Davon Matthews, 21, was acquitted of attempted murder, first-degree assault, reckless endangerment, firearm use, and two gun offenses. He was initially charged in connection to a Sept. 14, 2025, shooting that occurred on the 300 block of Light Street. An 18-year-old man was injured in the confrontation.
Seems like the DA couldn't make up his mind about charges.
Seems like police procedure might have been an issue.
Hanna argued that surveillance footage and witness testimony left unanswered questions about how the incident began. She contended that police failed to fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the shooting and could not establish whose gun fired the shot that struck the victim.
Now I don't what happened or who was at fault, whether this is justice or not.
But I'm a bit surprised that the jury, in Baltimore, didn't find him guilty of something. I think the DA might have been surprised as well.
On 26 March 2024 the MV Dali lost power as it was leaving the Port of Baltimore. It lost both propulsion and steering. It allided with a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing a large portion of the bridge to collapse, and killing 6 highway workers on the bridge.
"Collision" involves 2 vessels in motion. "Allision" involves a vessel underway and an stationary object. While some dictionaries list allision and allide as "obsolete," they are still used in admiralty law, and in cases like this.
At Tuesday’s public meeting at NTSB headquarters, investigators said the loose wire in the ship’s electrical system caused a breaker to unexpectedly open -- beginning a sequence of events that led to two vessel blackouts and a loss of both propulsion and steering near the 2.37-mile-long Key Bridge on March 26, 2024. Investigators found that wire-label banding prevented the wire from being fully inserted into a terminal block spring-clamp gate, causing an inadequate connection.
The MV Dali is just shy of 300 meters long, and can carry 116,000 tons (or so) of cargo. It was traveling about 7 or 8 knots when it "contacted" the bridge.
Efforts to protect the bridge should probably have been taken, give the size of vessels on the ocean today.
Contributing to the collapse of the Key Bridge and the loss of life was the lack of countermeasures to reduce the bridge’s vulnerability to collapse due to impact by ocean-going vessels, which have only grown larger since the Key Bridge’s opening in 1977. When the Japan-flagged containership Blue Nagoya contacted the Key Bridge after losing propulsion in 1980, the 390-foot-long vessel caused only minor damage. The Dali, however, is 10 times the size of the Blue Nagoya.
There is a nice graphic at the link above showing the size difference in the 2 vessels between 1980 and 2024. And as big as MV Dali is, there are several classes of vessels that are much larger than that. Some carry more than twice as much cargo.
If you page down to the bottom of the page linked above, you will find a link to the full, 19-page report. OK, so it is not the "full report." 19 pages is not enough for that, it is a bit more than the Executive Summary, however.
A synopsis of actions taken Tuesday, including the probable cause, findings and recommendations, can be found on ntsb.gov. The complete investigation report will be released in the coming weeks.
The NTSB also has a page on their website dedicated to this incident. It has links to all of the documents from March of last year, and some links to YouTube videos, including aeral photographs of the bridge and ship post allision.
This is the What's Going on With Shipping? video NTSB Reports on the Cause of the MV Dali Hitting and Collapsing the Bridge in Baltimore. It is about a 30 minute video, and may or may not be of interest to people. It covers the meeting in which the report was presented. This was 30 minutes discussing what took place in about 4 minutes. I find Sal Mercagliano's videos fascinating. YMMV.
He broke into a jewelry store, and was met by the owner who was armed.
The store was both his place of business and his residence. That seems to me (not a lawyer) to be the most important point.
The State's Attorney's Office says the defense of habitation—which allows a person to use force, including deadly force, to defend their home and its occupants against an intruder—provides complete protection in this case due to five key factors:
Click thru for the reasons that the State's Attorney's Office provided.
Canton is a waterfront neighborhood in Baltimore.
Self-defense is a human right, but prosecutors in Blue Cities, don't always see it as a legitimate legal right. Congrats to the people of Baltimore for having at least a little sanity in the Criminal Justice System.
Rabbi Emanuel Goldfeiz, 62 — Rabbi of Beit Yaakov and Rabbinical administrator for Star-S kashrut — used his legally owned handgun to fend off two masked attackers during a violent attempted carjacking in North Baltimore.
Rabbi Goldfeiz was slightly injured but did not go to a hospital. The two attackers, punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground, and continue to beat him.
Until he drew his firearm.
That convinced them to leave, but the came back and tried to take his car.
“As the suspects tried to assault him again, the victim drew his firearm and pointed it at them,” said a Baltimore Police spokesperson. “The suspects then fled the scene on foot.”
While some people are calling this a hate crime, it looks more like a crime of opportunity to me. Carjacking is up this year in Baltimore.
