Slap on the wrist:

After more than four years of investigation, and a month after a guilty verdict in the first corruption trial against her, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors Wednesday in which she pledged to resign from office.

The move ends – temporarily at least – the public career of the city’s first female mayor and a longtime force in Baltimore politics. It also concludes a political and legal drama that has consumed the city for months.

“Today is a sad day,” Mayor Dixon said at a late afternoon press conference, unusually choked up for a woman who has long projected a tough-as-nails public image. “It is a cloud. But the sun comes out.”

Earlier in the day, Dixon had entered an Alford plea to one count of perjury – a charge related to prosecutors’ assertion that she had failed to disclose gifts from her former boyfriend and prominent Baltimore developer, Ronald Lipscomb. The Alford plea means that although Dixon does not admit guilt, she recognizes that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict her.

Mr. Lipscomb’s gifts were to be the subject of a trial scheduled to begin in March. Last month, in a separate trial, a jury convicted the mayor of taking for her own use gift cards donated for the city’s poor.

Under Wednesday’s agreement, prosecutors asked the court to strike last month’s guilty verdict and give Dixon probation before judgment – a legal status that means the mayor does not have a criminal conviction. She will serve no jail time, keep her $83,000 a year pension and after two years will be able to run again for office.

In return, the mayor has pledged to step down from office as of Feb. 4. Dixon will also receive four years of unsupervised probation, contribute 500 hours of community service, and donate $45,000 to charity.

She’ll be back.

***

Newsbusters catches the Baltimore Sun whitewashing Dixon’s political affiliation: Name That Party!

Michelle’s been following her exploits for a while now, and to get an idea of why, you simply have to watch this Vent from July 2006 that lays out the web of conspirators plotting to blow up gas stations around Baltimore–a group that included Adam Gadahn and Ayman al Faris.

But Aafia finally turned up, in Afghanistan, where her behavior raised a few eyebrows:

Siddiqui, 36, initially was stopped by Afghan police on July 17 outside a government building. The police searched her handbag and discovered documents giving recipes for explosives and chemical weapons and describing “various landmarks in the United States, including New York City,” according to a criminal complaint, which didn’t identify the landmarks.

Siddiqui also was carrying “chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars,” the complaint added.

The next day, as a team of FBI agents and U.S. military officers prepared to question her, Siddiqui grabbed a rifle, pointed it at an Army captain and yelled that she wanted blood, prosecutors said. An interpreter pushed the rifle aside as she fired two shots, which missed, they said. One of two shots fired by a soldier in response hit her in the torso.

Even after being hit, Siddiqui struggled and shouted in English “that she wanted to kill Americans” before the officers subdued her, the complaint said.

She’s been extradited back to Manhattan, but just you watch–by the time the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights get through with her, she’s going to be portrayed as a hero, healing illnesses in Afghanistan like some sort of Muslim Mother Teresa.

Until then, let’s just be glad she’s back in custody.

___________

MORE: See, I’ve always thought a 9mm lacked stopping power. Case in point:

The day after her arrest by Afghani authorities on July 17th, Siddiqui was shot twice in the torso, US officials said, when she grabbed a US soldier’s M-4 Carbine and attempted to shoot another officer as a team of US soldiers and FBI agents prepared to question her. A US interpreter threw off her aim when he pushed the gun. She then was shot twice with a .9 millimeter [SIC] handgun, authorities said. According to the US Government, despite her wounds, she shouted that she “wanted to kill Americans,” and struggled with her captors before they subdued her.

________________

MORE: From the NY Times, she married the boss’s nephew:

The government said that Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Mr. [Khaled Sheikh] Mohammed’s, ordered Ms. Siddiqui to help get Mr. Khan’s paperwork. The statement said Mr. Baluchi and Ms. Siddiqui married shortly before his capture.

___________________
{Post by See-Dubya}

So what are city officials proposing to do to help Baltimore’s residents?

Ban cheap cigars!

Hoping to curb smoking among teenagers and prevent a lifetime of nicotine dependence, Baltimore officials are proposing a citywide ban on the sale of individual small cigars, sometimes called “blunts” or “loosies,” in neighborhood shops.

