WeekendWRAP:  SELECTED GOINGS-ON IN BALTIMORE
AROUND THE WEEKEND AT CHARM CITY

STATUE UNVEILED — Nine-foot bronze likeness of Orioles baseball icon Brooks Robinson is unveiled Sat. afternoon with much fanfare at Camden Yards. (VoB Photos/Alan Z. Forman)

Brooks chokes-up accepting honor
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
A nine-foot-tall black athlete wearing a golden glove now holds court in downtown Baltimore across the street from Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Not a basketball player nor even an African-American, but a baseball-playing idol from a period of Baltimore innocence immortalized in bronze, that now dominates the square between Russell Street and Washington Boulevard adjacent to MLB’s most unique “retro stadium,” less than three football fields’ distance from the statue of a young Babe Ruth that greets fans attending Oriole games each season.

It is Brooks Robinson, arguably the most beloved athlete in Baltimore, described by Gov. Martin O’Malley at his statue’s unveiling as “the best third baseman ever to play the game of baseball.”

Not everyone agrees 100 percent with that assessment, but those folks don’t live in Baltimore. However everyone connected in any way with baseball does acknowledge that Robinson is the greatest defensive third baseman ever, and one of the greatest glove men all-around in the history of the sport.

His statue wears a gold glove to commemorate the 16 consecutive Rawlings Gold Glove Awards he won during his 23-year playing career with the Orioles at the former Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street. Robinson never played at Camden Yards, which opened 15 years after his retirement.

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Pitcairn killer John A. Wag- ner received the maximum sentence Friday. (Baltimore Police Department mugshot)

‘The real killer is still out there somewhere,’ he says

WAGNER ‘LOST’ IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM FOR 2 HOURS
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
The murderer of Stephen Pitcairn “didn’t want to get up this morning” to learn his fate, “didn’t want to be here,” he told a packed courtroom at the downtown Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse two hours after he was originally scheduled to be sentenced.

John A. Wagner then echoed O.J. Simpson, telling the judge he did “not believe justice was served in [his] favor” because “the real killer is still out there somewhere.”

With that, along with an assertion that “I do not stand here to be apologetic,” convicted killer Wagner, 38, known to his former Section 8 housemates as “YaYa,” received a sentence of life plus 20 years for the brutal slaying of Johns Hopkins University researcher Pitcairn, who he stabbed through the heart in the 2600 block of St. Paul Street in Charles Village in July a year ago.

At 9:30 a.m. Friday — the scheduled time for sentencing — the courtroom filled with Pitcairn Family members, who had traveled from various locations along the East Coast; attorneys, prosecution and defense; the primary detective in the case, Gregory Boris; local media; and other onlookers were told that Wagner’s arrival would be delayed two hours and to return to the courtroom at 11:30.

What they weren’t told was that the defendant had been “lost” in the system and that authorities “didn’t know where he was,” according to a court insider who spoke with Voice of Baltimore and North Baltimore Patch on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the convicted killer’s whereabouts.

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Councilwoman Belinda K. Conaway (D-7th), center, addresses supporters and the media at City Hall Plaza Tuesday morning. At right are her stepmother and father, Balto. City Register of Wills Mary W. Conaway, and the city's Circuit Court Clerk Frank M. Conaway Sr.; and far left, Leo W. Burroughs Jr., one of 15 steering committee coordinators. (VoB Photo/Alan Z. Forman)

COUNCILWOMAN  CONAWAY
LAUNCHES  UPHILL  BATTLE
TO RECLAIM 7th DIST. SEAT

Make a wrong …Write
— Belinda Conaway

By Alan Z. Forman

Conventional political wisdom maintains that write-in campaigns virtually never succeed, that it’s next to impossible to get people to vote for anyone not already on the printed ballot, that odds are, most voters just won’t take the time or make the effort to write-in someone’s name.

However Baltimore City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway intends to buck those odds. In front of City Hall this morning she launched an admittedly uphill battle to hold onto her 7th District seat by asking voters to ignore the Democratic Party nominee who defeated her in the September 13 primary, and write her name in instead.

