Davis said, adding that she didn't see any blood and that Cohen appeared to be conscious. When asked to describe the scene in the emergency room, she just said, "It was frightening."

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake commended the rapid response of law enforcement officials, saying that she was "very troubled by the incident" but that "the safety and security of Johns Hopkins employees was paramount throughout this whole incident."

"Hopkins is the best medical institution in the world, and this incident, as tragic as it is, is not going to change that," Rawlings-Blake said.

Although Hopkins has long made safety a priority at its medical campus in East Baltimore, located in one of the city's most dangerous areas, the hospital does not require patients or visitors to pass through metal detectors. An exception is the Emergency Department, where guards conduct searches and wave a metal-detecting wand over visitors.

Metal detectors are rare in American hospitals, and security experts say they are generally not feasible or desirable.

"We're trying to strike a balance to make our institutions warm, open and inviting, and at the same time protecting everybody who comes through," said Joseph Bellino, president of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety, a professional organization based in Illinois.

"Most of the time we do a very, very good job," he said. "Every now and then we get these events that are anomalies."

Police are not sure when Pardus shot himself and his mother. Anthony Guglielmi, the department's chief spokesman, said there were no witnesses who heard the gunshots. After he was shot, Cohen collapsed outside the doorway, and the shooter barricaded himself and his mother in the room.

"He was last seen running into the room, brandishing the handgun in the direction of his mother, who was confined to the bed," said Bealefeld.

He said police had not communicated with Pardus at any point, and investigators believe the shooting was swift. About 2 p.m., the robot camera showed the bodies, at which point police communicated, "Subject shot." That led a spokesman to initially tell reporters that police had shot Pardus, which was later corrected.

It was not clear just how grim the news delivered by Cohen was, but Pardus apparently decided a quick death was the only resolution. Investigators believe he shot his mother in the back of the head so she would not see it coming — one officer suggested that it was a "mercy killing."

"It was sad," said one official who viewed the scene.
www.baltimoresun.com

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Veteran's Affairs To Open Medical Annex

The VA Maryland Health Care System will open an annex next spring in the former world headquarters of Catholic Relief Services in Baltimore to help keep up with an increase in its patient population, fueled largely by a new generation of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Health system officials said the eight-level building on West Fayette Street in downtown Baltimore will be renovated starting later this summer or early fall and will contain a mix of outpatient services for veterans and administrative offices for the health system.

The project, less than four blocks east of the Baltimore VA Medical Center on North Greene Street, marks the center's first expansion since it opened in 1993 and is intended to help alleviate a space shortage there. It will bring about 250 VA employees to the Fayette Street property.
"We are decompressing our overcrowded facility on Greene Street so we can provide proper care for our patients," said Regina Litvin, a space planner for the health system.

The Fayette Street property has been vacant since Catholic Relief Services moved to the former Stewart's department store at Howard and Lexington streets in 2007. The health system, an affiliate of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, intends to lease the bulk of the building for five years, rather than purchase it.

Besides the 137-bed medical center on downtown Baltimore's west side, the health system has inpatient facilities at the Loch Raven VA Community Living and Rehabilitation Center on Loch Raven Boulevard in Baltimore and the Perry Point VA Medical Center in Cecil County.

The downtown center, which employs about 1,780 people, is the busiest facility in the Maryland system. From October 2009 through June 2010, the downtown center admitted 4,636 inpatients and had 312,343 outpatient visits. By contrast, the Perry Point center admitted 758 inpatients and had 93,884 outpatient visits during the same nine-month period, officials said.

Since 2001, 2.1 million service members have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense. Of those, 40,000 have been wounded in combat. And according to a study by the RAND Corp., a think tank, nearly one in five of them may be returning home with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Representatives say the health system needs additional space close to its Greene Street medical center to serve its growing patient population, including veterans returning from recent wars and older veterans with ailments.

They say the health system also wants to accommodate advances in medical technology, support research, and to provide more outpatient services and clinics as well as specialized services, such as those for women.

The health system sought proposals more than a year ago from developers who could lease space close to both the downtown medical center and the University of Maryland Medical System and selected a proposal from 209 West Fayette LLC, a business group that had purchased the Fayette Street building from Catholic Relief Services.