If the public health proposal becomes law, Baltimore could be the first municipality in the country to attempt to improve residents’ overall health by limiting their access to the potentially cancer-causing cigars.

“Hopefully, we can look back and know that we protected young people from ever wanting to smoke,” said Mayor Sheila Dixon, who attended a news conference at City Hall Wednesday to announce the proposal. The ban could be enacted relatively quickly by the Health Department, which has regulatory authority to protect citizens’ health and safety.

The cigars, which have been popularized by hip-hop stars, pack more tobacco than a cigarette and come in flavors such as cherry and grape that appeal to a young crowd. It is this dangerous mingling of status symbol, sweet taste and high tobacco content that has city officials worried.

Sold under brand names such as Black & Mild, White Owl and The Game, the cigars are exempt from laws that prohibit the sale of individual cigarettes. Neighborhood shops sell the cigars, which can also be repacked with marijuana, for as little as 50 cents apiece.

And while cigarette use by teens and young adults has decreased in recent years, cigar smoking continues to be a “serious and growing health problem,” said city Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein.

A 2007 study by public health researchers at the Johns Hopkins University found that nearly 24 percent of Baltimoreans ages 18 to 25 had smoked a small cigar within the past 30 days.

“This is an important step to make Baltimore healthier,” said Sharfstein, who joined the mayor in introducing the proposed ban. “This is a small but important step forward.”

The state already outlaws the sale of tobacco products to minors, so the “For the Children” defense doesn’t wash. This is a Nanny State power grab to shut down a legal activity using kiddie human shields as protection.

It’s also a handy way to distract from B’more’s abysmal failure to make its streets, buses, and schools safe.

But hey, at least we’ll be safe from 50-cent cigars and trans-fats!

The 15-year-old Robert Poole Middle school student whom prosecutors accused of sparking a brutal December attack on a woman on a city bus was sentenced today to a secure juvenile jail until the judge releases her.

In arguing to send Nakita McDaniels to a residential treatment facility, Baltimore prosecutors revealed that the student body vice president had twice before led group assaults on lone female victims, one of which ended with the victim being stabbed and losing consciousness.

“She could have led the other students to stay on the bus — she was the vice president of the student government,” Circuit Judge David Young said. “She chose to lead the troops in the other direction. There are many types of leaders. There are good leaders, and there are those leaders who choose to use their abilities to do wrong. In my heart, based on my belief and my experience, the next person who argues with her may be a homicide victim.”

Also today, Young dismissed cases against two of the nine teens originally accused in the assault that left Sarah Kreager, 26, with two broken bones around her left eye in a fight aboard the No. 27 bus in Hampden sparked by a dispute over a seat.

Young ordered another youth, who had admitted her role in the attack before the monthlong trial, to complete the community service he had assigned her. The disposition hearings for four other students were ongoing and expected to stretch into tomorrow.

B’more blogger Jeff Quinton notes that two of the juveniles implicated in the attack now plan to sue the Maryland Transit Administration, the bus driver and the city school system.

I can hear Al Sharpton readying his briefs and his bullhorn now.

In the 10 months since teenagers set upon Zachary Sowers and pummeled him into a coma, he lingered in oblivion. While his swollen face gradually resumed its natural form, he fought off infections and seemed to react, almost imperceptibly, to sounds in his hospital room.

But Sowers never recovered consciousness. He died Tuesday night at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center “after a long and treacherous battle” against his injuries, a Web site set up in his name announced yesterday. He was 28.

His wife, Anna, to whom he had been married just nine months at the time of the attack, said in a brief interview that she was grateful that “we had so many supporters to help us get through all of this.”

He will be buried on Saturday in Circleville, Ohio, where he was born and spent part of his childhood.

The apparently random attack on Sowers occurred on a June night as he walked near his Patterson Park home. His wallet, cell phone and watch were stolen. One of the teenagers was seen stomping on Sowers’ head, and was later sentenced to 40 years in prison.

News of the Sowers case stirred an uproar over rampant criminality on Baltimore’s streets, particularly in Southeast Baltimore neighborhoods that city officials had sought to paint as safe for up-and-coming professional couples like Sowers and his wife. None was more vocal than Anna Sowers herself, who called her husband’s main attacker, 16-year-old Trayvon Ramos, “an evil person, completely soulless.”

