The Crimes of Harvey Cushing

BALTIMORE – Every potential eyewitness present when surgeons covertly transported a 23-year-old Black woman from a New York mental asylum to a hospital down south just so that they could experiment on her brain – are all now dead.

While the victim’s name was never intended to be disclosed, with the benefit of time and the advent of the Internet we now know her name is Ida Jones. The young woman was brought to Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) during the summer of 1910 and returned to New York in a pine box (minus her organs). This is but one example of how Hopkins became known as the body snatcher hospital.

Ida J, patient, in Cushing’s 1912 book
The Pituitary Body and Its Disorders

Although the details of Jones’ demise have been buried for over a century, parts of her brain (along with hundreds of others) are open for casual public viewing as part of a collection of human remains on display at Yale University’s library.

Ida Jones arrived at the racially segregated hospital not as a patient but as the intended lab rat for the celebrated “father of modern neurosurgery.” Harvey Cushing, head of Hopkins’ newly opened Hunterian Experimental Surgical lab, was an expert surgeon on dogs and monkeys before the institutionalized Black woman was delivered to him. Hopkins’ officials, eager to compete with Ivy League teaching hospitals up north, enthusiastically supported Cushing’s quest to forge a new surgical frontier specialty¹.

In addition to Jones’ remains, the museum in Yale library’s Cushing Center is the final resting place for brains removed from over 2,000 Cushing’s patients spanning his 35-year career as a neurosurgeon at medical schools at both Hopkins and Harvard University. In some cases, brains were removed without the patient’s knowledge and often in opposition to the family’s consent.

Generations of Baltimoreans have heeded the warning to steer clear of Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) at night fearing being snatched for medical experiments. Public officials and newspapers routinely dismissed the Blacks’ fear of roaming “night doctors” as tales of ignorance. For Baltimoreans of African ancestry, surviving fractured families using collective memory is a time-honored tradition. Passing along oral history has not only kept unsuspecting victims safe, but the lack of media acknowledgment adds yet another layer of trauma to urban existence.

Had it not been for Cushing’s dedication to documenting every step towards building his Brain Tumor Registry that he hoped would be his lasting legacy, we might not have ever known what happened to Ida Jones or be able to piece together the story of the human remains that Cushing collected. Most of what we know about the crimes of Cushing comes from his very own words, his dedication to taking photographs, and those who knew him best.

Exhibit A: The Deceased

As an inmate at the massive mental health asylum in New York City known as Wards Island, Jones was selected as a surgical experiment candidate on the recommendation of Cushing’s friend. As good fortune would have it (for Cushing), the Hopkins doctor was in need of surgical case studies for a lecture planned for later that year.

Ida Jones was brought to the east Baltimore hospital in the custody of New York City officials reportedly with complaints of headaches and failing vision on June 20, 1910. Ten short days later she was lying dead on the operating table with Cushing holding the bloody scalpel. X-Rays did not reveal any evidence of a “brain tumor” for case number XLII².

Circa 1930. Yale Collection. Harvey Cushing performing surgery at Harvard’s medical school.

Before Cushing arrived as a medical resident, Hopkins had attempted only two brain surgeries because of the mortal dangers. Surgery conditions were primitive with no monitoring system and anesthesia was often an afterthought.

Group C 07/30/2009 Cushing Brain Specimens in Glass Jars before restoration

The first of Ida’s two operations, Cushing caused massive and uncontrollable bleeding while cutting through the brain’s dura layer. Ida stopped breathing on multiple occasions, and she was resuscitated during the hours-long event. It was miraculous that Ida survived the first surgery on June 25, 1910.

A second operation was attempted on the 5’3” young woman five days later. Ida J bled out and died on the operating table, Cushing confessed in his book. However, a more antiseptic version is provided on the certificate he signed. Cushing blamed her death on a “brain tumor.”

On the certificate, the petite native of North Carolina is listed as married, a New York City resident, with no parents’ names provided. Her remains were reportedly sent to New York City on July 4, 1910, for burial.

In contrast, the 1910 federal census depicts Ida as an unmarried 22-year-old inmate at Ward Island. At the time, Ward Island was the largest hospital in the country with over 5000 patients on its grounds that covered 320 acres in Manhattan. Under the guidance of Adolph Meyer human experimentation without consent or caution was the norm instead of the exception.

It is assumed that Ida’s remains are buried unmarked in a mass grave in one of the city’s potter’s fields.

1910 federal census for Wards Island New York

Surgeon or Serial Killer?

Cushing often got away with murder. The evidence was kept in a private little black book that documented each death that was different than the data he published.

While at Hopkins, his patients’ mortality rate is often described as abysmal but without specific data. “[Cushing] seems to misstate his operative deaths,” wrote his biographer Michael Bliss.

Feuds erupted within the walls of Hopkins about Cushing’s lack of “scientific integrity.” Cushing complained to his father about negative press that lampooned his inadequacy based on the series of deaths that stemmed from numerous and consecutive fatal operative attempts.³

Hopkins provided little structure and often failed to reign in its young surgeons. “[Cushing] made significant mistakes. Pictures and descriptions of some of his cases suggest a tendency to overclaim for his organ [pituitary], that he may have been too eager to label a fat boy or a big man a pituitary problem,” wrote Bliss.

Cushing was not above ending the life of patients as Christopher Wahl wrote in his 1996 dissertation: “Not only does Dr. Cushing take action to euthanize his unfortunate, decerebrate patient, but he thinks nothing of revealing his intention in the operative note. By the standards of medical care today, Cushing’s actions would be morally and legally indefensible; in 1913, he could act with impunity”.

Assuredly Cushing’s actions would land him in prison today. On two different occasions Cushing used a baby’s brains in attempt to save the life of a wealthy and well-connected man from his home state of Ohio. When news agencies learned of the first brain transplant attempt, Hopkins officials issued an “indignant denial” that any such procedure had taken place, according to Bliss’s 2005 biography.

When news agencies learned of the brain transplant attempt, Hopkins issued an “indignant denial” that any such procedure had taken place.
Michael Bliss, Author, “Harvey Cushing A Life In Surgery”

The Ohio businessman (whose wife’s father was the grandson of ex-president William H Harrison) had been in a coma at Hopkins for nearly six months. William T. Buckner, twice received the pituitary of infants delivered at Johns Hopkins Hospital a procedure funded generously by his wife.

The first transplant failed, according to news accounts, because too much time passed between the infant’s death and the transplant. Hopkins procured the second infant (who died from malnutrition) with hardly any time passing before initiating the transplant. A brief mention indicates that they obtained the parent’s consent, but that is not substantiated, nor likely.

Headline of California newspaper from April 1912 that embarrassed
both Cushing and Johns Hopkins Medical School.

Exhibit B: An Active Crime Scene

Perched precariously between the promise of Pennsylvania’s freedom to the north and the seat of the Confederacy to its south, even today Baltimore remains an active crime scene, generations in the making.

Ida Jones took her last breath at Johns Hopkins Hospital, named for the wealthy Baltimore financier and enslaver. From its inception, Johns Hopkins institutions (the University and Hospital) have been one of unimaginable deceit, denials, and mythmaking that started with erasing enslaver from his official historical record.

Undated photo of children in the foreground of the domed Hopkins Hospital

Even while Hopkins’ parents and grandparents forced enslaved families of African descent to labor from birth to death on their Maryland tobacco plantation, Blacks were being transported through Maryland for risky medical experiments further down south. In her book Medical Apartheid, author Harriet Washington refers to the abundance of “clinical material” forcibly removed from people of African descent that fed medical research and medical training in the United States.

Another Black woman, Henrietta Lacks, unwittingly had her Cancer cells collected by Hopkins researchers after her 1951 death. Hopkins later shared the specimens with doctors around the globe without the knowledge or permission of her husband and children. Her family’s pursuit for justice continues today. Hopkins was also involved in the decades-long syphilis experiments at Tuskegee³.

With each passing decade, the more difficult it is to prove the elements of a crime, let alone one conducted in the privacy of a hospital surgical ward. The smoking gun in Cushing’s case remarkedly was his own published words.

The Verdict

Neither Hopkins nor Yale have commented on growing efforts to remove human remains of oppressed people from public collections, like the Smithsonian. Since the collection of brain specimens was brought out of its sub-basement in 2010, Yale University began exploiting the stolen remains by extracting DNA for additional study.

The Hunterian Lab today still exists but with modern facilities.

End Notes

1. In a major address in 1908 St Louis, Cushing described the over 300 craniotomies he performed in less than a decade when there had just been two in all the years prior to his arrival at Hopkins although 32 tumors had been identified and 13 had been referred to surgery. Christopher Wahl Dissertation.

2. The year before Ida was included in the 1912 publication about the pituitary that garnered him widespread attention, Cushing spoke about her at a New York gathering. Cushing also thanked the hospital’s pathology department for stepping aside and allowing him free reign over all the pathology of patient specimens (even those who died at his hand) without their interference.

3. Once the Tuskegee experiment story broke that revealed how Black men were left untreated for syphilis and permitted to die a long, slow death, the federal government responded to the crisis by requiring institutions who receive federal funding to have an “Institutional Review Board.”

Bibliography

Bliss, M. Harvey Cushing. A Life in Surgery. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2007.

