Free Republic

In an alley where a teenager became one of Baltimore’s latest bodies to fall, Erricka Bridgeford whispered prayers and directed smoke from burning sage in a gathering intended to transform spots where people are slain into a kind of sacred ground. The spiritually minded activist began to cry, letting her tears fall on asphalt where the 17-year-old boy she didn’t know was fatally shot the night before. She called out “You matter! You matter!” in a raw voice that came from somewhere deep inside her 5-foot-2 (155-centimeter) frame. Over the past year, the African-American woman from West Baltimore has become...

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said Wednesday that recent crime figures are “trending in the right direction,” hopeful of achieving a turnaround in a city where the number of homicides this year is nearing the all-time high set in 2015. The city of roughly 620,000 people has recorded more than 320 killings so far this year, nearing the record 344 slayings in all of 2015. In comparison, New York City, a city of some 8.5 million, is projected to have fewer than 300 homicides this year. At her weekly press briefing, Pugh said a new city initiative is chipping away at...

A Maryland special education teacher was arrested Tuesday, accused of dealing drugs at the same high school where she worked for 17 years. Monica Snee, 51, faces multiple heroin-related charges, including possession and distribution on school property, according to the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office. While officials believe she used the Parkside High School grounds to sell drugs, Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis said there isn’t evidence she dealt to students or teachers. During a press conference Wednesday, Lewis called Snee’s alleged crimes “the worst act of betrayal.” Lewis said deputies found 173 capsules of heroin, 340 oxycodone pills, several suboxone...

Calling violence in Baltimore "out of control," Mayor Catherine Pugh ordered 30 agency heads to meet every morning at police headquarters, and to make crime reduction the top mission not only of police, but also of health workers, housing officials and public works crews. The mayor ordered the directors of more than half of the city’s 55 departments to report to meetings daily at 8 a.m., when they will plan with Police Commissioner Kevin Davis where weeds should be cut, lead paint covered and drug houses boarded up and job applications can be handed out, among other tasks. [Snip] "Violence...

Baltimore’s mayor said Wednesday she will renew a push to add two civilians to police trial boards after a board of three officers ruled that a police van driver violated no policies when a black man was fatally injured inside his van. The death of Freddie Gray in 2015 a week after he was injured during a police van ride sparked riots and reform efforts in the state capital, but police union opposition has kept civilians off such panels in Baltimore, even as civilians join police in handling complaints in other cities. ”I do think it’s fair to have citizens...

A woman has been savagely assaulted by teenagers wielding bats and wooden planks, amid a rash of similar attacks in Baltimore on Halloween night. Baltimore officials say there were at least four similar attacks in the city's upscale Federal Hill neighborhood on Tuesday night, involving a group of around a dozen young males and females. Cops have not released any description of the suspects, except to say that some appeared as young as 13.  'I feel lucky to be alive. It could have been a lot worse,' the female victim who was beaten and robbed told WMTW.

Arizona Sen. John McCain took another swipe at Trump administration policy in a speech to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he slammed both isolationism and nationalism, ideas he said are ascendant within the President Trump’s White House. In the speech to the midshipmen in Annapolis, Maryland, on Monday, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman ripped into the Trump administration’s policies, although — taking a Voldemort-like approach that’s become habitual among anti-Trump conservatives — he never mentioned the president’s name. McCain contrasted the “hopeful atmosphere of 1991” after the fall of the Soviet Union with “the current circumstances of our world,”...

A Baltimore police officer involved in arresting a black man who later suffered a fatal injury during a police van ride testified at the driver’s disciplinary hearing Tuesday that the man did not show any signs he needed medical care when he was first put into the van. Officer Edward Nero testified at the hearing for Officer Caesar Goodson, the van driver who could be fired for violating department policies in the case. “He was not showing any signs of a medical emergency,” Nero, a certified emergency medical technician, said of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died about a week after...

A federal appeals court has found that a 40-foot-tall cross on a Maryland state highway median just outside Washington violates the U.S. Constitution. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in Richmond ruled Wednesday that the 92-year-old monument known as the Bladensburg cross amounts to government sponsorship of a particular religion. […] The American Humanist Association said it endorses Christianity while ignoring non-Christian veterans. …

Last Thursday, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan unveiled a $9 billion project to widen three of the state’s most heavily trafficked highways: I-270, I-495—also known as the Capital Beltway—and MD-295, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. What the governor’s office dubbed the Traffic Relief Plan involves constructing two express toll lanes each way—or four total toll lanes—to all three highways. Widening the Capital Beltway and the section of I-270 connecting the growing commuter-city of Frederick to Washington, D.C., would cost an estimated $7.6 billion, which the state expects to be financed via public-private partnerships: Private companies would build and maintain the new toll lanes,...

