Dispatch from Bodymore, Murderland

Bodymore, Murderland IS the unofficial city nickname. It comes to us courtesy of those who appeared in the first “Stop Snitching” DVD, and they should know: They’re responsible for many of the dead bodies and the murders.

 

The overwhelming majority of those bodies are black ones, dispatched by black perps. But the few white bodies may end up giving Baltimore a notorious reputation as a city where whites just aren’t safe.

Some of those white bodies are still alive, no thanks to their attackers. George Williams, a police officer from Brick Township, N.J., is a white guy who survived after a group of black teens kicked his head “back and forth like a soccer ball” he said in one news story during a late-May incident in downtown Baltimore. Williams said the teens accused him of uttering a racial slur to justify the attack, but he denies making any derogatory racial remarks.

Williams’ case sounds similar to that of Sarah Kreager and Troy Ennis, a white couple who were assaulted on a Baltimore transit bus in late 2007. A group of middle-school teens were the culprits in that case, who accused Ennis of using the racial slur and Kreager of spitting on one of the students.

 

A juvenile court judge – black, by the way — heard the testimony of all parties, weighed the evidence and dismissed the black students’ claims of racial victimhood as bat guano. He found five of Kreager’s and Ennis’ attackers “responsible” for the attack that left Kreager with a left eye that was swollen shut and broken bones in the socket.

 

(“Responsible” is a term used in juvenile court to replace the word “guilty.” Those in the “juvenile justice” system loathe words like “guilty.” Might make the sweet little dears accused of vicious crimes feel badly about themselves.)

How do we account for black teens in this day and age, who’ve seen little to none of the racism and segregation that their elders have seen, harboring such a sense of racial grievance and dudgeon? Might it be black leadership? (Although I’m fond of calling it “black misleadership.”)

 Weren’t they the ones who whipped black youth across the nation into a frenzy two years ago about the case of the Jena Six? Weren’t they the ones who made six teens who viciously beat a white schoolmate heroes and victims of racial injustice?

Bad as the cases of Williams, Kreager and Ennis were, theypale in comparison to the ones of Zachary Sowers, Jennifer Morelock and David Woycio. Three black teens robbed Sowers; one beat him so badly that it left him comatose for nearly a year before his wife, Anna Sowers, had his doctors remove him from life support.

 

Morelock and Woycio were a white couple from Carroll County who ventured into the western section of Baltimore in the spring of 2006. Both were shot dead. A police officer, acting on a tip, stopped then-17-year-old Davon David Temple to question him as a possible suspect.

According to the cop, Temple agreed to a search of his cell phone’s contents. The officer found this text message in the cell phone’s inbox: “I shot 2 white people around my way 2day and one of them was a woman.”

Temple was arrested and charged with murder. Almost as quickly, he was cut loose; the state’s attorney’s office ruled that the search of his cell phone’s contents was illegal. Temple walked the streets of Baltimore for three years before getting nailed for – I’m hope you’re sitting down for this – violating his probation for marijuana possession.

In three years, not one Baltimore elected official has protested the disgrace of a guy who might be a confessed murderer walking the streets. Not the current mayor, Sheila Dixon. Not Gov. Martin O’Malley, who was Baltimore’s mayor when this shameful incident happened and who criticized Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy for everything BUT this one decision.

 

With leaders like this, would you, if you’re white, let the sun set on you in Baltimore?

Examiner columnist Gregory Kane is a Baltimore-based journalist.