After hearing of Sowers’ death, Mayor Sheila Dixon issued a statement saying she was saddened, and offered prayers for his family and friends.

“His loss is a tragedy for the entire city of Baltimore,” Dixon said. “We must continue to work hard to ensure the safety of every citizen.”

Apologists for punks in the city haven’t worked hard enough.

Sowers was attacked after spending a Friday evening with friends in a bar. Because his wallet was stolen, he remained unidentified at Johns Hopkins Hospital for more than a day. His wife, who was in Chicago at the time, began to worry that something had happened to him because he failed to return phone calls or text messages, and his friends in Baltimore couldn’t track him down.

With the help of city police, Anna Sowers learned that there was an unidentified man at Hopkins who had been found unconscious in the street. When she arrived at the hospital – nearly a full day after the attack – her husband’s face was so badly bruised and swollen that she had trouble identifying him.

For months after the beating, Anna Sowers would rub Burt’s Bees balm on his lips to keep them from drying as he lay unresponsive in bed, she said in an interview last year with The Sun. It was a tip she had learned from a nurse.

Ten days after the attack in the 300 block of S. Robinson St., four teenagers were arrested. Police discovered that the teenagers had used Sowers’ credit card to rent two movies – Déjà Vu and Smokin’ Aces – and reviewed surveillance camera footage from a gas station that showed the car they drove.

Arthur Jeter, 18; Wilburt Martin, 19; Eric L. Price, 17; and Ramos were charged with attempted first-degree murder, robbery and related offenses. In December, Price, Jeter and Martin pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery after agreeing to testify against Ramos, who was accused of beating Sowers while Price watched. The other two had observed from the car.

In exchange for their guilty pleas, Price, Jeter and Martin received 30-year prison terms with all but 15 years suspended. They stand to serve about eight.

Ramos, the ringleader, was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to robbery and attempted first-degree murder.

Anna Sowers, who had nothing but praise for the city police detectives who worked on her husband’s case, said after the court hearing that the sentences “disgusted” her. “I feel that today, justice was not served at all,” she said. “I feel like I’ve got no rights.”

Amid all the crimes last year in Baltimore, the brutal attack on Sowers struck a chord. Politicians promised to step up law enforcement.

Anna Sowers told a reporter that she wanted politicians to do something about crime. “It’s people like me and Zach who will make Baltimore a better city,” she said. “I should be able to walk two blocks to my car at night and feel safe.”

The Zach Sowers website has info on how to help:

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be sent to the Zach Sowers Support Fund, which will be used for The Zach Sowers Brain Trauma Research Fund at Johns Hopkins and/or continuing legislative efforts for Zach’s Law. Contributions can be mailed to:

Frederick County Bank
30 West Patrick Street
Frederick, MD 21701
301-620-1400
Contact Person: Lori Cromwell at Frederick County Bank

A Baltimore juvenile court judge found five Robert Poole Middle School students responsible yesterday in the December attack on a city bus passenger and her boyfriend, concluding a divisive case fraught with racial overtones.

Judge David W. Young’s decision followed nearly two months of court hearings on the Dec. 4 fight in Hampden, described by several 911 callers as a riot. The attack prompted stricter safety standards on city buses and left Sarah Kreager, 26, with two broken bones around her left eye.

Nine black teens were initially accused of “rising up en masse” and attacking Kreager on the No. 27 bus after school had let out for the day.

Defense attorneys argued that Kreager’s left eye was already bruised when she boarded the bus and that when the students began snickering at her, Kreager’s boyfriend, Troy Ennis, ordered her “to spit on them [racial slur].”

But prosecutors said the youths attacked Kreager, who is white, after her boyfriend accused one of them of immaturity for refusing to relinquish an empty seat.

“We’re pleased the judge was able to reach justice and that Sarah Kreager and Troy Ennis have been vindicated,” Janet Hankin, the lead prosecutor in the case, said after the hearing. “This was a brutal, vicious and unnecessary beating, and what the respondents accused them of was untrue, unfair and uncalled for.”

