…Police are struggling to stop violence in West Baltimore, where officers have been routinely surrounded by dozens of people, video cameras and hostility while doing basic police work since the death of Freddie Gray, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts said Wednesday. (link)…

BALTIMORE – Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called the city’s recent spike in violence “disheartening” Thursday as police work to address a dramatic increase in homicides and nonfatal shootings.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” the mayor told reporters at a news conference. “It is disheartening, but I am still resolved to continue to reduce violent crime in our city.” (more…)

(more…)

OMAHA – Omaha police officer and a suspect involved in a shootout Wednesday have died.   Kerrie Orozco, 29, a gang unit officer, was serving a warrant on the Metro Area Fugitive Task Force when she was shot.

Orozco is the 25th officer – and first female – in the department killed in the line of duty. Orozco had been taken to Creighton University Medical Center in extremely critical condition after being shot about 1 p.m. near Read Street and Martin Avenue.
Omaha police had responded to a “Help an officer” call at 30th Street and Martin Avenue. Officers were serving a felony arrest warrant about 12:55 p.m., said Deputy Police Chief Dave Baker. During the process of serving the warrant, shots were fired, he said. (more…)

According to The Hill the Baltimore and Maryland politicians had a meeting today at the White House; described thusly:

Maryland officials meet at the White House to discuss Baltimore unrest: http://t.co/TB1jxWkB2w pic.twitter.com/ANjNsZa31y

— The Hill (@thehill) May 20, 2015

[…] Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D), Ben Cardin (D) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D), who represents Baltimore, huddled with White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and other top ranking officials to “discuss ways in which the administration can continue to serve as an active partner in supporting local priorities following the recent unrest in Baltimore,” the White House said in a statement. (more…)

Heads up! BPD is Uploading additional camera footage in response to a Baltimore Sun Article HERE:

1/4 We would like to take the opportunity to advise the camera footage from #2108 was to be made available,

— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) May 20, 2015

2/4 as with all of the related footage in the death of Freddie Gray. Due to a technical glitch the footage had never uploaded,

— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) May 20, 2015

(more…)

MARYLAND – Baltimore prosecutors shed new light on their rationale for some of the charges against the officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray, saying in a court filing that Gray had been illegally detained before officers found a knife in his pocket..
In announcing the charges this month, State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby said that the folding knife, which police initially described as a switchblade, was not illegal under state law, and so Gray should not have been arrested.
Defense attorneys for the officers who were charged with falsely arresting Gray, 25, have said prosecutors overlooked city law, which they say forbids possession of such a knife. They have used the distinction to argue that the case against the officers was rushed and flawed. (more…)

BACKSTORY HERE – October 2014 – “Mom said 18-year-old baby Vonderrit was eating a sandwich and contemplating which college classes would be better – considering his recently edited white paper on Gravitational Inconsistencies as applied to Quantum theory.
A local politician, Senator Nasheed, said the police walked up to Vonderrit while he was kneeling down in prayer and shot him in the back of the head.
There appears to be a disconnect in here somewhere; somewhere between  a skewed version of reality, and what actually took place“.
Here’s the full investigative report: (more…)

Follow-up to this previous story.  

South Carolina – The State Law Enforcement Division released incident reports and a sketch of a person of interest in Thursday night’s shooting of Berkeley County deputy Will Rogers at a Kangaroo Express in Monks Corner.

An eye witness to the shooting told investigators that a black male wearing a ski mask walked out of the woods straight to the front of the deputy’s Tahoe SUV and fired three shots with a silver revolver. When the suspect walked toward another SUV in the parking lot with his gun aimed at the driver, the witness turned and fled.
The driver of the second SUV told investigators the suspect ordered him out of his vehicle and he complied. The suspect then drove away in the2003 Hyundai Sante Fe, which was found later. (more…)

(HatTip GWP) As State Trooper Foerster lay on ground wounded and helpless, Assata Shakur (aka Joanne Chesimard) grabbed his gun and fired two shots into his head.  She escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba in 1984 after living as a fugitive for a few years, and received political asylum. She has been living in Cuba ever since.

(Via Right Wisconsin) Marquette’s Gender and Sexuality Resource Center was set up as a sop to the campus gay lobby in the wake of Marquette’s refusal to hire aggressively lesbian Arts & Sciences dean candidate Jodi O’Brien. Not surprisingly, it has consistently pursued a leftist secular agenda including, for example, the Femsex Seminar, which was so raunchy and so opposed to Marquette’s supposed “Catholic mission” that the Administration ordered that sponsorship be withdrawn.
But now we have yet another case of the extreme leftist agenda of the organization. An entry from its Facebook page: (more…)

When a corrections system focuses entirely on equality of outcome; and when the administrators of the policy are wilfully blind (in that they never addresses the source behavior); and when the non-compliant variables within the system refuse to modify behavior – the only administrative option left is to remove the consequence.
FYI the racial composition of Oakland’s public school system is about 32 percent black, a little under 40 percent Hispanic, about 15 percent Asian and about 12 percent white, according to Oaklandreads.org
(Via Truth Revolt) Board members of California’s Oakland Unified School District unanimously voted on Wednesday to cease suspending students for what they call “willful defiance.” Those behaviors can include swearing/yelling at teachers, refusing direct orders, texting, and storming out of class, to name a few.
The reason?
Concern that too many black students are being suspended for willful defiance.
One sophomore student, Dan’enicole Williams, told the San Francisco Gate, “They never take time out, if someone is sleeping in class, to ask what’s wrong. They may be acting that way because they didn’t eat the night before.” (more…)