BRIGHT BULB Killing crime
Baltimore County police are sending a message to criminals: Take your business elsewhere. So far in 2008, rapes are down 6.2 percent from 2007, robberies by 8.5 percent and arsons by 15.8 percent. The best figure of the bunch? The homicide rate is expected to show a 40 percent drop for the entire year of 2008. Officials are partly attributing the decrease to an effective use of technology. Now if only other counties and the state police could adopt their tactics.
OUTRAGE: Not-so-secret agents
WHO: Maryland State Police
WHAT: We thought the state police were doing the right thing by allowing activists wrongly entered into a terrorist database to view their files with their lawyers before the files were deleted. But they weren’t honest with their efforts to make good.
WHY IT’S A BAD IDEA: In a vain attempt to cover their backsides, the state police decided to black out information that allegedly revealed “police procedures” — um, that’s what we’re questioning here, right? If procedure involves spying on citizens, we need to know about it. We’ve been saying it all along: ’Fess up, fix it and move on.
WHERE TO VENT: Call state police headquarters at 410-653-4200.
Recommended Stories
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’m very concerned we’re transitioning from irrational exuberance to irrational fear.” – Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, in reference to how the market is responding amid the credit crunch. She spoke Thursday in Baltimore at a Johns Hopkins Carey Business School event.
