FIRST-PERSON: Justice? A judge denies bond for a 17-year-old charged with three counts of weapons possession, including possession of an assault weapon. The sole evidence of possession of a weapon?
A video. Baltimore police say they identified the suspect in the video and that he pulled from his bag what looked like a gun. It was, his lawyer says. Not an assault weapon, but a toy gun.
So we have before us in Baltimore City District Court today the case against a 17-year-old boy, charged with three counts of weapons possession, including possession of an assault weapon.
Judge Kent J. Boles Jr. denies him bond.
In a city where homicides have topped 300 each of the past eight years, many first-degree murder suspects are freed on bond as they await trial.
But not this suspect.
The evidence against the teenage defendant, who police allege pulled out a “rifle-caliber” pistol Saturday , July 2 at the Brooklyn Homes public housing complex, where gunfire killed two people and wounded 28 others around 12:30 a.m. on July 2?
A video.
But no weapon, no weapon in this criminal case against this high school senior whose lawyer says has no criminal past whatsoever.
No weapon recovered by the Baltimore Police Department, the AWOL BPD, absentee cops, all day and night Saturday into the first half-hour of that dreadful Sunday, until all broke loose at Brooklyn Homes.
Did the judge who subjected this teen to what many murder suspects do not even face — being detained without bond — have any evidence justifying this decision?
Well, he says, just look at the charging documents, in which Baltimore police said a video captured the suspect pulling out of his backpack a “rifle-caliber pistol” and that six rounds recovered at the scene could have been fired by that weapon.
I’m not a cops or courts reporter, though I have covered more than a hundred homicides and reported on four mass shootings, five now, by the federal definition of a mass shooting, though in each of the others I’ve covered, at least five people died.
I have never seen anything like this.
Three weapons possession charges, including possession of an assault weapon.
The evidence of possession of a weapon, any weapon, includes no weapon.
None.
No weapon.
The cops have no weapon as evidence.
The prosecutor presents no weapon as evidence.
Only a video and speculation.
Those six rounds, the police say, could have been fired from that weapon.
The one in the video.
We have here no evidence of possession of any weapon beyond a video and speculation to justify cops showing up at this kid’s home Friday, arresting him, booking him on weapons charges, no evidence beyond a video to justify this judge ordering this kid held without bond.
Justice?
It’s understandable that five days after the fact, Baltimore police perhaps grew desperate for a single arrest.
That would be the BPD cops who showed up in force ONLY after the gunfire rang out at Brooklyn Homes around 12:30 a.m. Sunday — a full day after they should have been at Brooklyn Homes, automatically.
No-shows.
AWOL.
When more than 700 people gather for an annual celebration at a public housing complex where gunfire routinely rings out at night, and police know about this event before it starts, as the acting police commissioner, Richard Worley, acknowledged BPD did, police are supposed to show up.
It should be automatic.
It’s their duty.
BDP STILL did not flood Brooklyn Homes with officers after receiving numerous reports of people with guns and knives and even gunfire hours before the carnage.
But then, the cops certainly made up for it by employing some impressive investigative skills on this one and nabbing this suspect, didn’t they?
A suspect, police say, who possessed an assault weapon.
What am I missing?
There must be something justifying arresting this teen at his home, charging him with three counts of criminal possession of a weapon, an assault weapon, and then this judge ordering him held without bond.
Maybe a really serious violent act in the past that provided “clear and convincing evidence the defendant would pose a risk to public safety,” as the judge who denied him bond said?
No evidence of that.
Any sort of serious mental disturbance or threatening words or actions?
No evidence of that.
The suspect’s lawyer, Michael Clinkscale, tells reporters that the teen is a high school senior who lives with his mother near Brooklyn Homes, enjoys rap music and has no criminal record.
“He certainly has not committed any sort of violent crime,” Clinkscale said. “He has absolutely no prior criminal anything. He hasn’t even gotten a jaywalking ticket.
“It’s going to be a very significant challenge to determine that this young man even had possession of a gun — a handgun or otherwise — and we are going at them because they do not have the evidence to keep this young man held.”
If I were that kid’s mother or father, I would most certainly want answers.
Demand them.
NOW.
We all need to demand answers in this case against this teen.
In the name of justice.