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The Afro-American, July 13, 2019 - July 19, 2019
Teen Charged In Double Homicide
Race and Politics
The man has not been identified. Police are still working to establish a motive. A 17-year-old West Baltimore Teen Anderson, who was out on $100,000 out on bond for robbery charges is now unsecured bond for robbery, was in the suspected in a double homicide. process of getting his case moved to Charles Anderson was one of 64 juvenile court. people arrested in a three-day sweep Court records state according to Baltimore Anderson is being represented Police Commissioner by a public defender but his Michael Harrison in a lawyer could not be reached press conference held last for comment. week. The operation aimed There is no lawyer listed to catch those wanted for in online court records for violent crimes, such as Donyell Morris. shootings, armed robberies Foster’s family spoke and assaults and was with Baltimore television executed with the help of Donyell Morris station FOX 45 after it was state police and federal announced their daughter’s agents. killers were arrested. The officers also “So how do you bury a arrested 18-year-old child? I’m going to find out Donyell Morris, of Cherry but this is hell. This is pure Hill, and charged him in hell,” said Robert Foster, the same double killing. Brittany’s father. According to police, the “There’s a problem in two teens allegedly gunned the city because all these down a couple in the early criminals are being released Charles Anderson morning hours of July 2 in a week later, they’re going the 1200 block of block of back on the streets and they’re Bloomingdale Road in West Baltimore. not scared. They’re not afraid. They’re When officers arrived on the scene, shooting people everyday. Why is that they found a 28-year-old man and happening? Why?” 26-year-old Brittney Foster of Harford Both Anderson and Morris are charged County suffering from gunshot wounds. with first-degree murder and various other The man was shot in the chest and charges. Foster was shot in the head. They were Anderson is scheduled to appear in transported to area hospitals where they Baltimore Circuit Court on July 23 on the were pronounced deceased. robbery charge.
age of Liddy Jones, the infamous drug dealer being 57, which Jones would have been in 1999. If journalism was Byrd’s sanctum sanctorum, surely the underworld of narcotics was his perdition. “Malik woke up at the morgue on a cold steel slab inside a body bag with a tag tied to his big toe. Paramedics had found him overdosed on heroin near the reservoir in Druid Hill Park and thought he was dead,” Byrd wrote. “It was a moment of truth, horror, and decision, he tells a room full of recovering and laughing addicts in the basement of his home group Serenity in Sandtown, at Ames Memorial Church at Carey and Baker streets, one of more than 300 Narcotics Anonymous meetings held in Baltimore daily. Thousands of recovering addicts from every strata of society attend these group meetings.” Byrd knew Malik’s world intimately; he struggled with drug addiction for decades. He died around 2005, but I’m not sure of the exact date. Jake Oliver, the AFRO’s former publisher and CEO (now publisher emeritus), sent Byrd on assignment to Atlantic City. He was sent to explore the burgeoning phenomenon of people flocking to the East Coast gambling capital via ultra-cheap bus rides and tossing their money away.
By Michelle Richardson Special to the AFRO
Love Baltimore Continued from B1
What do you love about Baltimore? In the coming weeks, we will print your Baltimore “loves” in the paper, and select the most interesting of them to include on a page in the book. I love the Inner Harbor. I love City Hall Plaza. I love the Great Blacks in Wax Museum and the people who created it. I love the squeegee guys. I love the folks who defend the squeegee guys. I love the people who weep when the “running man” is assaulted. I love the folks who show up at City Hall when things aren’t going well. I also love the ones who show up to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. I love the debaters. The policy makers. The scout leaders. The marching bands. I could go on and on. What do you love about Baltimore? Send your responses, 100 words or less, to afrolovebaltimore@gmail.com as soon as possible so they can be published. Look for them in the paper and online at Afro.com. And maybe even on the locals’ page of “The Thing I Love About Baltimore.” “The Thing I Love About Baltimore” can be preordered by calling the AFRO front desk at 410-554-8200 or at webmistress@afro.com.
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It is unclear whether Byrd actually died in Atlantic City, but Oliver said he is certain he fell ill in the coastal town. And although the circumstances of his death are murky, I believe his decades of narcotics abuse contributed to his ultimate demise. Oliver told me recently he originally hired Byrd to write for the AFRO in the early 1990’s. He had been highly recommended by reporters at the now defunct daily, The News American, who Byrd wrote for. He allegedly freelanced for the Baltimore Sun as well. The word on Byrd as a storyteller was undisputed. “They told me (the News American reporters),`This is the best writer you will ever meet,’” Oliver said. “His use of imagery was something...it was pure poetry.” Oliver is right; Byrd was the embodiment of an extraordinary storyteller. I didn’t meet him until 2004, not long before he died. I had just won a series of awards for my reporting on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board, and Byrd would chide me by referring to me as, “You award winner you.” We were definitely competitive, but it was a Brotherly competition. Ultimately, I was in awe of him; I’m pretty good, but Byrd was great. I would actually watch him write in our newsroom. He would rhythmically pat
his feet when he was in the mix, his muse flowing freely, informing every phrase. I miss him; I miss his talent, I miss his laughter, I miss his spirit. I miss his stories; nobody did it like Byrd. “For most addicts like Malik, however, slinging drugs and committing crime did not earn them homes and luxury cars. It supported their habit. And smoking crack-cocaine brought individuals to their knees who otherwise would never have thought of themselves as junkies. Not viewed with the loathing of injecting heroin and cocaine with needles, crack proved to be a nightmare drug that addicted instantly and wrecked middle-class and Wall Street types at the peak of their careers,” Byrd wrote. “All, for a time, found drug use insurmountable. Babies were born addicted. Families were lost. Friends used. Self-respect denied. The will to overcome destroyed. Tens of thousands were left confined to ghetto poverty, prison, or the cemetery.” Nobody did it like Earl Byrd. Sean Yoes is the AFRO’s Baltimore editor and author of, Baltimore After Freddie Gray: Real Stories From One of America’s Great Imperiled Cities.
Sewell
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The sentence is the second time Sewell has faced a Worcester County judge after being convicted. The original 2016 conviction was overturned by the Court of Special Appeals after they ruled, he did not receive a fair trial. But the most recent iteration provoked a strong reaction from Sewell supporters, who said his signature style of community policing transformed the town and thus the ongoing prosecution was unwarranted. “I started crying,” Michelle Lucas, a former Pocomoke resident told the AFRO. “I was so scared he was going to go to jail for something he didn’t do.” For Lucas, watching the trail during which almost all defense motions were denied has shaken her trust in criminal justice system. “Not only has this rocked my whole faith in law enforcement, but it rocked my
faith in the justice system too.” Looming over the sentencing was the continued fallout over Sewell’s 2015 termination. The council was silent about the reason. But Sewell recently settled with city officials for $450,000 and commitment to a consent decree to reform racially biased employment practices. Still, for Pocomoke residents the damage brought by the protracted prosecutions has inflicted deep collateral damage. A town that has not been safe, nor hospitable since his termination. “I told the judge chief did everything by the book. He was always a man who was committed to the law. He spent a lot time out in our community,” White said. “And now that he’s gone community policing has just stopped.”