Courtesy of the American Civil Liberties Union, we now know that there's a racial disparity in marijuana arrests. The ACLU released the results of its study last week. According to U.S. News & World Report, "the study showed that in 2010 black Americans were around four times more likely to be busted for pot." The story had other revelations. "Data gleaned from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics and U.S. Census numbers show that every state except Hawaii had a higher per capita marijuana arrest rate for blacks than for whites, and the disparity appears to be growing in most states. The gap between black and white arrest rates grew in 38 states and the nation's capital between 2001 and 2010." [continues 535 words]
NASHVILLE, Tenn. --- In one corner, weighing in with his reputation as a conservative spokesman behind him, syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams. And in another corner, weighing in as director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office and member of one of Baltimore's most prominent black families, Laura W. Murphy. The contestants squared off Monday night in the Turner Recital Hall of Vanderbilt University. The weapons were ideas and words, not boxing gloves. The ring was a stage, and the match a debate on the topic "Is the War on Terrorism Abroad an Assault on Democracy at Home?" Betty Baye, a columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, was the referee. [continues 662 words]
Well, how's this for sheer irony? On Monday, the Pulitzer prizes for journalism were handed out. Bob Herbert of The New York Times did not - repeat, did not - win for commentary. Just six days earlier, on April 1, a Texas special prosecutor tossed out 38 convictions related to the "putrid mess" (thank the late, great Alaska Sen. Ernest Gruening for that pithy line) in the tiny Texas town of Tulia. Get the connection? If you don't, not to worry. [continues 726 words]
LET'S FIND that wise man or woman who first uttered the saying "Don't make a federal case out of it." Then let's bring him or her - or a descendant, if that person is dead - to Baltimore and have a chat with our mayor and police commissioner. Mayor Martin O'Malley and police Commissioner Ed Norris are feeling especially chipper these days. The reason? "Federal day" might finally come to the Charm City-That-Reads-When-Its-Citizens-Are-Not-Dodging-Bullets-Fired-By-Criminals. [continues 668 words]
SO, IT'S CLEAR that the "Thurman Zollicoffer Conflict Resolution Award" will not be handed out this year. But there's one not-so-trivial item everyone's overlooking in the matter of our at-one-time embattled and now-contrite city solicitor. It's called the Fourth Amendment. The right against unlawful search and seizure. Anybody heard of it? Is anybody proud of it, or would we like to see it kicked to the curb like those other Bill of Rights amendments we find so troubling like numbers One, Two, Six and Nine? [continues 755 words]
READ IT and scream. The story is about a man named Andrew Chambers. The Los Angeles Times and St. Louis Post-Dispatch are among the newspapers that have written about Chambers, who may become a symbol for everything that is wrong with the "war on drugs." For 16 years, Chambers was an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. His snitching led to the arrests of more than 400 suspects and the seizure of $6 million in assets. That's the good news. But the bad news is very bad. [continues 803 words]
"Let me get this straight: A young, promising college student gets involved with a drug dealer, becomes a mule carrying weapons for this miscreant and then refuses to cooperate with authorities on his whereabouts." Thus began an e-mail from Kurt Heinrich on one Kemba Smith, who did 6 1/2 years in federal prison for her role in drug dealer Peter Michael Hall's narcotics ring. She was sentenced to a 24-year mandatory minimum sentence but was pardoned by former President Bill Clinton and released in December. [continues 806 words]
When John Ashcroft, opponent of abortion, affirmative action and gratuitous gun-banning, was nominated by President Bush to the influential post of U.S. attorney general, liberals reacted in knee-jerk fashion. So did conservatives. But neither Republicans nor Democrats, the liberal media nor the conservative media paid much attention to the non-partisan group called Common Sense for Drug Policy, which paints a different picture of Ashcroft than the one heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee: He favors cutting funds for drug treatment and prevention and putting them into yet more law enforcement efforts. In other words, Ashcroft favors the "lock 'em up" approach to the drug war. [continues 307 words]
WE'RE ONLY 21 DAYS into the year 2001, and already Americans have gotten off to a robust start in our favorite game: the Knee-Jerk Follies. One John Ashcroft, opponent of abortion, affirmative action and gratuitous gun-banning, among other things, has been nominated by President George W. Bush to the influential post of U.S. attorney general. Liberals reacted in knee-jerk fashion, swearing that this anti-abortion, anti-affirmative action gun nut will be attorney general over their dead bodies. Liberal, black, civil rights leaders got in on the act. [continues 772 words]
Last week, actor Robert Downey Jr. was arrested in a Palm Springs, Calif., hotel and charged with possession of cocaine and methamphetamine. On Oct. 30, Maryland State Police Cpl. Edward M. Toatley, working undercover, was shot to death by a suspected drug dealer. Yes, the two incidents do have a connection. Both graphically illustrate the futility and travesty of our "war on drugs," a conflict in which both Downey and Toatley are only the latest casualties. Downey was just a few months out of jail - where he had been cooling his heels as a result of a previous drug charge - and had appeared in a few episodes of the Fox television series "Ally McBeal," when he was minding his own business, harming no one but himself, in a hotel room. Cops received a tip about drugs and guns in the room. They swooped in and arrested Downey, who should be in drug treatment. [continues 768 words]
IT'S BEEN a couple of months now since that study came out about drugs and the criminal justice system in Maryland. You know, the one that said blacks are jailed and sentenced disproportionately for drug crimes and that Maryland is the nation's worst offender. Your beloved Sun - STOP those giggles of sarcasm this instant! - ran a story on the matter. The first three paragraphs or so of Todd Richissin's June 8 article went something like this: "Maryland ranks number one in the percentage of minorities locked up for drug crimes, according to a major national study released yesterday that suggests national anti-drug efforts have targeted blacks while paying far less attention to whites. [continues 706 words]