Cushing H. The Pituitary Body and Its Disorders, Clinical States Produced by Disorders of the Hypophysis Cerebri. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. 1912 [Google Scholar]

Fulton, J. Harvey Cushing: A Biography. The Classic of medicine library. 1946. [Internet Library]

Pendleton C, Adams H, Mathioudakis N, Quiñones-Hinojosa A. Sellar door: Harvey Cushing’s entry into the pituitary gland, the unabridged Johns Hopkins experience 1896-1912. World Neurosurg. 2013 Feb;79(2):394-403. doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2010.12.007. Epub 2011 Nov 11. PMID: 22079823; PMCID: PMC3936577.

Wahl. C J. The Harvey Cushing Brain Tumor Registry: Changing scientific and philosophic paradigms and the study and preservation of archives. A thesis submitted to the Yale University School of Medicine in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, 1996.

Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid. Random House, 2019.

David “I-Can-Say-Nigger” Simon

In all the ways that count most to Black people David Simon unequivocally embodies the absolute worst of what is known as the “white moderate” male in the United States. Although his infractions are numerous, what draws the most ire is Simon’s casual and frequent use of “nigger” and “nigga”.

The most noteworthy incident in question occurred (not surprisingly) in the Trump era with Simon tweeting “Hannity my nigga!” on Monday 19 September 2016. It was a tongue-in-cheek greeting between two white men in response of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s announcement of a planned outreach effort to engage Black voters.

Although a firestorm ensued, it was not the first time that David Simon poked the bear by saying that word.

The disparaging racist language earned him a short-term suspension from the app, but not after days of defending himself. During that time Simon dug in his heels, claimed artistic freedom, and addressed his detractors as “hall monitors.” Sonja Sohn, the Asian/Black actor who portrayed Kima on HBO’s The Wire, was one of the few who came to his defense.

Screengrab taken on June 20, 2022 Twitter

White moderates have been the bane of activists toiling about in the struggle demanding the end of white supremacy even before Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote about his in exasperation in a letter from the Birmingham jail in 1963. The audacity of white men who as King noted have not seen “hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity” to suggest a more palatable way to be treated as a full citizen that should come as a birth right.

FILE — In a Jan. 14, 2010 file photo David Simon looks on during a panel discussion in Pasadena, Calif. It was announced Sept. 28, 2010 that Simon is among 23 recipients of the year’s MacArthur Foundation “genius grants.” (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello/file)

When dripping from white lips, the dark stain that comes word “nigger” triggers the blood memory of violence, angst, subjugation. While Simon relishes its artistry, he simultaneously riles the sensibilities of our ancestors even 60 years after King’s admonishment. No federal holiday commemorating the end of enslavement championed by a white moderate cis gendered male president can provide a respite from the likes of David Simon and his devoted legion of outspoken white male fans.

What is insufferable though about the creator of the 20-year old cop drama is his “whitesplaining” to Black people how his artful use of the word is not of the offensive variety. It is this audacity that shifts the responsibility for peoples’ recoil squarely back on their Black shoulders. It’s satire, he proclaimed frequently, evoking the “fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke” axiom.

Weeks after initially posting and defending his choice, Simon displayed a small measure of introspection with two tweets on September 20, 2016: “Don’t see it as an imprecise choice, but do I wish I tried another tack to insult Fox’s racial hegemony? Sure.” Long after Trump lost his re-election bid, and with the benefit of hindsight, David Simon responded, but not with an apology. “Stand by it as an answer to a white racist…” Simon Tweeted on June 20, 2019. The tweet remains live today on Elon Musk’s Twitter even after the murderous death of George Floyd and the immergence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Truth is, Simon knows his white male privilege. The wrists slaps were factored into his calculation for all chances he took once he left the DMV for Baltimore. He spoke on his world view to graduates of his alma mater, Chevy Chase-Bethesda High school, knew it too when he spoke at the 2012 graduation:

“Certain things were assumed for my life. The guardrails were all there. The airbags all worked. I might come through with a few dents and scratches, I might screw up here and there, but by and large, the risks I was asked to take were for the most part moderate and plausible. I was going to have to work some, and get a little lucky, sure. But for real, I grew up in Montgomery County, Maryland. I mean, damn. Nice work if you can get it.”

Simon’s Revoked Hall Pass

Simon was given an inch of rope and thought he was a cowboy. “Nigga” stopped being something a Black character said and something the white David Simon tossed around carelessly. For introducing the Stringer Bell and Omar to the world, David Simon was given a temporary pass similar to the one Samuel L Jackson extended to Quentin Tarantino.

Actor Michael K. Williams as “Omar” publicity photo for The Wire.
Undated. Uncredited.

Simon’s temporary pass for saying that one word was identical to the laminated one former president Bill Clinton stores along with an emergency condom in his pocket. The pass was granted to Simon to use poetically in telling our stories; Clinton was offered one for playing the Saxaphone on Arsenio Hall’s late night talk show. Both white men have shown that all passes extended should be hereby immediately revoked. No white male moderate American should be issued another pass in the future.

Before the Fox News dust up that got tongues wagging, Simon took “nigger” out for a test run on Twitter two months earlier. No one barely noticed. Using the same tactics, Simon donned the persona of former president Richard Nixon and attacked the policies of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump:

“…let’s clamp down on the hippies and the niggers and the eggheads who are fucking us up”
David Simon, Twitter July 12, 2016

Since his coat was not severely pulled for that transgression in September, Simon put on the equivalence of Black face and started the shuck and jive routine against Hannity – this time for a larger audience.

The Washington Post made Simon’s transgression palatable to its white moderate readership when it rhetorically presented Simon’s defenders’ point of view that Simon has carte blanche to use the word because he wrote artful television shows in the realism prism depicting multi-dimensional Black characters.

If you’re not black you shouldn’t be saying “Nigga”. Plain and simple… If you can omit ‘faggot’ and ‘bitch’ from your vocabulary then why is it so hard and strenuous for you to omit ‘nigga’?
Malcolm-Aimé Musoni, HuffPost.com September 26, 2015

Racism and misogyny rest comfortably within Simon’s wheelhouse. It’s been pointed out that the reasons white males bristle over the n-word is explicitly because it’s off-limits to them. Hollywood writer/producer/actor Quentin Tarantino famously penned the word “nigger” as dialogue for himself to utter on screen.

On his personal blog, on the day commemorating Juneteenth in 2013, Simon wrote about data mining, specifically cell phone’s metadata and peoples’ right to privacy in an essay that he titled The “Nigger Wake-Up Call.” It is painfully clear that the joke went over Simon’s head. Paul Mooney’s running gag is about Blacks who are suddenly jarred into reality after believing they had achieved post-racial equality.

Simon usurped Mooney’s comedic genius for the shock value of merely using the word. What is the point of having the pass, if you don’t use it, eh David?

Simon’s ability to write authentic dialogue reflective of his immersion into Baltimore’s street culture as an observer allows him extreme latitude in his personal interactions to call people “nigger” or “nigga”. In this case, he used the latter, a distinction he made without commenting on the difference between the two.

“Simon’s works have made him a sort of elder statesman regarding the intersection of race, politics and socioeconomics in America
Cleve R. Wootson Jr, Washington Post. September 20, 2016.

Simon himself rejected the idea that he has a pass to use the n-word indiscriminately. He wrote on Twitter (which oddly enough is akin to him saying the words from his own mouth) on October 7, 2016: “And if I used the term on AA, hand me my head. Satirically, on a white con man claiming rep of AA interests? Hey.”

It should be noted also, that Simon uses African American, AA, and black (not capitalized) without any clear distinction of why. Journalists abide by AP stylebook which requires capitalization of Black as a race and the distinguishes African American as applying to both race and ethnicity, but are not interchangeable.

“Simon is no longer just a journalist or a writer: he’s become a de facto translator for middle class audiences looking to understand elements of black America.”
Lanre Bakare, “Go home, David Simon. Without Justice in Baltimore, there can be no peace. The Guardian.com 28 April 2015

The Enemy of my Enemy is a Friend Fallacy

Pinpointing the extent of Simon’s supposed allyship requires the dexterity of Simone Biles. For instance, in July 2019 when Donald Trump blasted west Baltimore as “rat invested” and placed blame squarely on then Congressman Elijah Cummings, Simon lashed out at Trump and called him a “racist moron.” Simon’s defense of his adopted city has ingratiated Simon into many locals’ good graces.

However, in 2015 when Freddie Gray was killed in custody of the Baltimore Police Department, Simon seemed more aligned with law and order than the community marching in the streets. In fact, once Baltimoreans took to the street as an uprising against racial oppression was brewing, Simon penned a plea for an end to direct action.

President Barack Obama “interviews” David Simon on police culture in 2015. The president, seeking Simon as a potential ally, probed Simon for ways to change the culture of policing by seeking out ways to encourage historically racist institutions to see the humanity in the people and communities affected by their presence. Simon suggested maximum prison sentencing as a solution.

“White people — even those who speak up about black causes, like Simon — don’t have the social capital to throw around the n-word in everyday speech,” said author Jody Armour as quoted by the same 2016 Washington Post article.

Enter the Wu-Tang

If David Simon stopped saying “nigger” his family would starve. He is royally compensated many times over for putting “nigger” on a page. Unscientifically, David Simon has written the word hundreds (if not thousands) of times.