The project almost unraveled earlier this year when the business group faced the prospect of losing the building to foreclosure after defaulting on a loan from PeoplesBank of York, Pa. An auction of the building was canceled at the last minute to give both parties more time to work out a way to accommodate the health system.

The project was revived this summer after 209 West Fayette LLC surrendered the property to PeoplesBank and the bank formed a subsidiary to hold the building and serve as a landlord to the health system. The bank's subsidiary hired a development company to oversee a $2.5 million renovation and is leasing the property to the health system.

The lease calls for the health system to occupy 56,000 of the building's 70,000 square feet of space. It will also get 100 parking spaces in a nearby garage. The health system plans to begin a second round of renovations and "tenant fit-out" work after it takes possession of the building in early 2011.

About half of the leased space will be dedicated to clinics for outpatient services such as rehabilitation therapy. The rest will be for administrative departments, including human resources. The renovated building is expected to be ready for occupancy by late March of 2011, several months behind the previous schedule.

"There's been a little bit of a delay, but otherwise it looks like it's going to turn out pretty well," said George Szwarcman, director of real property services for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Harry Swift, general counsel for PeoplesBank, said the bank doesn't typically hold and renovate investment properties, but this arrangement was the best way to keep the project moving ahead.

"We're a bank," Swift said. "It's not our general business to renovate an eight-story building in downtown Baltimore, but at this particular time it was an opportunity that presented itself … and we took it."
www.baltimoresun.com

Friday, August 20, 2010

Police Investigating Attacks On Bicyclists In Charles Village

Baltimore MD The city's bicycle and pedestrian planner wants a "bike boulevard" to run up Guilford Avenue through Charles Village, an area already filled with commuters using pedal power. But a series of attacks on cyclists and several bike-jackings are creating concern.

Police had arrested three people in two bike robberies this month and thought they had a handle on the situation until three young men pushed Michael Byrne off his Blue Falcon bike Wednesday night at North Charles and 20th streets.

Police said one of the men rode the bike away, and a new search for suspects has commenced.

"We knew the arrests couldn't completely quell the problem," said Maj. Ross Buzzuro, the commander of the Northern District. "We have increased deployment."

The attacks — which include several instances of harassment and rock-throwing, many that were not reported to police — generated discussion on Facebook among bike commuters and the city's pedestrian planner, Nate Evans.

Evans said in an interview that he has picked up on "a pattern of attacks on cyclists" in recent weeks in blocks bordered by North and Guilford avenues and Charles and 25th streets. He's heard many of the stories at meetings as he plans a bike route on Guilford.

"It sounds like in a couple of the attacks, the victims were overcome by a number of assailants," he said. Most occurred on the evening commute, between 5:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.

The area essentially divides neighborhoods north of downtown and upper Charles Village, and is almost unavoidable for anyone commuting from downtown to points north. It's six blocks south from where Johns Hopkins researcher Stephen Pitcairn was robbed and fatally stabbed last month as he walked home from the train station.

"That area of Lower Charles Village has always been a dangerous area to ride around in at night," said one bicyclist who didn't want his name used. He was a victim two years ago at nearly the same spot where Byrne was attacked. "It's very dark and just kind of a no-man's land," the young man said.

"Unfortunately, it's not like a lot of people can avoid these routes," said Evans, who when designing bike routes charts potholes, road conditions, congestion and crime.

He noted that Guilford and Charles "are some of the safest streets going through that area" and he recommended that "if you see someone coming after you, if you have to go through a red light or a stop sign to avoid being attacked, then keeping safe needs to be the priority."

Byrne said he was riding home to Charles Village from work as music editor for the City Paper and was going "at a pretty good clip" when three kids stepped off a corner and knocked him down. "It was like a combination of getting punched and tackled," the 30-year-old said.

He said one youngster "screamed at me not to get up and somebody else took off on the bike." He said he suffered a bruised rib but otherwise wasn't hurt. He said the bike is old and might be worth $300 or $400.

Police said the description of the attackers is vague. Byrne said he regularly commutes through the area and that he's never before been attacked there. "I don't think it's a bad area," he said of the heavily trafficked streets. "It's not a place where [you] think, 'Oh, something bad is going to happen here.'"
www.baltimoresun.com