Pubdate: Fri, 18 Oct 2002
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2002, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Author: Annie Gowen

DRUG-FIGHTING MOM, 5 CHILDREN DIE IN FIRE

Angela Dawson had been trying for months to keep the drug dealers off the 
steps of her East Baltimore rowhouse. She cursed them and badgered them 
down the block; they threw a rock through her window. She called police; 
somebody tossed two Molotov cocktails into her kitchen.

The room was scorched, yet Dawson and her family refused to leave.

Wednesday morning, though, somebody came at them again. According to 
police, one of the men who had repeatedly clashed with Dawson crept up her 
darkened street, intent on finishing the job. Within moments, a fireball 
ripped through the three-story structure, killing the 36-year-old mother 
and five of her six children.

The youngest, twins, were 9. A 17-year-old daughter was not staying at home 
at the time of the fire.

As firefighters and neighbors laid flowers at the remains of the rowhouse 
Thursday and Mayor Martin O'Malley called the violence "one of the most 
barbaric acts in our city's recent history," police charged Darrell Brooks, 
21, with six counts of first-degree murder and arson.

That count could grow. Dawson's husband, Carnell Dawson Sr., a 43-year-old 
construction worker, escaped through an open window, but barely. He 
remained in critical condition at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center 
Thursday with second- and third-degree burns on more than half his body.

The police department's conclusion confirmed what Angela Dawson's relatives 
and friends concluded immediately. They all knew of her battles this year, 
her efforts to shield her children and somehow hold the line in her 
decaying community. Between June and October, she had called 911 more than 
50 times to report drug dealing.

"Her life this year was pretty much a hell because of the drug dealers and 
hoodlums," said her brother, John Harrington Jr. of White Marsh, Md. "It 
became overwhelming. She got so she was afraid for her life."

Dawson's mother, Donnell Golden, believes six lives could have been saved 
had police paid more attention to her daughter's complaints.

The suspect, Brooks, lives across the street.
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