His seminal work, The Wire ran for six seasons and has a loyal fan base. During its 10-year heyday, his internal voice must have tried out every iteration of that word’s pronunciation. But Simon says he’s never “said” the word. (If he read any of his scripts out loud, merely playing the percentages, he has surely said “nigger”).

“Nigga, is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?! The fuck is you thinking, man?”
“The crown ain’t worth much if the nigger wearing it always getting his shit took.”
“Fuck them West Coast niggers, cause in B’more, we aim to hit a nigger, you heard?”
“This motherfucker be killing niggas just to do it. You see? Nigga kills motherfuckers just cause he can. Not cause they snitching, not cause it’s business, but just because this shit comes natural to him. Man, Little Kevin is gone! This nigga don’t feel nothing!”

Not to split hairs, but an argument could be made that there’s a world of difference between writing dialogue for a “gritty” “urban” television drama and when someone uses their personal Twitter account to flaunt their pass to their 334,000 followers gained as a result of their Hollywood celebrity status. The former is economic, the latter is all ego.

As the rapper Method Man (who portrays Melvin Wagstaff in season two of The Wire) of the Wu Tang Clan drops a verse in the 2014 hit CREAM:

Cash rules everything around me
C.R.E.A.M., get the money
Dollar dollar bill, y’all

Before there was beaucoup money to be made in a cinematic depiction of Black Baltimore, there was the use of “nigger” in Simon’s journalism career at the Baltimore Sun.

Simon’s literary success was sparked by shadowing Black people’s daily struggle of existence in West Baltimore as a journalist. He culminated the experience not by lobbying for resources, but by writing a 1997 book The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood that he co-wrote with Baltimore Police Department (BPD) detective Ed Burns.

Simon’s first book mentions “nigger” 47 times and “nigga” four.

The book was made into a critically acclaimed HBO six-part mini-series The Corner, directed by Baltimorean Charles “Roc” Dutton, who is Black. Residual checks keep coming. In contrast, odds are that the Black youth he shadowed in order to craft a realistic creative expression are in jail, prison, on parole or probation.

On DavidSimon.com, he lists two charities as “worthy causes“: The Ella Thompson Fund and The Baltimore Station as well as one scholarship fund. Simon wrote it is “probable that [donations to the organizations listed] will directly address an issue locale or dynamic that we dramatized.”

The Sun Rises on The N-Word: David’s Early Years

It is difficult to pinpoint with any degree of accuracy exactly when David Simon began taking a liking to the word tied to generational oppression of a people from African descent.

As is the moderate’s want to ask “where are his parents?, Simon admits the complexities of race was not a matter discussed at all in his house. In the next (and final) part of this series, the genealogy of Simon is explored putting into historical context some of the influences that undoubtedly shaped his world view.

Once the college grad from the Washington DC suburbs was dropped into Baltimore in the early 1980s, it was no doubt a culture shock. It would be totally understandable if the word “nigga” being tossed around like crime scene tape sent the cub reporter on the cops beat into full blush.

What was Baltimore to a kid from Montgomery County? It was another world, another America. Maybe not all of the city, but those quadrants that had been left behind…
David Simon, Graduation remakes, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School June 4, 2012

Simon’s first few years as a working journalist at the Baltimore Sun was an extension of his self-proclaimed college years – lazy and uninspired. From 1982 through 1984 the assignments were routine, and the reporting was generic; the combination offered little by way of opportunity to hone a writing style.

There were glimpses, though. Simon shone a sympathetic light on libertarian Warren Eilerston who beat federal criminal charges for refusing to pay federal taxes in August 1983. Also, in 1985, Simon deftly covered a shift in BPD policy after the public balked at the lack of transparency after a string of police shootings where the officers were either not identified to members as part of a “news blackout” and/or the officer refused to give a statement to investigators.

It would not be long before Simon’s byline would be inked above the word “nigger” published in the city’s paper of record. The subject of the 1988 story was a 51-year old resident of Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood who worked as a barmaid in 1963.

It was the occasion of the 25th anniversary of a murderous hate-crime where Hattie Carroll was caned to death by 24-year old William Santzinger for not bringing a white man’s drink fast enough in a downtown Baltimore bar.

Racially motivated murder of Hattie Carroll by caning. The Afro. 10 February 1963

In the 1988 story about the death of Hattie Carroll, Simon showed both his burgeoning talent for a narrative style of journalism. The man who killed Carroll for not bringing him his drink quick enough had spent the evening terrorizing the wait staff at the hotel. He called one woman a Black bitch. He also hit several people with his cane during the “Spinster’s Ball” a charity event attended by Baltimore’s society elite.

It was also perhaps Simon’s earliest recorded use of the word “nigger”. It was printed for no good reason. For that, the Baltimore Sun should apologize.

The word set in a line and paragraph all to itself.

It had no voice or quotation marks. It was David Simon’s voice caressing the word “nigger”:

David Simon, “The Case of Hattie Carroll, Baltimore Sun, 7 February 1988

The Sun really had no journalistic rationale for printing the racial epitaph gratuitously added by David Simon. The only context provided was that while visiting Charles County, the home of the man who killed Carroll, Simon supposedly witnessed the word’s wide use among whites in southern Maryland’s rural communities. Simon included in his story an unidentified white man (supposedly granted anonymity) from Charles County who wished “black people the best of everything, really.”

From that point in 1988, Simon took leave from The Baltimore Sun again and spent a year embedded with the Baltimore Police Department as its intern. His experience shadowing Baltimore Police Department (BPD) was memorialized in a 1991 book, that was later made into a television show for NBC, Homicide, Life on the Street. “Nigger” appears five times in the book; there’s no mention of “Nigga.”

Nor was [BPD] the most tolerant environment in which to come of age; there were cops twenty years younger who reacted to what they saw on the streets by crawling into a psychological cave, damning every nigger and liberal faggot to hell for screwing up the country
David Simon. Homicide A Year on the Killing Streets 1991

Simon’s “Nigger” Code

David Simon, much like the police he covered while a cops reporter in Baltimore, has somewhat of a code that dictates how he uses the word.

“Nigger” or “nigga” it seems is not something Simon feels that he say verbally out loud, in public. If he writes it out (in a tweet or essay), he is not restricted. However, he will take pause before he uses “my nigga” in writing if its directed to someone Black.

If it’s written as satire or in the voice of a persona he is co-opting, then he can pretend to be Black and use the word, but only direct it towards someone who is white.

The code allows Simon to write the word for characters to say as dialogue. He is also able to have a narrator describe someone as a nigger. Simon is the sole arbiter as to how many times he can write the word and if it is offensive. He believes his pass is unlimited.

Simon has not made any distinction between ending the word with an “r” or an “a”. But as stated earlier, his book The Corner uses “nigger” 10 times more frequently than “nigga”.

“David Simon is the blackest white man I have ever known. What he wrote was clearly ironic, and entirely at the expense of the whitest white man on the planet. I see no foul.”
Gene Weingarten, Washington Post columnist and Simon’s writing partner.

Sorry, Not Sorry

What seems most clear about Simon’s code is that he should never apologize when he uses it.

David Simon said that if he did delete the Hannity tweet he feared that in the void someone would claim that “I used the phrase to do anything other than to ironically mock someone’s actual co-opting of racial status [emphasis added] in order to advance their racist candidate.”

Let’s unpack the statement. First, he is arguing that if deleted, saved screenshots would also disappear from this known dimension thusly preventing him from pointing out the original context. Next, he insists that he was being ironic in mocking a white man who Simon believes to be racist by engaging him with a racially explosive word. In turn, no one focused on Hannity’s “co-opted racial status” but much of the world took Simon to the woodshed for his wanton use of a racist term. Now, that’s ironic.

David Simon is a Cop

David Simon is what Baltimoreans gleefully call a wannabe from the Dee Em Vee.

The Montgomery County native, 61, is mostly known as the creator of HBO’s The Wire, a fictional cop drama set and filmed on location in Baltimore. Credited for its realistic portrayal, Simon and his collaborator Ed Burns, a former city police detective captured the distinctive voice of the streets of Baltimore.

When the series debuted in June 2002, The Wire was applauded for its nuanced characters not often found in Hollywood. Simon’s narrative storytelling of Baltimore’s intricacies was compelling and layered. After its fifth and final season wrapped, the set was broken down, and the lights dimmed, all that was left behind were the tragic lives of the real people whose stories were told for profit by outsiders.

Twenty years after The Wire, Simon is back at it again with HBO, this time as the creator of We Own This City (WOTC), a fictionalized portrayal of a 2021 true crime book written by then Baltimore Sun newspaper reporter Justin Fenton also set in Baltimore. Similarly, critical acclaim was bestowed on the dialect and scenery that captures the small city with a big heart. But what is different from years that preceded The Wire are two major factors:

the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement (that includes the city’s uprising after the in-custody death of Freddie Gray in 2015)
the relevancy of social media in swaying public opinion (and subsequent cancel culture)

The lives of Blacks in the country mattered decidedly less when The Wire was greenlit, yet David Simon has not changed with the times. It is Simon’s continued public and unapologetic use of the word “nigger”, that has found the white man from the DMV himself way down deep in a hole since The Wire wrapped. When WOTC‘s controversial final episode aired on May 20, 2022, it was totally on brand that Simon dismissed concerns about his role in the post George Floyd era of policing.