Will they learn their lesson? Read the last line of the article:

…in the end, it was one of the accused’s own statements to police that captured the hatred the students felt for Kreager, Hankin argued.

Police asked one of the boys, a 15-year-old, how he felt about “the victims being assaulted? One being in the hospital?”

The boy replied, “I don’t feel no … I don’t feel nothing.”

Kreager has had a hard life. Her face has healed and she’s trying to rebuild.

More:

In interrogation rooms, detectives faced off against recalcitrant children as young as 14 who remained defiant even as interrogators threatened them with adult charges and warned that their friends might be giving them up in a room next door.

One 14-year-old boy repeatedly told a Maryland Transit Administration Police sergeant that he saw the fight on the No. 27 bus in Hampden but couldn’t name the people involved.

“They go to my school, but I don’t hang with them,” he said after the officer insinuated that he was lying because the boy refused to make eye contact.

“You know the guys you catch the bus with all the time,” the sergeant said. “You see their faces all the time. Even if you don’t know their last names, you know their first names. Is it that you don’t want to tell me, is that it?”

The boy answered: “No, I ain’t going to put them out there like that.”

Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Sun recount police interviews in which the Robert Poole Middle School students accused in the December attack on Sarah Kreager and her boyfriend, Troy Ennis, tried to stonewall authorities.

Girls told stories that didn’t match, and at one point, while they were in a holding cell, a city police officer watched them mimic the beating they were accused of carrying out — laughing as they threw kicks and punches into the air.

A woman who was severely beaten last year on a city bus told a juvenile court judge yesterday that she could identify only one of the teens accused of attacking her over an empty seat.

Nine students at Robert Poole Middle School have been accused of beating Sarah Kreager, 26, and her boyfriend, Troy Ennis, aboard a bus in Hampden in December. One student has admitted her role in the attack, and cases against five began yesterday after more than a month of motions. Cases against the other three alleged assailants have been delayed and could be dismissed, according to court records.

Kreager, the first witness, said that 20 to 30 students poured out of the bus, many of them advancing on her. But in photo arrays viewed weeks after the attack, Kreager said she could only identify with “100 percent confidence” the girl she says started it all: Nakita McDaniels.

The defendants’ lawyers are attacking Kreager’s character:

Kreager described the attack in detail yesterday. She testified that McDaniels told her the seat she was sitting in was taken and then threatened to move her when she didn’t get up. Kreager said she moved seconds later to avoid a confrontation and went to stand with Ennis by the rear door of the bus.

But when Ennis accused the middle schooler of having worse manners than the couple’s 5-year-old daughter, McDaniels resumed taunting them with an expletive-filled tirade, Kreager said.

“I was thinking, ‘Look, you can have the seat,’” Kreager said. “Nakita swung and struck me in the face. … There was an uproar. A female’s legs came up out of a seat on the left-hand side. The noise level went from loud to even louder. I heard a male yelling ‘Stop!’ from the front of the bus.”

Kreager said she crawled out of the bus and began to regroup when students began moving to the front of the bus to get the driver to open the door. Kreager said that Ennis tried to barricade the door shut from the outside until she told him to release the door so the teenagers could get out.

When McDaniels emerged, she repeated “what’s good?” – slang for “let’s go, let’s fight,” Kreager said.

Kreager said she began backing up to prepare herself for an attack, while Ennis apparently faced off with other students.

“Nakita and a female tackled me,” Kreager said. “I was in the gutter with my hands over my face, trying to block the punches. I felt a piercing in my head. … There were at least five to 10, maybe seven to 10, students around me.”

Kreager said the punches and kicks became “harder and harder” until someone pulled her head up by her hair and McDaniels ordered someone to kick her.

“My eye immediately swelled shut,” she said. “I couldn’t see.”

Three of the five defense attorneys have cross-examined Kreager. Although all of them either suggested or asserted during opening statements that Kreager provoked the attack, none of the three attorneys so far has challenged Kreager’s testimony that McDaniels started the fight.

Defense attorneys mostly tried to attack Kreager’s character, pointing to previous arrests, mental health problems and uncooperative behavior at the hospital.

For the most part, Circuit Judge David W. Young cut off such questioning as irrelevant.

