on life & other inconveniences

Occasionally I exchange e-mails with John McFetridge about crime in Canada, and we’ve long since concluded that the news hands over the stories.  “More Criminal Charges Against Toronto Police Officers”.  Since that article, a few more have been arrested as part of a drug sting.  We couldn’t make some of this up.  

 

But nothing tops Baltimore.  It’s so easy for criminals to escape, Judge Charles Bernstein declared, “If I were a young enterprising criminal, I’d come to Baltimore to set up my practice.  This is the place to be.  This is the Promised Land.”

 

The reason?  A series of screw ups that led to a criminal just opening a car door and waltzing off, when he should have been in court for his trial.  In B Free Daily, Lori Barrett offered a run-down of the details (I’m still curious:  how did Officer Barron call her supervisor when she didn’t have a cell phone?)  and it’s a shocking series of blunders that should never happen in the transport of a criminal.  She also has an article online.

 

It gets better, though.  Just two days after the report on Marcus Anderson’s escape we learned that the prisons mistakenly released the wrong person two months prior to their sentencing date.  

 

And only one day after they were convicted.

 

A spokesman for Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said: “We’re investigating what happened… Given the nature of the case, it’s important that we take as much time as needed to figure out what’s happening.”

 

Um, I don’t need much time at all to figure it out:  you screwed up.  Electronic records aren’t feasible so decisions about prisoners and instructions are rendered in handwriting?  Give me a break.  I mean, at least start employing a handwriting analyst so that you can make sure the prisoners aren’t signing their own release forms.

 

It’s a common mistake to think that criminals are stupid, but let me tell you, if I was trapped on an island and had to choose whether to team up with the criminals or the prison officials from the Baltimore area, my money would be on the criminals making it out alive.  They’re nobody’s fool.

Tags: Baltimore, idiocy, smart criminals

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 8:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.