Simon embeds himself within the ranks of BPD as its “intern”

Gaining access to police sources takes talent, trust, and time on the part of journalists. As does all institutions with something to hide (Catholic church, NCAA, NRA, political parties, and law enforcement come to mind), its caretakers are wary of members of the press for fear of what could be revealed. By the early 1980s the skeletons in Baltimore Police department’s closet had spilled onto the floor and were piling up in all the corners. An astute observationist like David Simon would have to be blind not to see it. Unless his promised proximity to police culture to gain their trust shaded his objectivity.

David Simon was a cop. After a few years on his journalist job, Simon took a leave of absence from The Sun and became a “police intern” at Baltimore City’s police department (BPD). He spent a year embedded within BPD learning their language and meeting their families. History has revealed that while his decision served neither journalism nor the general public of Baltimore very well, it was a huge “come up” for the beat reporter. In a book, Simon chronicled his experiences as a cop using the voice of what he called “the communal homicide detective.” Gaining unfettered access to police would prove that loss of objectivity was the price he would pay.

David Simon’s 1991 book promotion tour for “Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets” which set his path to Hollywood. The photo highlights him being “embedded” within BPD for a year to gain access to LE.

Simon looks to have made a deal with the devil. The violence against Black lives predates “police intern” Simon’s illegal stop and frisk days at BPD. The historic systemic racism that permeates BPD was documented in a scathing 2016 report by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) that includes empirical evidence of its patterns and practices of civil rights violations against Blacks. The very institution of policing is the villain in the sage of Black lives, not Simon and certainly not “drug wars”.

People who have lived in the city for generations have long memories. In the case of David Simon, people have not distinguished him from other cops when he was embedded along side them. BPD Commissioner David DeSousa in 2018 apologized at a rap concert for 200 years of racialized policing in Baltimore. Even the staid institution of The Baltimore Sun recognized its contribution to stoking racial discord when its editorial board issued an apology early this year. BPD, on the other hand unapologetically maintains its status as the most funded agency in the city at over a half a billion dollars annually.

BPD’s historical occupation over the city’s Black citizens on horrific display in Harlem Park in 2017 is in some measure owed to a young and ambitious cub reporter from the DMV who chose to be a big city cop for a year in 1988. When Freddie Gray was brutalized by officers which led to his death, Simon chided BPD for breaking the code. The resulting uprising was in Simon’s view because of failed policies he told the Marshal Project in a 2015 interview.

“I’m talking in the vernacular of cops, not my own — but even in the vernacular of what cops secretly think is fair, this is bullshit, this is a horror show. There doesn’t seem to be much code anymore.”
David Simon, on why Freddie Gray who didn’t meet the criteria should not have been beaten by BPD.

Simon’s latest venture documenting BPD culture excluded the obliteration of the code on display with the death of a Baltimore cop two years after Freddie Gray’s death. In an overtly illegal and brutal show of force, BPD locked down of over 10 square blocks in West Baltimore. The week-long occupation was covered in Fenton’s WOTC book, but quizzically excluded from Simon’s Hollywood portrayal of the GTTF.

Why Simon chose to omit actual evidence of BPD “owning the city” instead of settling for mere hyperbole has not yet been addressed. Albeit, it is not too surprising in hindsight since the police action prompting cries of #FreeWestBaltimore received precious little journalistic interest in real time. Since both the FBI and the DOJ were on site during the “lockdown” it served the feds well not to be eager to discuss BPD’s wanton display of police power. The Harlem Park lockdown is what happens when “police say” journalism takes precedent for fear of losing access.

During the lockdown/occupation, over one hundred Black residents of Harlem Park were routinely stopped by police, without any individualized suspicion of wrongdoing when they came and went from their homes. Instead in the Simon-orchestrated HBO version of history, GTTF chose to illuminate the failures and flaws of individuals like Wayne Jenkins.

The departments’ abusive actions on that day were so atrocious against residents living near the crime scene that it in response to a lawsuit, the commissioner issued a rare public apology.

[Black residents] were required to identify themselves, and their names were run through law enforcement databases. Police officers were posted at each block, alleyway, and corner, and police checkpoints were at each intersection.
ACLU Maryland

Leaving the tragedy and aftermath of the Harlem Park lockdown on the cutting room floor is one of the most cop-like acts David Simon could have ever done.

Sean Suiter as a Casualty of Simon’s Blind Spot

Lately, much of the ire directed at Simon on social media #BaltimoreTwitter centers on his depiction of the shooting death of a Black homicide detective in the line of duty that occurred in November 2017 in the Harlem Park neighborhood that preceded the lockdown. It is a case that remains unsolved. The detective, Sean Suiter, was killed the day before he was scheduled to testify as a federal witness in a corruption case involving multiple members of the department’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) plain clothes unit.

To Fenton’s credit, his reporting in WOTC depicts with clarity the extent of the BPD’s propensity for criminality and coverups, if only anecdotally. To Simon’s chagrin, because Fenton’s book maintains objectivity, but Simon’s decided to deviate from the book and go full bore just to echo a BPD’s narrative is quite telling.

Screengrab Twitter. David Simon @AoDespair

In the dramatization, Simon took creative license to underscore the scenario of suicide, a hypothesis that embraces BPD culture and dismisses journalistic responsibility. It is also in contrast to the Medical Examiner’s determination of homicide.

Fenton’s book chronicles the federal court cases involving the specialized unit he previously referred to as “elite” within the BPD which for years operated a robbery and drug ring while on duty. Before becoming a homicide detective Suiter, a native of Washington DC, was a member of GTTF.

A timeline of events that preceded Suiter’s death could be construed that he felt building pressure to snitch against his brothers in blue or that higher up in LE were seeking eliminate remaining potential threats. In October 2017, a key defendant ex-GTTFer Jemell Rayam plead guilty for his involvement in the department’s criminal conspiracy and became a witness for the prosecution. Suiter, died from a bullet wound to the head the day before he was scheduled to testify (presumably to corroborate details what Rayam offered in exchange for his cooperation).

Two weeks after Suiter’s death in early December 2017, Sgt. Thomas Allers pleaded guilty and declined to cooperate with the government. All the while Harlem Park was under police guard. The lone holdout, Wayne Jenkins finally entered his guilty plea in January 2018, the same month the trial began for two members who did not take a deal, Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor (who both were found guilty).

The circumstances involving Suiter’s death are as improbable as they are disturbing. The family man who had a reputation for professionalism was murdered in broad daylight – with what they have indicated was a department issued handgun. Suiter was discovered in a vacant lot near an alley in a section of Baltimore known for being a bastion for unsolved violent crimes. The single bullet to the head occurred while he was accompanied by another officer, who was not his usual partner.

The changing statements from that day’s partner, David Bomenka, provided the context for the collection of police evidence and the interpretation of same that followed. It is at this point the elements of a cover up (if not a conspiracy) takes root.

One independent journalist has persistently taken local media to task for merely parroting the narratives spoon-fed by BPD about proposed evidence without consideration of BPD’s history of lying and manipulation. “The media has largely accepted these prevailing myths, in part because there was a battle inside BPD over what happened to Suiter, what the Sun called the “two conflicting theories,” wrote Justine Baron on her website TheSuiterFiles.com.

Violations of Journalism 101 are many when it comes to covering Sean Suiter:

Journalists ceased amplifying the fact that when medical transport arrived, Suiter had been carried and placed inside of a patrol car (and dropped in the process) by BPD officers first to the scene. BPD said that the delay had no relevancy to the investigation.
No further investigation was made of the patrol car carrying Suiter (the driver has not been publicly identified) got into two accidents en route to the hospital.
No ownership of the decision to disturb the crime scene (and perhaps cause additional injury) and move Suiter from the lot.
Suiter’s gun, later proclaimed to be the murder weapon, was removed from the scene and recovered in a patrol car’s trunk – at some undisclosed time later, with zero explanation by BPD.
When officers responded, it was to an “active shooter” scene, in accordance with the information given by the only eyewitness, Suiter’s partner that day.

Jamie Hector’s performance as Sean Suiter earned the character a tragic figure moniker. In an episode guide, it surmises that “faced with the prospect of testifying against his fellow cops, and losing the job that he loves, he tragically commits suicide.” The suicide narrative championed by Simon and BPD has been engrained in the annals of television.

“Suiter is cynical and hopeless, faced with rejection from his colleagues if he chooses to testify and possible prosecution if he doesn’t. He also risks losing his job if, in testifying, he reveals to the FBI that he witnessed, and did nothing about, the GTTF’s crimes.”
Rebecca Bihn-Wallace, June 12, 2022 MSN.com

David Simon Crosses the Line

Simon may have left journalism, but it did not stop journalists (and others) from coming for him. Simon told the “Twitterverse” that he believed the cops when it came to the unsolved case of Sean Suiter’s death. Surveillance video of the moments that lead up to the shooting was stolen and (likely destroyed by BPD). A second camera provided grainy footage that generates more questions and the answers that it provides. Some see this action as further indication of a cover-up.