Previous coverage here.

One girl has already pleaded guilty:

One of the Baltimore teenagers charged in the beating of a 26-year-old woman aboard a transit bus has admitted her role in the attack.

The girl on Thursday pleaded “involved,” the equivalent of guilty in juvenile court, to charges of second-degree assault and conspiracy to commit first-degree assault.

The girl was one of nine students from Robert Poole Middle School charged in the December beating of 26-year-old Sarah Kreager. Cases against three have been delayed, and proceedings against five others were to resume Friday.

A statement of facts read by prosecutors said the students on the bus “rose up en masse” to join the fight.

Jeff Quinton alerted me this morning to another reported beating on a Baltimore bus involving an alleged racially motivated attack on white passengers by a group of young black riders. I waited to see if more evidence would develop today before posting. Copycat incidents are unfortunately a concern. Well, WBAL reported on the incident last night–and follows up with surveillance video today showing the alleged attackers. It took city officials three days to release photos of the suspect:

“We were saying the whole time to the driver, ‘You need to help us, call the police,’” [Patrick] Green told 11 News reporter Kerry Cavanaugh. “He said, ‘I can’t. I’ll get in trouble.’”

Roth said the driver closed the door and drove away, even though the attack continued once they got off the bus.

“We could’ve been left on the side of the road, dead,” [Robert] Rothe said.

MTA officials said the driver of the bus is currently not operating a vehicle while the incident is being investigated.

MTA officials said they’re not currently classifying the incident as a hate crime. They said they’re simply calling it a common assault.

Green and Rothe said they’re mad it took MTA officials three days to release photos of the suspects.

Anyone with information is asked to call MTA police at 410-454-7720.

The victims say the driver refused to help. None of the other passengers helped, either, according to the victims. The investigation continues.

Meanwhile, the first assault case involving Sarah Kreager and her boyfriend moves forward. Prosecutors are mulling charging some of the teens as adults.

A decision is expected by Christmas.

Charm City has lost its charm.

Stay off the buses.

According to the Baltimore Sun, Kreager has been placed in a witness protection program:

A law enforcement source close to the investigation said yesterday that Kreager, who is homeless, has entered the state’s attorney’s office’s witness assistance program because officials are concerned for her safety.

The Sun also provides a few details on how the incident might have escalated. Apparently, Kreager had an eye injury before the beating that the accused assailants mocked; it appears during the dragging/punching/beating, they went after her injured eye–breaking bones in her face around the injured eye, in addition to bruising her ribs and causing the head wounds that had to be stapled. Investigators are examining surveillance camera tape as part of the probe. The MTA police continue to probe the racial angle, though the prosecutors’ office remains more circumspect:

As the 26-year-old woman beaten on a public bus by nine middle school students was put into witness protection yesterday, conflicting accounts raised questions about whether the attack was racially motivated.

One of the girls charged in the assault told The Sun yesterday that there were no racial overtones in Tuesday’s after-school incident on West 33rd Street, insisting that no racial slurs were exchanged.

The victim, Sarah Kreager, told The Sun in a telephone interview last night that she feels race might have played a part in the attack, but she said the events spiraled out of control because the adolescents became caught up in actions of their peers.

“A woman at a corner house came out, and she saved my life. I think they would have killed me,” Kreager said.

Maryland Transit Administration officials stood by their earlier statement that they are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime – though they did not release any specifics.

But the city state’s attorney’s office declined to confirm that prosecutors are looking at racial bias as a possible factor in the attack.

Meantime, the Sun’s Gregory Kane excoriates black city officials who jumped all over the recent noose incident that turned out to be a hate crime hoax:

Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP, said the noose and notes were threats and that the matter “had to go federal,” as in the guilty party being charged with a federal hate crime.

Henry Burris, president of the Vulcan Blazers, said, “Whoever perpetrated it, whether they know it or not, this has reached the level of a federal hate crime.”

Mayor Sheila Dixon said she was “outraged by this deplorable act of hatred and intimidation. … Threats and racial attacks are unacceptable anywhere – especially in a firehouse.”

Subsequent investigation revealed it was [troubled black firefighter Donald] Maynard who put the noose and the note in the fire station. How did Cheatham, Burris and Dixon react to this news?

