Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was discharged early from supervised release. A federal judge found Pugh had complied with all the rules and regulations, which is why she recommended the end to her supervision. Pugh was federally indicted in 2019 and ultimately entered a guilty plea to four of the 11 federal charges filed against her — fraud and tax evasion — after she failed to disclose a business interest related to her “Healthy Holly” children’s books. She was sentenced to three years in prison in February 2020.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is discussing a plan to increase traffic enforcement across Baltimore City. Appearing on WBAL Radio this Wednesday, the mayor said a directive to pay closer attention to traffic violators came from him, the police commissioner, and demands from the community.
“When people are not obeying traffic laws, when they’re speeding, when they’re blowing through stop signs, they will be pulled over,” Scott said. “People are driving like maniacs.”
As far as having enough cops to do it, the mayor said they’re continuing to work on recruiting and retaining officers, but that they must enforce the basic laws.
Scott explained that authorities were stopping violators, but that it wasn’t a big focus, and that things have changed to allow police to shift that focus.
“As we continue to drive down homicides and shootings in the city, they also have a responsibility to be helping keeping people safe in every way,” Scott said.
City leaders went door to door as part of a fire safety initiative in and around the 3400 block of East Lombard Street in southeast Baltimore.
“A raging fire claimed the lives of three of our Baltimore family members. One family member being lost in a fire is too much, but three is just hard to wrap your mind around,” City Fire spokesman Kevin Cartwright said. “We (knocked) on doors, offering to install free smoke alarms, basic home fire safety inspections, as well as providing a literature to help them know how to keep themselves safe from the dangers of residential structure fires.”
Cartwright said the home where the fatal Highlandtown fire began, did not have working smoke detectors.
“We don’t have to have this happen in our city. We want every single family, every single household, to have a fire safety plan,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. “But also, everyone in Baltimore should have a working smoke detector because we will give it to you for free.”
A challenger to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott leveled harsh criticism over the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal pandemic aid through the American Rescue Plan Act.
Democratic primary mayoral candidate Thiru Vignarajah on Thursday accused Scott of using Baltimore’s allocation as “a personal slush fund.”
He’s calling for an independent forensic audit to get to the bottom of “unilateral” and “nebulous” distributions to dozens of nonprofit organizations, as well as $2 million to the Service Employees International Union, $15 million to Clean Corps to clean trash in city neighborhoods and $5 million to Lexington Market.
“It’s a thinly veiled political payback in a city that has had it pay-to-play culture for too long,” Vignarajah said.
Fellow Democratic primary challenger and former Baltimore mayor, Sheila Dixon, questioned why Scott didn’t use ARPA funds for roads and bike lanes and to synchronize traffic lights.
“I agree with some of the criticism. It’s clearly a missed opportunity, and it clearly shows the mismanagement of this current administration,” Dixon said. “(The money could have been used on) getting those pools open, recycling would not have stopped. I would have met hiring the private sector to partner with the city while we build up our revenue and our inventory of new trucks, EMS, fire trucks fire stations. There’s a disconnect. It’s about accountability, and it’s about management.”
WBAL-TV 11 News reached out to Scott for an interview. His City Hall office called this a political issue. His re-election campaign office said Vignarajah has not offered “any viable vision” for how he would use ARPA funding.
The bodies of a woman and a baby were found Tuesday morning in west Baltimore, police said.
City police said officers were called around at 9 a.m. to an apartment in the 1800 block of McCulloh Street, where they found a 32-year-old woman and a 13-month-old child dead.
Police said there were no signs of foul play or anything suspicious and that detectives are investigating the deaths as “questionable.”
The causes of the deaths remain under investigation.
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Police said a UPS driver was shot outside Mondawmin Mall Friday. According to Baltimore City police, officers responded to the 2400 block of Liberty Heights Avenue at around 6:10 p.m. to investigate a reported shooting.
Police said two groups of juvenile males got into an altercation in the parking lot outside the mall Friday evening.
The groups began shooting at each other. A nearby UPS driver, who was not involved, was shot in the ankle.
Police are still investigating how many shooters there were and what exactly led to the incident.
Mondawmin Mall was not evacuated, Det. Vernon Davis said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 410-396-2477 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7LOCKUP.