The barrage of criticism against the once-BPD “intern” turned Hollywood showrunner was swift. Suiter’s friend and attorney drew first blood:

Nice reminder that facts don’t matter when they get in the way of dramatizing crime in Baltimore
Jeremy Eldridge, Sean Suiter’s Attorney, Twitter May 30, 2022

In classic Simon fashion, he defended his position against Suiter’s attorney with the bluntness of a chainsaw in a pillow factory: “Your client took his life in advance of his grand jury testimony….he would likely lose his job as a result of the revelations forthcoming. This is regrettable. It is also entirely true,” Simon posted on Twitter.

It’s not known whether Simon intentionally tried to sound like the verbalization of a cop’s internal dialogue, but he succeeded. What Simon says is very much in line with how cops think: Suiter felt so strongly about the remote possibility of losing his job that he chose a risky attempt to portray his death as a line of duty homicide. Cops (and Simon) believe Suiter took a less than 50/50 gamble in order to provide for his family financially by hoping Bomenka fell for him staging his suicide to look like a homicide.

By any calculation a staged homicide was an unfathomable risk given that recent history has shown that many LE come out the other side of prosecutions largely unscathed. Even if after testifying Suiter ended up a disgraced former LE, he could find gainful employment as a media analyst or Baltimore drive time talk show host if not a professional police review panel member.

There’s no debate that the central evidence in the Suiter cold case is the lone eyewitness, Det. David Bomenka. He is the man that Simon has placed the utmost trust in. Simon has more faith in Bomenka than Suiter ever did. Suiter was leery enough about helping Bomenka on his case that Suiter grabbed a police radio before venturing out with the man he barely knew.

Screengrab, BWC footage of Bomenka’s approach to a felled Sean Suiter, Source IRB Report.

Homicide detectives rarely take a police issue radio, preferring to use their cell phones while in the field. If a detective wanted extra assurance when paired with a person they did not trust, then that would be a reason for carrying a radio. Sean Suiter’s last words were captured on his radio transmission. Although it’s not conclusive, it sounds as if Suiter is saying to ease someone else’s concern that he was close to: “Don’t worry about it.”

Screengrab Twitter David Simon May 31, 2022

Activist Leslie Mac asked Simon on Twitter how a former beat reporter responsible for covering BPD for years still gives credence to the version of facts presented by BPD and the FBI. Mac suggested that Simon’s white privilege clouds his judgement, Simon responded in typical fashion:

Moron, the FBI broke open the entire scandal of the GTTF. They uncovered the corruption. And the evidence of the suicide comes not from the BPD but from an independent investigator. So basically you only with to credit your own unevidenced imaginings. Got it. Christ Almighty.
David Simon @AoDespair R/T of Leslie Mac June 4, 2022 ,Twitter

Barely anyone in the city trusted BPD to investigate Suiter’s death with the exception of David Simon. Certainly no one did who was familiar with the failed prosecution the year prior of the officers present when Freddie Gray was fatally injured while in custody trusted that BPD would be respectful of West Baltimore residents. With no public confidence and lacking in overall legitimacy due to the DOJ, BPD’s leadership asked the FBI to take over the investigation and it declined, making national news.

Simon has often evoked the Independent Review Board (IRB) conclusion of suicide, without mentioning much how the IRB was bought and paid for by BPD and that members included two former BPD officers. The IRB was commissioned to look into the Harlem Park lockdown, but it failed to do so.

The DOJ’s Consent Decree’s monitoring team soon after the lockdown indicated that its job was not to investigate the lockdown: “… it is not appropriate for the Monitoring Team to interject itself into an active crime scene investigation or to assume the role of BPD command staff by intervening in BPD actions.” However, nine months later the IRB punted.

“The IRB has not analyzed this [lockdown of Harlem Park], and incorporates by reference the work of the BPD Monitoring Team,”
Report to the Commissioner of the Police Department of Baltimore City Concerning an Independent Review of the November 15,2017 Incident and Its Aftermath, August 2018

In the months that followed Suiter’s violent and suspicious death, the city was in extreme turmoil: The top cop was fired by the mayor. The person the mayor promoted to the position (Darryl DeSousa) was forced to resign after being charged for federal tax evasion. (These events depicting the dysfunction were included in the HBO portrayal). The city was failing to meet demands of the consent decree to reform its police department that it entered into after the 2015 death in police custody by Freddie Gray.

With political pressure mounting, BPD hired a panel to provide the public with an explanation of the innerworkings of their investigation. They called the panel the Independent Review Board IRB). The IRB’s processes and deliberations were conducted in private; their members were selected by BPD and they were paid by the department.

A year later, citing flaws in the IRB report (no one from the family was questioned in the process), Suiter’s family publicly decried the BPD investigation (and IRB’s review of same) as corrupt. It seemed that the thin blue line left the grieving officer’s family on the outside looking in. Suiter’s wife and children said what most of Baltimore was thinking: that whoever is responsible for the murder was within the department.

“It’s just too much of a coincidence — the day before he was due to testify. It looks like an inside job,” Sean Suiter’s eldest child, Damira, 27, said Tuesday night.
Justin Fenton, Baltimore Sun, May 1, 2019.

The medical examiner’s ruling in Suiter’s death is and always has been homicide. The state’s attorney called the case “open and pending” after BPD prematurely announced that it was closed in November 2019. Simon blames most of BPD’s abuses (but not its systemic racist practices) on the failings of drug war era policies.

In response to the backlash, David Simon has promised to outline his rationale for believing the cops’ theory of suicide in an essay.

From a white boy from the DMV to a Wannabe BPD-er

Simon’s road to Baltimore began in Silver Spring, MD and traversed through his admittedly mediocre years as a University of Maryland student in College Park. Upon graduation, he took a journalist job reporting for the Baltimore Sun and worked there for nearly 13 years before a parting of the ways in 1995.

Simon described his departure from The Sun as a result of his growing frustration of corporate influence along with editors stifling his burgeoningly creative narrative voice. As a young reporter, Simon’s strength was storytelling. He took a year leave in order to be embedded with Baltimore Police in search of more stories to tell. It was a gamble though that paid off. Director Barry Levinson (a true Baltimorean) optioned his book for a $10,000 pay day for Simon and turned it into a hit television show for NBC.

Buoyed by the success of his 1993 book Homicide: Life on The Killing Streets Simon’s request for a raise in pay at the paper was rebuffed. The Sun newspaper had had enough of David Simon. Before taking a buyout and leaving journalism for good, Simon thought the Sun would be his first and only job, he told Chicago Tribune in a 2008 article.

The then-owners of the Sun likened Simon’s hold onto a decades-old grudge to a character flaw. His anger issues, Simon said, are not directed at individuals, but towards the decline in journalism, they said in the same article. Not to worry, in 2012 Simon joined Twitter and his penchant for harvesting grudges would be on the world stage and undeniable.

Cashing in on Baltimore

David Simon’s year embedded as a reporter shadowing BPD homicide detectives was recounted in his 1991 book “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.” Director Barry Levinson (also from Baltimore) optioned the book for $10,000 and it became an award-winning television show, earning him a best director Emmy in 1993 and Andre Braugher an Emmy for best actor in 1998.

HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET — Sleuth Series — Pictured: (back row l-r) Reed Diamond as Detective Mike Kellerman, Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, Clark Johnson as Detective Meldrick Lewis, Michelle Forbes as Dr. Julianna Cox, Kyle Secor as Detective Tim Bayliss, Yaphet Kotto as Lieutenant Al Giardello, (front row l-r): Max Perlich as J. H. Brodie, Melissa Leo as Detective/Sergeant Kay Howard, Andre Braugher as Detective Frank Pembleton — Sleuth Photo

The Baltimore-based Hollywood successes linked to Simon’s stint as what amounts to a junior cop is as follows:

Homicide Life on The Streets (1993)
The Corner (2000)
The Wire (2002)
We Own This City (2022)

Like The Wire, WOTC is just a television show. Where they differ is that The Wire was loosely based on real people but was clearly a fictionalized representation. WOTC is a true story. Real people, suffering families, and the ongoing trauma of Blacks in the city, especially West Baltimore is not a figment of anyone’s imagination.

The Trouble With Outsiders

Granted, a great amount of not liking Simon is strictly personal, and not about his business at all. Objectively, Simon is largely viewed as a disagreeable and crass human being. (Simon was banned from Twitter for a death threat in 2018). His delight is visceral when he blocks people from viewing his Twitter account while insulting their intelligence for disagreeing with him. His admitted favorite insults lobbied at people are asshole, idiot, moron, scrotesniff, fuckbonnet, taintlick, and gibbering submoron.

Simon, in the post Trump years, still also manages to squeeze in an occasional motherfucker or nigger (more on Simon’s use of “nigger” in this series’ next installment).

That Simon is from the DMV instead of from Baltimore some may believe is at the crux of the disdain he evokes from locals. They would be wrong, mostly. People are growing weary of Simon because he has not atoned for having some of the city’s most dangerous cops as friends.

One such case highlighted in the book that launched Simon’s career stemmed from when he had extraordinary access to LE. It included the conviction of three Black teenagers for killing Dewitt Duckett over a Georgetown basketball jacket inside of Harlem Park Junior High in 1983. All three teens were exonerated in November 2019 after serving 36 years in prison, aided by the MidAtlantic Innocence Project which found the BPD coerced witnesses into testifying that they saw the three boys fighting with Duckett. If Simon knew about this coercion, he never spoke of it.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Charles J. Peters declared Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart (pictured below) all innocent and issued an apology on behalf of the entire criminal justice system.

