Baltimore

City To Study Use Of Fentanyl-Detecting Test Strips By Distributing Them In Exchange Vans

August 25, 2018 By Ethan McLeod, Baltimorefishbowl.com Create! Baltimore, Drugs, health

In its ongoing fight against a fentanyl-fueled surge in drug overdoses, the Baltimore City Health Department plans to study the efficacy of test strips that detect the potent synthetic substance in street-purchased drugs by handing kits out at mobile syringe and needle exchanges. The study will evaluate the outcomes of BTNX Rapid Response Urine Test strips “as a harm reduction strategy to reduce the negative consequences associated with drug use,” according to city spending board documents from this week. Health care providers, researchers, advocates and users are increasingly looking to BTNX strips–traditionally a tool for employers to detect drug use among recruits and workers– to test for the presence of fentanyl in street-bought drugs. Instead of dipping the strip into someone’s urine, one can dissolve some of the illicit drugs into water and use the test to determine whether or not it contains fentanyl.

“No More Racist Bosses”: Why Workers At A Suburban Target Store Are Protesting

July 9, 2018 Bruce Vail, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Baltimore, Class Struggle, Protests, Racism, Workers

A small group of workers at retailer Target Corporation is demanding accountability from local store managers in the Baltimore area, highlighting issues of discrimination and fair scheduling that affect retail workers nationwide. The workers at the Target outlet in suburban Cockeysville staged a demonstration this week, gathering support from the local labor rights community to demand that some managers be fired for allegedly racist and sexist behavior, and that the company address fair scheduling issues. Led by Target employees Erica Feldenzer and Sarah Shifflet, the group issued its demands July 3 as it gathered just inside the entrance to the store, and then led a walkout and picket that attracted unusual police attention.

After Latest Water Rate Hike, A Call To Pugh And Young For Help

July 3, 2018 By Fern Shen, Baltimorebrew.com Resist! Baltimore, Utilities, Water

A City Council bill to give poor residents a break on fast-rising water rates – promised a year ago by President Jack Young – is yet to be drafted As Baltimore water bills rose for the third year in a row, jumping nearly 10% yesterday, advocates for water customers again asked city officials to give poor residents some relief. Last summer they made the same plea for income-based billing legislation – and thought they were being heard. Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young promised then to work with advocates on a measure that would limit rates for poor customers. But after a couple of months, those talks petered out and no bill has been introduced. “Since January, there’s been no movement,” said Molly Amster, of Jews United for Justice. A news conference held under a blasting-hot July sun in front of City Hall today drew about 25 activists and water customers.

Stopping One Incinerator Wasn’t Enough For Baltimore Students

June 25, 2018 Emily Nonko, Nextcity.org Create! Baltimore, Energy, Students

In 2010, the city of Baltimore approved a plan to build the Fairfield Renewable Energy Project, a trash incinerator that would have been the largest of its kind in the nation. Its developer, Energy Answers International, planned to spend nearly $1 billion to build a plant to burn municipal waste, tire chips, auto parts and demolition debris for fuel. By law, the incinerator could emit up to 240 pounds of mercury and 1,000 pounds of lead into the air per year. The project was never completed. And today, the student-led effort that stopped what could have been has evolved into a new opportunity for more students to learn how they can use science to advocate for and improve their community. The Baltimore neighborhoods of Curtis Bay and Brooklyn are separated from downtown by the Patapsco River.

Call To Disband Baltimore Police Department In Wake Of Abuses

May 20, 2018 Lawrence Brown, Baltimore Beat. Create! Baltimore, Corruption, Police Abolition, Police abuse

After the DOJ report, the Baltimore Police Department did not fundamentally change. They continued to have a “War Room” and were found to have engaged in secret aerial surveillance, facial scanning, and using Geofeedia and Zerofox to track activists on social media. They have secretly deployed a device called Stingray to capture all cell phone signals in an area effectively criminalizing entire communities, especially disinvested, redlined Black neighborhoods. Hence, the Baltimore Police Department is fundamentally a white supremacist organization that hurts Black Lives.

New Hopkins Hotel Gets Biggest Slice Of Neighborhood Grant Pie

February 1, 2018 Mark Reutter, Baltimorebrew.com Educate! Baltimore, Development, Gentrification, Uneven Development

With today’s approval of a resolution of support by the mayor and the Board of Estimates, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development will release another $800,000 of BRNI funds for the Marriott Residence Inn, a hotel that caters to patients and their families at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center. This money will supplement the $1.4 million the project was already awarded under the same program. The Baltimore Regional Neighborhoods Initiative was established by the legislature to provide strategic investments that lead to “healthy, sustainable communities” in Baltimore City and inner-Beltway communities. Traditionally, the funds have been divided into small parcels ($50,000 to $150,000) for local greening projects, business facade improvements, urban farming, homeownership incentives, trash removal, alley gating and public art.

