Sowers’ injuries were severe, doctor says

Neurologist disputes state’s attorney’s office description.

A neurologist who treated Zach Sowers following his brutal attack in a street robbery last summer has challenged statements by a high-ranking official in the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s office regarding Sowers’ medical condition.

Dr. Marek Mirski, director of the Neuroscience Critical Care Division and vice chairman of anesthesia and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, said in a July 7 letter to Margaret T. Burns, chief of communications and governmental affairs in the state’s attorney’s office, that Burns’ comments reported in the June issue of Exhibit A, contained “gross inaccuracies.”

In the article in the monthly news magazine on legal issues, Burns complained that the victim’s widow, Anna Sowers, refused to order an autopsy after her husband died from the injuries March 25. Prosecutors, Burns said, disputed some of Sowers’ injuries received suffered in the June 1, 2007, attack near Patterson Park.

Burns told Exhibit A in a May 8 interview: “The truth of the matter is, Zach’s injury was on one side of his face and he looked like a sleeping baby when he arrived” [at the hospital]. The injuries were not consistent with this horrible pummeling — it appeared that when he fell down, he collapsed after being hit. We know he was kicked, he fell and hit his head, he fell between two cars. He probably injured something in the fall or he had a pre-existing condition. There was no evidence of this vicious beating, no evidence of stomping.” ...

Zack Sowers was brutally beaten into a coma during a street robbery June 2 (2007) in Canton (an upwardly mobile and upscale section of Baltimore City) — and had remained in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state. Because of a plea deal cut with Baltimore City prosecutors before Zack’s death, the “teenagers” responsible for Sowers’ death will (and did) not face murder charges.

Margaret Burns is the spokeswoman for Baltimore City State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy. Her comments in a magazine called ‘Exhibit A’ appear to downplay the seriousness of Zach Sowers’ injuries.

Zack Sowers was brutally beaten (curb stomped, i.e. kicked in the head by multiple attackers repeatedly until unconscious and bloodied and presumably left for dead) in a robbery mere steps from his own home. The perpetrators (thugs) left him in the street to die and used his stolen credit cards the next day to purchase video games. The next insult to Zack and his wife Anna and his family and all the citizens of Baltimore came from the City Prosecutors Office of Patricia Jessamy when his “teenage” attackers were given plea bargains to much lesser charges even given the severity and brutality of their crime and prior records and were given immunity from facing murder charges even when Zack eventually died from his severe injuries as a result of this attack.

But perhaps the greatest injustice of all came recently when the spokesperson from Patricia Jessamy’s office, Margaret Burns gave an interview to “Exhibit A” magazine where she surmised that Zack Sowers’s injuries were not all that severe or life threatening (he was just like a “sleeping like a baby” when admitted to the hospital) and that his death might have been the result of some “pre-existing” condition and not as a result of the attack (curb stomping) to which even the perps testified to and admitted their guilt to in their plea bargins.

The attending doctors and nurses at Johns Hopkins who treated Zack have absolutely refuted Margaret Burns bizzare and unsubstantiated statements and stand behind Zack’s widow Anna in calling for a public apology and dismissal of Burns (neither of which have happened) and have vowed to stand behind and support Anna in any legal actions or law suit she may decide to take against the City Prosecutors Office.

I get all of you points but I think this case goes beyond the race of the victim. Around the same time that Zack was attacked: a white male American with an American wife of Asian descent, a similar attack happened to a young Black female at a Light Rail stop.

This young Black woman, on her way home from work, was attacked by two Black teenagers, one male and one female. It was a Black teenage female assailant who brutally stabbed another Black teenage female to death in order to get about $10 in cash and steal her cell phone. In this case, as in the Sower’s case, the perps got very light sentences given the severity and brutality of their crime.

While there is a racial component to some violent crimes in Baltimore and a lot of other major cities, it is more about the thugs attacking whatever “venerable” and “available victims” they can find and sadly the sorry excuse of a “justice” system we have now that just slaps the criminals on the wrist and or makes excuses for them while making the victims somehow at fault regardless of the victim’s race.

I’ve lived in Baltimore most of my life and I love this city and all its charms; its old ethnic Italian, Polish and Greek neighborhoods, diverse music scenes, museums and great ethic restaurants from Afghani to Ethiopian to Thai to old world German and Italian to uniquely Maryland style Crab Houses; Baltimore has a lot of cool stuff to offer. But none of its citizens are safe anymore.

I’ve known and am friends with many middle class and or upwardly mobile African Americans who have done the same as I’ve done and moved out of the city to somewhat safer suburbs and counties because of the crime along with high taxes in the city.

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