No one would be surprised at all if Simon purchased the rights to the story of the three Black teens from Harlem Park wrongfully arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated before being exonerated. According to HBO, David Simon is the preeminent voice suited to tell the most tragic of Baltimore’s stories.

BALTIMORE, MD – NOVEMBER 25: Mary Stewart, left, walks with her son, Andrew Stewart and her daughter, Ulonda Stewart, Andrew’s sister after he along with Alfred Chestnut and Ransom Watkins were released and exonerated for the 1983 murder they were convicted of on Monday November 25, 2019 in Baltimore, MD. The three were given life sentences for the murder of DeWitt Duckett. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

NEXT UP IN THIS SERIES: David Simon’s Love of the “N-Word”

The Hunting Season: Targeting BPD’s Sean Suiter and Ike Carrington

BALTIMORE — Reporters pulled at threads to piece together a coherent follow up story today to tidy up loose ends poking out about the near fatal shooting of Baltimore City police detective Isaac “Ike” Carrington.

The city’s newspaper of record, The Baltimore Sun, took pains to distinguish how police “blocked” traffic during Carrington’s transport to the hospital, but didn’t “shut down” streets as reported by sometime rival/sometime media partner television station WBAL. On Thursday, Aug 22 flailing local outlets sought out a second day story after Carrington, 43, was craftily released from the hospital orchestrated by the department’s public relations team.

Screenshot (1122)

At the center of the patrol vehicles’ “block vs charge” debate is a friend of City Council President Brandon Scott, Ike Carrington, who has not given an interview to the press though the public has gotten to know him from his YouTube appearances. We’ve learned that Carrington is a family man, fashion entrepreneur and police sergeant with a 22-year career in one of the nation’s most notoriously corrupt law enforcement agencies.

The curtain shielding the extent of corruption was pulled back during a high profile trial of two Baltimore Police department (BPD) officers in a specialized unit named Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) four other BPD unit members testified in early 2018 that the corruption was rampant to the degree that even the Baltimore States Attorney was tipping BPD off about feds poking their noses in. Two sergeants Thomas Allers and Wayne Jenkins did not testify against the slew of corrupt officers as cooperating witnesses and received harsh penalties.

Even before the cops/fed witnesses held their hands up to swear to tell the truth in fed court early 2018 about their extensive criminal activities, Det Sgt Sean Suiter was shot in a vacant alley in West Baltimore. The still unsolved murder elevated suspicion that he was targeted for his role in planting evidence along with GTTF’s leader Wayne Jenkins.

Suiter died of a single gunshot wound to the back of his head on the exact same day he was scheduled to be a fed witness against the organized crime run out of BPD HQ by some of its most decorated officers.

Reporters looking at the Aug 8, 2019 attempted murder of Ike Carrington without revisiting the early 2018 GTTF trial and Sean Suiter’s Nov 2017 murder in Harlem Park would be committing the same professional bungling BPD is known for.

Putting a Hit on Officers Isn’t That Far Fetched

Dirty cops come with dirty laundry. No one wants to keep that stench under wraps than those who thrive on the turnstiles that make up the criminal justice system – law enforcement, judges, and prosecutors.

Whilst the feds were making its case against GTTF’s dirty cops using wiretaps and surveillance, the Department of Justice (DOJ) was also rummaging through BPD HQ in response to the homicide death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. Jenkins as the supervisor of GTTF, used the unrest to cash in – by selling looted pharmaceutical drugs. Record overdoses and violence immediately followed in the most vulnerable neighborhoods where GTTF tended to prey with lucrative results.

Truth be known, the lack of integrity of BPD officers was simmering under the surface way before the GTTF scandal boiled over. Arguably, the most noteworthy notch in Carrington’s two decades long career with BPD (that is before being shot in the back running from a gunman while off duty) was his partnership with oft disciplined BPD Officer Thomas Wilson III.

Then federal judge, and now Baltimore City Police solicitor Andre Davis, had a peculiar habit of throwing out drug cases. He also had well publicized scathing remarks about the trustworthiness of drug bust investigations conducted by Wilson and Carrington.

Screenshot (1132)

As a federal judge, Davis routinely reprimanded Baltimore Police and in doing so, undermined the integrity of prosecutors’ cases (when he didn’t out and out dismiss charges against drug kingpins). It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume notorious drug dealers would delight in seeing Judge Davis handle their case – betting the unconstitutional behavior of BPD would draw his ire enough to toss the charges all together freeing them to carry on.

Ike Carrington Linked to GTTF Through Wilson

As if Judge Davis calling Wilson out on several occasions from 2003 to 2008 wasn’t enough, confessed drug dealer, fence for BPD’s Wayne Jenkins, Donald Stepp testified during the GTTF trial that Wilson worked side hustles for Jenkins and was familiar with Jenkins drug dealing. All local media found the GTTF trial compelling but to have a civilian insider who also worked as a bailbondsman relay his brash testimony was novel. A colorful character on the witness stand, Donald Stepp routinely dropped nuggets, like exposing Wilson as an ally of Jenkins, and keeping photos of GTTF shenanigans on his cell phone.

Media Missing The Big Picture

Two weeks after Carrington’s shooting, local established media outlets have not yet made the connection between the shooting of the fashionable sergeant in front of his home and the GTTF probe. Screenshot (1138)

It did pop up on social media when public defender Todd Oppenheim posted a query that no MSM picked up on. His Tweet is what led to this article. Specifically, Oppenheim called into question the partner history between Wilson and Carrington and wondered publicaly why no reporter had asked BPD officials if that GTTF link could be a possible motive for Carrington getting chased and shot in broad daylight.

It’s likely that the new commissioner Michael Harrison would behave exactly like his predecessor Kevin Davis who proclaimed that while the department had uncovered no motive for Suiter’s murder, his being scheduled to testify in a grand jury against his blue brethren was no way connected to his untimely demise. Zilch. Nada.

Independent journalists have looked closely into the Suiter case to reveal the possibility that the well respected officer was being exposed like a sitting duck. Namely Justine Barron has taken a painstaking look, frame by frame, of the video recovered that captures minutes leading up to his murder and BPD’s response.

Just this time last year, #WestBaltimore residents waited to exhale after holding its collective breath for the “independent” review board (IRB) examination of BPD’s November 2017 murder investigation of husband and father Sean Suiter.

From all appearances Suiter’s killer laid in wait until his partner David Bomenka was out of view before he was able to shoot the veteran homicide detective in the back of the head. Bomenka claimed he never saw anybody.

The IRB concluded there was no convincing evidence that Suiter was murdered (but they never looked at his partner as being a suspect, only a witness) making suicide the only remaining option. They also ruled out the shot to the back of the head as an accident. PC Davis, after he was fired, stood by the decision to investigate Suiter’s death as a homicide and called the suicide theory “absurd.”

Woefully, initial media reports tend to be clumsy and hurried because the situation is fluid and outlets are desperate to not be scooped by their competitors. Add to in the high emotions of when police are investigating one of their own as a crime victim, we can be sure that this department will spin out of control ignoring all policies, protocols and training as it the IRB documented that they did during Suiter homicide almost a year ago.

BPD Shapping Ike’s Narrative

Harrison’s BPD has kept media at bay and orchestrated the messaging about the shooting with a public relations spin that has pushed local reporters to the periphery.

Screenshot (1141)

The wounded officer’s release from the hospital Wednesday was accompanied by a social media maelstrom of photos of salutes from various angles by various first responders provided by BPD. Media was not permitted access to Carrington who has not given a public statement about his attackers.

Earliest Reports Gleaned by Press

Carrington and a neighbor were standing in front of his home where he lived with his family in the Frankford section of Northeast Baltimore when two men wearing masks approached. The neighbor dropped his wallet and phone and ran across the street, he told Fox45 Keith Daniels. Carrington ran in the opposite direction according to multiple reports.

A neighbor and friend of Carrington (Jabir Pasha) who lives near the corner at Todd Ave heard the shots and then saw the Carrington, prompted him to render aid, reported the Baltimore Sun. Pasha noted a gunshot wound to both arms and also one in the back.

WJZ spoke with neighbors and captured the prerequisite “I’m shocked” interviews from people who claimed the neighborhood is quiet and friendly.

Screenshot (1142)_LI

A total of six shots were fired in Carrington’s direction. A neighbor’s surveillance camera captured the sound of four shots in quick succession. After a 2-3 second silence, two more quick shots. The “robber” chased only Carrington, who ran away from his home and his friend as his assailant gave chase.

Police quickly notified the public to be on the look out for a blue Acura that was seen fleeing the scene, which in Baltimore is tantamount for searching for a 5 feet 7 inch black man with a goatee – they’re everywhere. A similar non-description description was given for the suspect in Suiter’s murder, a black man wearing a hat and a black jacket – in November. The reward for Carrington’s shooting is $19,000. Suiter’s broke records at over $200,000 and is still unclaimed.