Conaway lost the hotly contested primary to challenger Nick Mosby by a margin of 653 votes out of a total 5,089 cast. The Republican nominee, Michael J. Bradley, who ran unopposed in the GOP primary, received just 86 votes.

Mosby and Bradley will be on the November 8 general election ballot. However Conaway, having lost the primary, will not; hence her write-in campaign. In most, if not all, elections in the United States, voters have the option of ignoring the listed candidates and writing-in the name of anyone they choose instead.

So on Tuesday morning the incumbent 7th District councilwoman told a gathering of nearly 50 supporters at City Hall Plaza — approximately 30 in her entourage plus another 20 onlookers — that the candidate who defeated her in September was merely the “front man” for an “unprecedented attack” against her that she said was “paid for and operated by forces from outside the district.”

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WHY DO WE KILL? — Retired Homicide Detective and author Kelvin Sewell (center) is joined by co-author Stephen Janis (right) at SRO forum telecast live online by C-SPAN2's BookTV recently at Atomic Books in Hampden, as book's editor AL Forman looks on. (VoB Photo/Eric Friedman)

SEWELL AND JANIS HOLD DISCUSSION
AT PACKED BOOKSTORE  IN HAMPDEN

C-SPAN reruns BookTV video Oct. 17
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
The culture of crime in Baltimore’s inner city will not change significantly until “the borders of the city are opened up to the state,” a forum filmed and aired live online by C-SPAN was told recently by a retired chief homicide detective and an investigative reporter who addressed an overflow gathering at the independent bookstore Atomic Books in Hampden.

However Stephen Janis, co-author of the new book Why Do We Kill? a compendium of the major murder cases in the city in the last five years, in association with former Homicide Investigator Kelvin Sewell, acknowledged it’s “highly unlikely that will happen in our lifetime.

“Everyone in Maryland is responsible in some degree” for the fact that Baltimore’s murder rate is among the highest in the country, Janis said, in addressing the central question raised by his and Sewell’s book: Why Do We Kill?

He said the pronoun “we” was purposely used in the title to emphasize that we’re all responsible, at least in part.

Janis chronicles 11 major murder cases Sewell’s detective division investigated in the years prior to his retirement this past winter, which make up approximately three-fifths of the book, with the remainder a discussion of Sewell’s career experience in the Baltimore Police Department over a 22-year period.

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Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz and Mayor Steph- anie Rawlings-Blake cut ceremonial ribbon to reopen Robert E. Lee Park, as Barry F. Williams, county director of recreation and parks, far left, and 2nd District Balto. County Councilwoman Vicki Almond, far right, look on. (VoB Photo/Alan Z. Forman)

‘A PARK  FOR  ALL USERS,
4-LEGGED & 2-LEGGED,’
DECLARES KAMENETZ

‘A  hidden treasure  for
city/county residents,’
says Baltimore Mayor

UPDATE (Sat. Oct. 15th) — Robert E. Lee Park reopened today to the public, with a schedule of activities from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. including introductory tours, boating and biking, hiking and walking tours, various children’s activities, and bird watching.

Every dog — both on and off the leash — can now have its day as Baltimore City and County join forces to reopen a public park that dates back to the era of the Lords Baltimore and which was designated a National Historic District in 1992.

Featuring a 1.5-acre canine compound appropriately named “Paw Point” — a membership-only chained enclosure for unleashed dogs — the city-owned Robert E. Lee Park reopened early today under a long-term lease arrangement with the county.

Located just north of the city/county line, the 415-acre park is the beneficiary of renovations costing the state and county $6.1 million — more than half of which has been spent so far — for a concrete-slab bridge, a 2,000-foot-long paved footpath, 1400-foot boardwalk to the adjacent Light Rail station, and the dog park, which requires an annual membership fee of $35 from anyone who wants to let their dog/s run off-leash.

“It’s a park for all users,” declared County Executive Kevin Kamenetz; “four-
legged and two-legged,” as he officially reopened the facility Friday in concert with Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who described it as “a hidden treasure for city and county residents alike…, a dynamic partnership between the city, county and state.”

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