Baltimore Cops Kept Toy Guns To Plant On Their Shooting Victims

February 1, 2018 By Michael Harriot, Mintpressnews.com Educate! Baltimore, Guns, Police Brutrality

In April 2016, a 13-year-old boy was shot by officers of the Baltimore Police Department. The boy ran when faced with the police, so they gave chase. During the chase, the police spotted the boy holding a gun, and when he turned, they shot the teenager. The youngster wasn’t critically injured, and it seemed like an open-and-shut case of a justifiable use of force. Now people are wondering. The Baltimore Police Department is currently in court over one of the biggest scandals in the history of American law enforcement. The corruption case is replete with intrigue as police reveal secrets that sound like something out of an urban-fiction novel or a lost season of The Wire. It has revealed how one of America’s largest cities just happened to be filled with crooked cops, but no one seems to be talking about it outside of Baltimore.

Baltimore’s Teachers Fight to Democratize City’s Schools

January 14, 2018 Ryan Harvey, In These Times. Resist! Baltimore, Education, Teachers, Unions

When a photograph of bundled-up students in a frigid Baltimore classroom recently spread on social media—with temperatures in schools as low as the mid-30s—the city became a focal point of public attention. But two organizations of Baltimore teachers say such situations, far from isolated, are the latest examples of why educators are pushing to radically democratize the city’s school system “It wasn’t until we started sharing pictures in our classrooms showing 30 and 40-degree temperatures and speaking out together in a unified way that it got anyone’s attention.”

Baltimore’s Water Cleanup Infrastructure Becomes Public Sensation

January 12, 2018 Alastar Boone, Citylab.com Organize! Baltimore, Infrastructure, Water Pollution

When John Kellett invented the Inner Harbor Wheel to collect trash from Baltimore’s popular waterway, he never imagined it would have eyeballs. Or a Twitter account. But these features have made the trash collection contraption—commonly known as Mr. Trash Wheel—beloved by many Baltimore residents, and helped the Healthy Harbor Initiative come alive. “Ever since we installed the googly eyes on Mr. Trash Wheel, the awareness and excitement around this whole idea of cleaning up the harbor has exploded,” Casey Merbler, a project manager of the Healthy Harbor Initiative, said in a new video produced by the Van Alen Institute in collaboration with CityLab. Indeed, Mr. Trash Wheel has almost 15 thousand followers on Twitter. And his fame is well deserved.

Baltimore’s Apartheid Schools: Students Forced To Sit In 40 Degree Classrooms

January 7, 2018 By Thandisizwe Chimurenga, MintPress News Educate! Baltimore, Education, Public schools

Baltimore, MD - Usually people – especially children – look forward to snowy days. In addition to building snow creatures and throwing snowballs, it sometimes means no school. Usually. But not in Baltimore; in Baltimore, during one of the coldest winter storms on record, children were in school. They were shivering, wearing coats, hats and gloves, in classrooms that reached highs of 40 degrees. Only after being lambasted by both parents and a teachers union did officials send the children home. According to a school spokesperson, outdoor temperatures of 20 degrees and lower put a strain on an already-taxed school heating system.

How Baltimore Prosecutors Pursued A Police Shooting Victim

December 13, 2017 Brandon Soderberg, injusticetoday.com Educate! Baltimore, Police, police brutality

“Victory,” the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office tweeted in October after Keith Davis Jr. was found guilty of second-degree murder. Keith’s wife Kelly and members of the activist group Baltimore Bloc who have been advocating for Davis for years called attention to the language: the SAO, headed by celebrated, purportedly progressive prosecutor Marilyn Mosby, best known for indicting the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, declared “Victory” instead of invoking “Justice.” It was evidence that, in Kelly Davis’ words, Mosby and the SAO have “a vendetta” against her husband. Keith Davis Jr.’s story begins on June 7, 2015, when he was shot by the Baltimore Police three times near the Park Heights neighborhood in West Baltimore.