In a city where anyone’s life could be snuffed out at any minute, having that reality apply to law enforcement officers is extremely unsettling. Add in that they were both black officers should arouse suspicion in an agency noted for its institutional racism.

Carrington was well known in his neighborhood and it was no secret he was an officer with the Baltimore Police department. He was gunned down steps from his house while the person within arms reach received little attention from the robbers.

Baltimore residents deserve a legislature brave enough to insist that outside independent investigators look into if anyone connected to LE could be responsible for the shooting of Carrington and the murder of Suiter. In the upcoming election for mayor, any serious candidate must speak on the need to assure the public that no one from LE is actually targeting BPD.

Until taken off the table, concerned citizens are likely to believe that both Carrington and Suiter were targeted because of their affilitation with crooked cops who have an ongoing operation within BPD. Just because the snake’s head was cut off when Wayne Jenkins was arrested (and kept his mouth shut) doesn’t mean the body of the snake isn’t slithering around the halls of easily one of the most corrupt police departments in US history.

Screenshot (1143)

The Case for Disbanding BPD

The emotions swirling around the search for a solution to the ills of Baltimore Police Department range from disillusionment to detachment. Politicians favor the nonstarter debate of turning state control of the department over to the city. Others seek to disband BPD in the mode of Camden N.J., not knowing exactly why Camden is not a model to follow.

Simply put, Baltimore cannot do what Camden did, but not for the reasons you might think.

First though, consider this undeniable fact. We all suspect Baltimore’s Police Department is rotten to the core. It might not be. But in this case, perception is reality.

sketch 2 — Sketch drawing by Tom Chalkley of former police detective Momodu Gondo in orange jumpsuit as witness against his co-defendants, fellow police officers.

A law enforcement department requires the trust and compliance of those it serves to recognize its power. Baltimore Police has bankrupted any small reserve of goodwill that remained after the death of Freddie Gray and its subsequent “investigation.”

It has only been days since the guilty verdicts of police officers who were running a robbery, extortion and drug dealing operation – but only while in uniform. The Gun Trace Task Force cloaked as an “elite” special operations squad, instead served themselves mostly conspiring to steal overtime while committing heinous crimes.

Regrettably, a choreographed cacophony of warmed over questions from the media and canned responses from those in power, reflected none of the urgency that those awaiting the verdict expected and experienced.

“Journalists” asked:

“What does this mean for BPD?”
“How does BPD move forward after the verdicts?”
Are you satisfied with the verdicts?
Does the government expect more indictments?

People watching were asking:

What the fuck?
Why not just start over from scratch?

Disgust, Disband, Discard

After hearing in harsh detail how the department serves as a racketeering front for a criminal enterprise requires more sobering questions. The verdict from Monday, February 12th confirmed what many people have been shouting about only to have their cries fall on deaf ears. Baltimore Police Department is a criminal enterprise.

An impartial group of 12 Marylanders: eight white women, one Asian woman and three black men unanimously found 2 officers guilty of knowing taking part in a conspiracy to using their power as membership in the Baltimore City Police Department to carry out their crimes. The jury was pulled from the state and not merely from Baltimore City.

Let’s not forget that six other officers told a judge they are guilty and decided to forgo any pretense of a trial. These officers had shown up for work on the day they were arrested. They were not on desk duty as punishment for any bad behavior. These officers were not home, suspended while complaints were being investigated. They were armed with guns and unfettered power up until the second the feds stepped in.

The jury has spoken: Baltimore Police Department cannot police itself.

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

While President Abraham Lincoln coined the phrase in 1858 during his campaign, it bears remembering that it was in 1860 that Maryland took over the Baltimore Police Department with the help of a radical group of nationalists. Most will recall that Baltimore was a stronghold for the Union, but the state of Maryland was generally considered a Confederate sympathizer.

” Dear Maryland General Assembly, the Civil War is over, and the North won. It’s time to give Baltimore its police department back.” – Councilman Brandon Scott

-Baltimore Sun OP-ED February 28, 2017

The Know-Nothing Party, with it’s “America First” rally cries captured only but a single state, Maryland, with it’s presidential push. It is certainly time to be on the right side of history and reject the sole success of the xenophobic party (the shame of Maryland) and return control of the state’s most diverse city to the people who live here.

The most radical proposal to date simply does not go far enough. There have been calls to move control from the state legislature to Baltimore City Council. Impassioned activists spoke to city council in 2016. However, House Bill 1504 designed to do just that, died in committee in March 2017.

In support of the bill, Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott and Maryland State Delegate Curt Anderson penned an editorial pointing out the “insanity of the Baltimore Police Department being a state agency” in announcing legislation designed to put the department under the city’s control. This was the concern before it was confirmed the BPD was acting as a front for an organized crime syndicate.

Camden is not a Model City

Reorganizing Baltimore Police by disbanding the existing structure and creating a new citizen-led organization has no model to follow. Police departments have disband due to cost and duplication of services, resulting in a consolidation.

The City of Camden is often brought up by media as a praiseworthy example of a high crime area that turned itself around by disbanding its police. But for many reasons, it is not a model to be used for Baltimore. Camden City Police department for all intents and purposes was folded into an existing agency, the Camden County Police Department.

The City of Camden along with others in the county such as Bellmawr, Cherry Hill, Collinswood, Haddon Township and Gloucester Township all are municipalities and have had their own police departments since about 1920s. Most disbands in NJ is a result of consolidation due to costs of very small departments.

Screenshot (317).png

Politically, state officials had wrestled all power from the city. In a party tug of war, newly elected Republican Governor Chris Christie was on the surface at least, battling with South Jersey political bosses. Economic strife impacted Camden’s descisions and similar downturns had Atlantic City considering the same.

An important distinction for Baltimore, that it is an independent municipality and is not seated within a county (such as being a part of Baltimore County), which makes it unique. The city cannot simply use Camden as it model, as it has no county police force to absorb it.

Other factors make what Camden did not comparable to Baltimore, not the least of which are wide variations in population size, budget, demands, not to mention political will to merge BPD even with either Baltimore County Police or Maryland State Police.

The Way Forward

Reaction to the verdicts should be prioritized as follows:

The people
The state legislature
The governor
The mayor
The police commissioner

The people’s voice must be heard. Before any decision is made, and before the mayor and other politicians toss ideas in the trash, recognition of the harm police have done would show respect to the victims. It might also provide a path forward.

A leader would first listen to the people. Go to them. Don’t ask them to come to you. Ask what kind of policing they want to see. If it’s a 12 or 24 member commission of civilians that run the department, then make it happen. If it’s keeping the department, but turning its reigns over to Baltimore City Council, then work tirelessly to get it done. Both Governor Larry Hogan and Mayor Catherine Pugh must show clear leadership in the most important aspect of their position: public safety.

“The legislature’s control over the Baltimore Police Department is an anachronism that serves no purpose at a time when city residents are demanding accountability and rapid reform. Whether the remedy involves a passing a law clarifying the City Council’s authority to legislate on police matters or taking the department out of the state’s purview altogether, the situation needs to change.”

Baltimore Sun Editorial September 17, 2016

One way forward is to take advantage of the powers contained in the entity created by the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation resulting in a Consent Decree. This court order establishes the Community Oversight Task Force (COTF) which is charged with making recommendations to ensure community input as the department includes civilian oversight into its reform process.

The COTF is expected to bring forth its recommendations by March 2018, in time to communicate with the community and make changes before it has to submit its report to the court in June 2018.

Consider that the work the committee has put forth largely took place in 2017, well before the trial and subsequent verdicts. It likely will focus on returning power and control of BPD to the city, revising the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights (LEOBR), and creating an oversight mechanism to hear and rule on citizen complaints.

Screenshot (312)_LI — From the Department of Justice Consent Decree with Baltimore City Police Department

In short, the COTF recommendations will be reactionary and more importantly likely ignored or discarded. It’s reactionary mostly because of timing. Had this group of hard working citizens convened the day after the GTTF trial, they might be more amenable to the recommending disbanding. It’s not too late though, armed a new vision members could take a new approach. COTF could pull a Glenn Close and drop the equivalent of the dead rabbit in the state’s boiling pot.

ignored dan

Why ignored? It will ask for investigatory powers and the staff to do it. It will distance itself from the existing Citizen Review Board (CRB) that Del. Jill Carter has artfully resuscitated life into. It will ask for things that can be shot down like ducks in a row. Subpoena powers that come with exorbitant costs, even if awarded cannot be utilized without a trained staff. Any substantive changes to LEOBR will fall on deaf ears.

The unions negotiating with Baltimore Police simply will not have it. But the union doesn’t have an existing agreement with the yet to be formed Baltimore Police Commission. Expect immediate and harsh pushback of all FOPs in the state if there is an iota of a chance there is political backing of disbanding for Baltimore.

Baltimore isn’t the first entity in Maryland that suffered from blistering reports of misconduct, mismanagement and racial profiling.

In 2001, a task force addressed many of the same problems within the Prince George’s County Police Department. Crime in PG county made national headline news in the 1990s resulting in a 2004 Consent Decree with the Department of Justice. Three guesses as to what the initial barrier to reform was in their report. And you can guess if they are still waiting.

Screenshot (319)_LI — Prince George’s County Task Force Recommendation

Broken Trust: Make GTTF Victims Whole with Restorative Justice Fund

Something spectacular happened in Baltimore Monday, February 12.