Cheatham: “It really saddens us to hear that evidently things have reached a stage that even an African-American does an injustice to himself and his own people as a result of a negative culture in that department.”

Burris: “I’m extremely upset. I believed [Maynard] was telling the truth.”

Dixon, through her spokesman, Sterling Clifford, said that she was “pleased to find out that, in fact, there wasn’t a threat of that nature made” and that she was “disappointed” in Maynard.

Let me get this straight: As long as the suspect was thought to be a white guy, this incident was a threatening act of hatred and intimidation that warranted calling down the wrath of the feds. But since it turned out to be a black guy, now Cheatham, Burris and Dixon are saddened, upset and disappointed. Whatever happened to Burris’ assessment of the situation?

I’ll run that by you again, in case you didn’t get it the first time.

“Whoever perpetrated it, whether they know it or not, this has reached the level of a federal hate crime.”

It strikes me that Maynard comes under that category of “whoever.” And I’m not alone.

“Whether it’s a black member of the department or a white member, it’s still a hate crime,” said Stephan Fugate, who’s president of a union for Baltimore’s fire officers. “If I had put the noose there, whatever penalty would have been directed at me should have been directed toward Mr. Maynard as well.”

Maryland Transit Administration Police said last night that they have found no evidence that the severe beating of a 26-year-old woman on a city bus this week was provoked and that they are investigating the attack as a possible racially motivated hate crime.

Nine middle school students have been charged as juveniles with aggravated assault and destruction of property in the Tuesday afternoon attack on a woman and her male companion on the No. 27 bus.

Police said yesterday that they have determined that there were two additional victims in the case – a third passenger and the bus operator who came to his assistance.

Investigators were examining video from a surveillance camera on the bus but had not completed their analysis…

…Jawauna Greene, an MTA spokeswoman, confirmed that investigators were considering racial hostility as a potential motivation for the assault, which left the female victim, Sarah Kreager, 26, with broken facial bones and other injuries after she was punched, kicked and dragged off the bus. Her male companion, Troy Ellis, was also beaten, but not as severely.

“We are at this point investigating it as a hate crime,” Greene said.

Greene said the suspects, who have been released to their parents, are African-American while the two originally identified victims are white. Marzola said the suspects are also believed to have menaced an elderly passenger, who is white, and to have assaulted the bus operator, an African-American male who defended his passenger.

“He probably saved this gentleman’s life,” Marzola said of the operator. The MTA declined to identify the driver, saying they consider him a witness to a crime.

Police said no evidence had been found to back up the claims of suspects’ parents that Kreager or Ellis had provoked the incident by spitting or displaying a knife.

Greene said that at the time the incident reports were taken, no child reported any spitting or knife being pulled. Gavrilis said the operator hadn’t mentioned any provocation.

If the races had been reversed in this monstrous crime, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would already have booked their private planes on the first flight out to Baltimore. Via The Examiner:

As Sarah Kreager, 26, tried to sit down on a Baltimore City bus Tuesday, police say, a middle-schooler told her she couldn’t. When she attempted to take another seat, a middle-schooler wouldn’t let her. Finally, according to police, Kreager just sat down.

She was “immediately attacked” by nine students — three females and six males — from Robert Poole Middle School. They punched and kicked her at 2:59 p.m. at the intersection of 33rd Street and Chestnut Avenue, according to Maryland Transit Administration police.

Kreager was dragged off the bus and her boyfriend, Troy Ennis, attempted to get her back on, police said.

She sustained “serious injuries” and had to be transported to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, according to a police report.
Examiner.com Related Articles:

Kreager suffered two broken bones in her left eye socket, police said.

“She had eye muscles that were damaged,” a police report states. “She had deep lacerations on the top of her head and another above her neck.”

Two seats and the bus’ rear glass were destroyed during the attack, police said.

The bus driver on the No. 27 line quickly called police, who responded and arrested the nine juveniles, said Jawauna Greene, an MTA police spokeswoman.

All nine suspects, ages 14 and 15, were arrested and charged with aggravated assault…

…The suspects in the incident are black. The victim is white, according to the police report.