MY SON HAS a message for Mayor Martin O'Malley: Thanks a bunch. Thanks a million for turning the Baltimore City police loose on me. It happened a couple of weeks back, just days before those 19 characters on what is jokingly referred to as the Baltimore City Council showed their utter contempt for civil liberties and the Constitution by confirming Ed Norris as police commissioner. My son, 25 come this September, had just walked out of a 7-Eleven store at the corner of Reisterstown Road and Belvedere Avenue toting a bag of doughnuts. [continues 758 words]
THE FOURTH installment of HBO's "The Corner" -- the six-part miniseries directed by Baltimore's own Charles Dutton -- aired Sunday night. Some charge that the drama paints a picture of Baltimore that is too grim and gritty. There are lessons to be learned from it, nonetheless. The most obvious lesson is that the baby boomer generation is almost solely responsible for America's drug nightmare. "The Corner" follows the addiction of Gary McCullough and his ex-wife, Fran Boyd, and shows how their plight affects their 15-year-old son, DeAndre McCullough. Gary McCullough and Boyd grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. In one scene, Boyd reminisces about the get-high parties she attended in the early 1970s. Years later, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Boyd and her friends and siblings are still getting high. That's inevitable when a generation elevates taking drugs to a near cultural imperative. [continues 628 words]
Anger Over Mass Killings Should Be Followed By Guilt Mass Killings Should Induce Guilt Anger Over Mass Killings Should Be Followed By Guilt Mass Killings Should Induce Sense Of Guilt WHERE'S THE anger? That's the question callers and letter-writers to The Sun have posed in the 13 days since five women were executed in East Baltimore's Belair-Edison community, allegedly by members of an O'Donnell Heights drug gang. Specifically, cantankerous citizens want to know why those who expressed such outrage at the recent fatal police shootings of Larry Hubbard and Eli McCoy have been noticeably silent on the deaths of Mary McNeil Matthews, Mary Helen Collien, Makisha Jenkins, Trennell Alston and LaVanna Spearman. Tavaris McNeil, Matthews' son, was found shot to death near his mother's home. Police have theorized that the four suspects in custody committed the killings to exact payment for a drug debt. [continues 704 words]
HERE'S THE SKINNY on racial profiling, the alleged police practice in which members of certain ethnic groups are targeted by law enforcement for no other reason than being a member of that ethnic group. Rank-and-file law enforcers do use racial profiling, the assertions of police chiefs across the country to the contrary notwithstanding. Several officers spoke up in Jeffrey Goldberg's June 20 New York Times Magazine article "What Cops Talk About When They Talk About Race," and their comments were quite revealing. Americans of all political persuasions would do well to read Goldberg's article. [continues 716 words]
COL. DAVID MITCHELL, superintendent of the Maryland State Police, walked right into the racial profiling imbroglio in 1995 when he took over the job. The issue is now known nationally as the "driving while black" syndrome. Activists have protested the perceived disproportionate number of blacks stopped by police. There is legislation pending in Congress that would require police agencies to document the race of those stopped to discern whether there is a pattern of racial profiling. In Maryland, state police have come under criticism for disproportionately stopping black motorists and searching their vehicles. Troopers in the John F. Kennedy barracks -- who patrol the 46-mile stretch of Interstate 95 in Harford and Cecil counties -- came in for the harshest criticism. In 1995, 73.7 percent of the searches in that stretch of road were of black motorists. White motorists accounted for 21.6 percent of the searches, and Asians 4.7 percent. Troopers found illegal drugs or drug money in 40.5 percent of the searches. [continues 661 words]
THE NINE NABOBS of Nincompoopery -- otherwise known as the U.S. Supreme Court -- have done it again. In an April 5 ruling, the justices gave near carte blanche to police to search cars stopped for traffic violations. They ruled that police could search passengers' possessions, but stopped short of saying passengers themselves could be searched. How noble of them. In fairness to justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens, it should be noted that they dissented from this ruling. The other six -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer -- can all pat themselves on the back for inching the country one step closer to a police state. [continues 556 words]
The nine nerveless Nellies currently ensconced on our Supreme Court have just committed the wimp-out act of the year. Two weeks ago, the pusillanimous justices refused to review a case out of Indiana, where overzealous school officials imposed mandatory drug testing as a condition for participating in extracurricular activities. Picture it now. Chess club members puffing on a joint while they decide to use a King's Gambit or a Sicilian Defense opening. Math club members smoking crack between discussions on the finer points of number theory. [continues 679 words]
MR. Hard-working White American, please read Peter Hermann's story in today's Sun. Mr. Hard-working White American wrote me in response to my column on the rash of school shootings in various parts of the country, in which I noted that the perpetrators -- except for the most recent one in Richmond, Va., in which no one was killed -- were white. "You take these incidents that were perpetrated by sick and twisted very young men and try to use this distinct handful of incidents to debate rational discrimination? These young boys chose their victims and had very directed anger. If I were running a mostly white rural high school or the parent of an attending student, yes my world would be rocked and I would be practicing rational discrimination against any young male exhibiting any of those characteristics of dangerous, out-of-control anger that could escalate to events like those. [continues 663 words]