A jury of their peers found two police officers guilty of conspiring to rob and extort money from over a dozen Baltimore City residents.

Something miraculous could happen, in light of these unique circumstances that has laid bare the level of brutality leaving a city bewildered and traumatized. It would take a leader to arise in favor of making the victims of the corruption whole. grandchildren of slaves

Maryland has leaders, though. This time, it’s eight white women, one Asian woman and three black men. They stood for justice when in returning a verdict in a U.S. Federal Courthouse on Monday Feb. 12. These anonymous leaders by their actions stated that the one white officer and one black officer who took a roll of the dice to have their day in court, would leave the same in handcuffs.

hersl and taylor

What’s spectacular about the day, was that juror who appeared to be the youngest juror, also looked very much like the victims the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) routinely victimized. This juror, elected to be the leader in the deliberations, also delivered the news that will likely ring in the ears of Daniel T. “Danny” Hersl and Marcus Taylor for the length of their sentences: Guilty.

While media often showed photos of the defendants Hersl, 17 year BPD veteran and Taylor, an 8 year veteran, residents believe that the true perpetrators was the institution of the Baltimore City Police Department. In their minds’ eye, the photo of who was on trial was neither of these, but the whole entire system. Hersl, more so than Taylor, will likely end up being the disgraced face of BPD primarily because his family professed that he did nothing wrong.

Everyone around Hersl was corrupt, dirty, sleazy (a pretty easy argument to make), according to his brothers. Danny wanted to escape, his brother said, because he was a good cop (not supported by the mountain of public complaints for harassment, excessive force, etc), but let’s not let facts get in the way of a cry of injustice. Taylor’s family, also present during the entire trial, chose not to speak to the press following the verdict.

Poor Baltimore

Those who love Baltimore, I mean who Bleed Baltimore, do so because of its tenacity. No one wants a pity party for poor ole Baltimore. Residents are prideful in its ability to maintain a core strength even while all around them crumbles. We’re not just talking about vacant buildings.

A beloved NFL football team sneaks away in the dark of night. Dwindling population. Deplorable school conditions. Divestment by state. Check, check, check and check. Add to it the irreparable harm of the fictional account by HBO’s The Wire to the city’s image and cable news’ exploitation of the uprising for ratings gold, what emerged was an army of activists.

Rumblings of Discontent

Predictably, those entrusted with the public’s trust and who also wield great power, commented on the behavior of the officers, dedication to reform, and a real rush to close the chapter. Doing so would answer the question Langston Hughes asked about what happens to a dream deferred.

Dream Deferred

To say legacy residents of Baltimore have few ways to better their life standing and children’s prospects would be an understatement of ginormous proportions. Side hustle in the vernacular is a necessity to sustain one’s life. We heard victim testimony in the GTTF trial of people being paid “under the table” without much understanding that their labor is being exploited. Getting paid cash, off the books prevents many things, not the least of which is Unemployment Insurance, OSHA protections, health care, Social Security payments and legitimacy.

Each time money was siphoned from the city by way of a planned infrastructure program (Red Line) or campaign promise (Increased Minimum Wage), people got up with the sun, got the kids ready for school, found a way to get to work, and squeezed in some enjoyment along the way.

A huge obstacle prosecutors faced in convincing the jury that the officers committed the crimes, but that the victims themselves were actually victims. The defense would argue how can people whose very existence on the edges of society be further victimized? BPD operates in a new world order where rules don’t apply. Families who use financial windfalls via a lead payment settlement who don’t use the money for college tuition, but instead invest in drugs cannot be understood, or trusted. This jury did.

A man who returned to a crime ridden neighborhood day after day after moving to the county, must be selling drugs, the defense argued. Who would believe their testimony that they had connections to the community. It’s far fetched to believe that his frequent encounters with Hersl was because he was there simply to coach a youth basketball team. This jury did.

After the burial of the city’s native son, Freddie Gray, in April 2015, the city nearly exploded. Quelled by the national guard and “over-zealous” Baltimore Police Officers impeding people’s 1st Amendment Rights, the uprising what but a whimper. Upheaval is rumbling beneath the surface.

The Case for Restorative Justice

Although the eight gang of officers made off with millions in combined cash and drug sales over the years, the federal government recovered very little. Victims who sought the return of their stolen money walked away from the courthouse empty handed. If any criminal knows how to hide the proceeds of their crimes, it would be police officers. But there is money. Taxpayer dollars. The city is pretty lax in how it uses it.

Screenshot (306)

The chart above for 2016 was included in the federal indictment and aspects were shown at trial. Just take a look at Hersl in 2015. He more than doubled his salary in OT earnings. In order to make the math work to claim what he reported as $86,880 in OT in 2015, he had to work his regular 8 hour shift AND an average of 6 hours of OT (a 14 hour shift) every single day.

In other words, Hersl had not to have had a day off from January 1 though Dec 31. For an 10 am -6 pm shift, he had to work until 12 midnight every day — for all of 2015. And squeeze in sleep along with his affinity to stripper bars, and casino bars, plus regular bar bars testified to during trial.

Each week, the police rake in about a million dollars in overtime. Annually, about $30 million is set aside for OT. That’s in addition to the nearly half a billion budgeted dollars. Not to mention, BPD historically shatters the $30 million budgeted OT by handing taxpayers an actual bill, more times than not, doubling what was approved.

A Restorative Justice Fund would take but a strike of a pen from Governor Larry Hogan. The same guy who did not hem, haw, or hesitate to pay the National Guard to come through. Expediency would be key. Naming an administrator, the likes of someone with integrity such as Jill P. Carter to oversee this historical act would be next.

Authorizing Del. Carter to establish the guidelines for application procedures and payout structure would be key. A single person to oversee the program would ensure expediency. Requiring regular reports and updates to the Baltimore delegation to the General Assembly would ensure accountability. Having all meetings and phone calls related to the program be recorded as public record would provide transparency.

Some naysayers will be quick out of the box. Such a move is unprecedented, they will claim. The parameters and guidelines outside of a court process is not feasible, they will shout. Asking people to forego future claims against the department is taking advantage of an already vulnerable class, they will assert.

A Restorative Justice Fund will not be a panacea for all that ails this city. It will not calm the shaky lives of all those impacted by Baltimore Police Department. But it is a start. We give money quite freely when we see it as an investment such as TIFFs from development, concessions for HQ locations. Baltimore and the State of Maryland must see its residents as a worthy investment.

A restorative justice fund along with affordable housing, tuition vouchers, small business grants, and financial literacy courses will stabilize neighborhoods. Unlike a Target store in Mondawmin that will pull up stakes and move, our residents are committed to the city. We can invest in the cultural heritage of the city. Instead of denying its past, we can shape the future.

Next Up:

Using the model for victims of the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters to administer the Restorative Justice Fund to address the damages inflicted upon BPD victims.

Screenshot (305)

Telling Baltimore’s Story: Linking Law Enforcement and Media Coverage

This website was inspired by the events surrounding the death of Freddie Gray, Lor Scoota, and Det. Sean Suiter. It came to be in the wake of the United States Department of Justice’s investigations into racial practices of the Baltimore City Police Department. It is compelled to tell stories in the same vein as the documentary “Making of a Murderer” which alerted the public to the powers held by law enforcement when it used all of its resources to convict Steven Avery as well as the Serial podcast that revisited the murder conviction of Adnan Syed in Baltimore County.

Baltimore’s history is intrinsically linked, perhaps with no rival, to its past. The United States is defined by no other war than the one between the states. The age-old issues and conflicts that led brother to fight brother remain unaddressed and therefore unresolved in Baltimore. Even 175 years since the last shot was fired in the Civil War, Baltimore grapples with the two basic questions:

How should black lives be valued?
How much power should the city as a local municipalities have?

Twenty years before it was incorporated as a city, Baltimore had a jail, The jail located at Jones Falls and Madison was primarily for debtors and escaped slaves. As the nation’s wealth increased, so did its need to enforce its laws. A new city jail was completed in 1808 and the economy of Baltimore was thriving.

city jail.jpg

The city’s business was told in its newspapers. There was no shortage of them. The Baltimore News, The Marylander, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore American, and Baltimore Daily Post all vied to inform the people information needed to become an informed electorate. Granted the original audience were limited to wealthy land owners and later European immigrants. While the city had the largest concentration of free blacks in the entire United States, the Sun newspaper would not hire its first black managing editor until 2016, 176 years after the paper’s founding.

Welcoming 2018 in Baltimore came with a whimper and not a bang. A steady drizzle of guilty pleas by detectives who worked in Baltimore City Police Department’s Gun Trace dispelled any pretense that it is merely a few bad apples. At the same time the distance between the shooting death of Det. Sean Suiter in November and the likelihood of a quick arrest was widening once the FBI decided not to take over the investigation.

Public confidence in the Baltimore Police Department was at an all-time low. This is speculation of course, since no reputable polling agency, or any of the many distinguished universities had conducted any. Such is the manner of accountability, public service, and scrutiny that residents have come to expect.

Not willing to let apathy set in, especially for all those wrongly incarcerated in the area jails and prisons, BmoreProjects seeks to shed light in the darkest corners where The Sun fails to reach.