Lawyers For Keith Davis Jr. File Motion For New Trial

December 1, 2017 Brandon Soderberg Baynard Woods, baltimorebeat.com Resist! Baltimore, police brutality, Racism

By Brandon Soderberg Baynard Woods for Baltimore Beat - Lawyers for Keith Davis Jr., a man shot by Baltimore Police in 2015 and subsequently charged with and eventually convicted of the murder of Kevin Jones near Pimlico Race Track, have filed a motion for a new trial challenging the reliability of the prosecution’s star witness, David Gutierrez, and how the State’s Attorney presented, as the motion says, “a member of the notorious Texas Syndicate prison gang,” to the jury. Among the claims are the the prosecution mischaracterized Gutierrez’s criminal background by presenting him as a “nonviolent, sympathetic” drug dealer (rather than someone who helped set someone on fire, among other violent crimes listed), that the state essentially hindered discovery, and that Gutierrez perjured himself, and that the state knew he did it. The state’s case relied almost entirely on Gutierrez’s testimony. “Once the verdict was rendered, we were not given adequate time to vet Gutierrez to know who he was, defense was not given time to do that, so afterwards, after this unfortunate and unjust verdict was rendered we were able to do research and we found that David Gutierrez is a federal inmate serving 25 years for RICO acts as well as murders,” Kelly Davis, Keith Davis’ wife told The Real News in front Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse last month wearing a “FREE KEITH DAVIS” t-shirt. “He was an enforcer for the Mexican cartel and a part of the Texas Syndicate Gang—it is a very dangerous, cruel gang that is within prisons in California and Texas.”

Neighborhood Lockdown After Officer’s Shooting Is Troubling

November 20, 2017 Fern Shen, baltimorebrew.com Educate! Baltimore, Police, Police State

By Fern Shen for Baltimore Brew - Two women walking down Franklin Street to get to their cars, parked blocks away because of the lockdown, complained that they had been harassed by officers. “They know I live here. They’ve seen me come and go. But this one had to pat me down. He [the officer] went like this to my jacket, grabbing it,” said Shelly, 25, who asked that her last name not be used. “They wanted to know where I had been. Why do I have to tell him that? It’s just me in my flip-flops trying to go to my own home.” “We haven’t been able to get our mail for four days,” said the woman with her, Samantha, 50, who also asked not be identified. “Is the city going to pay the late fees on my bills?” “It’s so sad what happened to the officer and I hope they catch whoever did it,” another woman said. “But this is really overboard. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Turned into “Open-Air Prison” Police initially said they needed to cordon off the area to try to capture the shooter. Police have said Suiter was in the 900 block of Bennett Place, investigating a previous homicide, when he was shot on Wednesday. So far, no arrests have been announced in the case. This morning, homicide detective Mike Newton told The Brew that the lockdown was necessary to collect evidence. “It’s basically still an active crime scene,” said Newton, who carried a stack of informational fliers advertising a $215,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

How Ceasefire Has Changed This Organizer And Baltimore

November 19, 2017 Lisa Snowden-McCray, www.baltimorebeat.com Organize! Baltimore, Community, Homicide, Police abuse

By Lisa Snowden-McCray for Baltimore Beat. Baltimore, MD - Just a few days after the second 72-hour Baltimore Ceasefire weekend, which ran from Nov. 3-5, Erricka Bridgeford and I are sitting in her car in her old Rosemont neighborhood escaping the cold and rain. She has a bit of a cough and she’s just off a speaking engagement at the Community College of Baltimore County’s Essex campus, but Bridgeford has gamely agreed to take a few moments to share her thoughts about the second ceasefire, meant to pause the violence in the city and connect with and create community.

Lawsuit Against Baltimore Police For Actions During #AFROMATION Protest

November 15, 2017 Shannon Wallace, telesurtv.net Resist! Baltimore, Lawsuit, Protests

By Shannon Wallace for City Paper - Nine Baltimore activists have filed a class action lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department and the state of Maryland related to last year's #AFROMATION protest during Artscape. That day, July 16, 2016, 65 protesters were arrested, including a City Paper photo intern, Courtney Hawkins, when the large march, dubbed #AFROMATION, began at Guilford Avenue and Chase Street, moved through Artscape, and then onto I-83. As City Paper reported last year, the group "proceeded onto the highway, locking arms and briefly blocking traffic as they formed a line stretching across one side of the interstate. Police asked the group to move for an ambulance and protesters obliged, moving to the shoulder, only to see two police vans pull up. There was no ambulance. Police then told the group to move off of I-83, and then they were arrested. Some activists said they were essentially 'trapped' on the ramp and, while not involved in blocking traffic, they were not allowed to retreat once arrests began. Fifty-five adults and 10 teenagers were arrested." While protest has hardly stopped since the Baltimore Uprising, #AFROMATION, co-organized by Makayla Gilliam-Price, alumna of City College's activist group City Bloc, Baltimore Bloc, Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ) Baltimore, and others, was a palpable return to sizable in-the-streets protest.

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