The Ravens faced a bit more scrutiny for their national anthem protest on Sunday in Baltimore. Last week, some Ravens took a knee and locked arms with while the anthem was played in London before a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Today, the team decided to go the Dallas Cowboys route a la "Monday Night Football." The team came out before the anthem and took a knee to a chorus of boos from fans at M&T Bank Stadium. Then the team stood for the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner."

Maryland is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to act on a petition requiring power plants in five upwind states to reduce pollution, the state’s attorney general and an official in Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration said Wednesday. The Hogan administration says 70 percent of Maryland’s ozone problem originates in upwind states. Maryland petitioned the EPA in November for a finding that 36 power plant units in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are emitting air pollution affecting Maryland in violation of the Clean Air Act’s “good neighbor provision.” In January, the EPA issued a six-month extension to...

Baltimore prosecutors say nearly 300 cases have been dropped due to four allegations of police misconduct, including three body camera videos appearing to show officers planting evidence or re-enacting searches, and a federal indictment of eight officers on racketeering and fraud charges. Deputy State’s Attorney Janice Bledsoe said Wednesday that a total of 278 cases have so far been dismissed, including 109 in response to the indictment, and another 169 related to officers involved in the three videos. The indictment accuses eight officers of racketeering in a scheme that included illegally detaining and robbing Baltimore residents and fraudulently filing for...

Opposition is beginning to build against a regional transportation group’s plan to study a second Potomac River crossing in Montgomery County. On Tuesday morning, Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner introduced a resolution that would formally put the council in opposition to the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board’s plan to study the feasibility of a bridge that would help connect Virginia Route 28 to the Intercounty Connector in the county. Supporters of the proposed bridge say the connecting route would help ease traffic on I-270 and the American Legion Bridge on the Beltway and provide better connectivity to Dulles...

Is fighting sprawl still a goal for those who decide the fate of transportation funding at the federal, state and local levels?Transportation planning is deeply connected to economic development, but there in any agreement about transportation funding among government leaders often ends.Parag Khanna, a senior public policy analyst in Singapore and author of “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization,” summarized the political divide over transportation planning like this: “America is increasingly divided not between red states and blue states, but between connected hubs and disconnected backwaters.”But division that stymies transportation planning goes further. Government leaders have always been divided...

A statue to Francis Scott Key, the writer of the Star Spangled Banner, was defaced overnight in downtown Baltimore, with someone painting “Racist Anthem” on the side of the Bolton Hill monument. Baltimore Police received a report of the vandalism at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. They are investigating, but have no suspects.

Sade Alvarez-Gibson, 15, raps into a studio microphone in a makeshift booth made of blankets, while Oladele Kiambu, 17, records: “Keeping my mind focused / I’m controlling my reality / My grind’s an everyday thing / It’s something that I do casually,” she raps. Just feet away, Kamal Muhammad — wearing headphones and a face full of determination — sits in front of a computer monitor, rhythmically tapping on a keyboard, eliciting sounds of a synth and a drum kick. “This is my first time making a beat,” the 12-year-old said proudly. All three are hoping to break into the...

Officials in College Park are weighing a plan that would make their city the largest in Maryland to give undocumented immigrants a right to vote in local elections, a long-standing practice elsewhere in the state that has drawn new scrutiny amid the simmering national debate over immigration...

There's much more to Charm City than what you've seen on The Wire. Even as racial tensions make headlines in this famously blue-collar town on the Chesapeake, slick waterfront projects and farm-to-table dining have arrived along with a new, younger generation of residents set on building the place they want to live in. One native Marylander travels to the city he first knew as a kid to meet the doers and dreamers driving Baltimore's next act.

April 19, 2017 Will Save Drivers up to 30 Minutes on Morning CommuteANNAPOLIS, MD – Governor Larry Hogan today announced advancement of the state’s $100 million I-270 Innovative Congestion Management Project, which will save drivers up to 30 minutes on their morning commute southbound from Frederick to I-495. The winning design-build team, comprised of 16 firms, was selected following a competitive bidding process to deliver a modern adaptable highway by creating an automated smart traffic system that will move the most vehicles fastest and farthest on I-270 between I-70 and I-495. The governor was joined by Montgomery County Executive Isiah...