How dare you not agree with everything the ATF stands for!!! Or something.
So the ATF, being the Keystone Cops of federal law enforcement, are apparently spitting mad that people like the Second Amendment, and use the First Amendment to support it.
They raided a 2A advocates home, pointed guns at his kids, said he was a felon in possession - despite him not being a felon. They said he had "illegal guns," (that is machine guns) but could find none, and finally threatened him over his use of his first amendment rights. Though they have been doing that.
Why? Because they are tyrants and you should do what they tell you to do, surf!
According to the Washington Times, “ATF agents announced themselves to Mark ‘Choppa’ Manley and his family by tossing a flashbang into his living room and ordering everyone out at gunpoint during the predawn search days before Thanksgiving.”
The ATF has killed people that they didn't like in early morning/middle-of-the-night raids. Was that what they were hoping for?
Manley, who is described as a gun rights advocate and lives in Baltimore, thinks the raid by agents in battle rattle was an attempt to send a message to other black gun owners. [SNIP]
Harassment has been a hallmark of the ATF since the Biden administration launched its war on legal gun ownership not long after it took office. And the agency is, of course, refusing to comment on the case.
In the end, they couldn't find anything wrong, and only confiscated his phone.
The feds also allegedly threatened to arrest both the man and his wife, if he continued his community Second Amendment efforts.
And I'm sure that race has nothing to do with the fervor that the AFT is displaying. I mean, the ATF isn't racist, is it?
The government also has been shutting down events, especially those that focus on the Second Amendment and firearm safety for the urban black community. Unsurprising, the authorities even threatened to arrest him if he continued to hold workshops.
That doesn't sound like a bunch of racist, tyrants at all, or does it?
The shooting occurred while Daye was working as a security guard at an auto repair shop. According to defense arguments, three men entered the shop and shot one of Daye’s co-workers. Daye responded by opening fire, ultimately killing the intruders.
In Oklahoma the cops would take this guy out for a beer. In Florida the sheriff of the county would have a press conference and say it is a wonderful thing that people can defend themselves, and that criminals should go elsewhere. In Maryland they put him on trial for murder.
The jury delivered a not guilty verdict.
While this verdict was handed down at the end of last month, it slipped thru my news filters until it was highlighted by Keep And Bear Arms.
Do you think we still live in a free country? Think again. Now this all took place years ago. Do you think that things have gotten better?
Jason Fyk was arrested for TAKING a CELLPHONE video of family members of cops, who were in a bar fight. He was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and faced hundreds of years in jail. How do you spell corruption? He. Was. Taking. A. Video.
He spent two months in one of the worst jails in the country, and spent $60,000 on legal representation before he was released and the charges dismissed.
When he was released, the judge apologized to him. That is all the recompense he has ever received.
And it isn't only Baltimore, but this story concentrates on that city.
Nationally, we know math scores have significantly dropped, and in Baltimore, there are 23 schools (out of 150 in the district that administered the state test) where not a single student is proficient in math at their grade level.
According to an analysis by Project Baltimore that examined student math test scores in the city, 93% of third through eighth graders in Baltimore City Public Schools are unable to do math on grade level.
This is not because the students in Baltimore less intelligent than they were 50 years ago, or less intelligent than students in other places, it is because of the way math is taught. If you want to learn math, you need to do worksheets, you need to memorize the basic multiplication tables, but teachers don't like grading worksheets, especially if they need to check the students work to see that they didn't copy the answer from a neighbor. And so we have a generation who, mostly can't do math.
It doesn't help that teachers today are more interested in teaching kids about their sex lives, instead of teaching stuff that really matters.
According to a new poll released by yes. every kid., 7 in 10 Black families support education savings accounts – an education funding model that allows parents to have the flexibility to use education funds to pay for a variety of education expenses ranging from private tuition to tutoring, online courses or a blend of options.
I'm sorry but math is critical to everything from carpentry to engineering. So if you want a world where no new products are made, no homes get built, etc. go right on ignoring math. (Hat tip to Maggie's Farm.)
Update: The ship started moving at about 6:50 this morning. It was moving at around ⅓ of a knot until it cleared the bridge, and then was making 1.1 knots.
Subject to weather. Actually the scheduled move was supposed to be at 5:24 a.m. local time (Baltimore) to coincide with high tide. So it could be done by the time you read this. (I don't know about you, but I don't get up at 5:15 on a Monday morning.
The video embedded below covers the outline of the things they have to do. Remove ballast, remove mooring lines, etc. There will be 5 tugs involved in the move.
The video confirms that the bow of the vessel partially crushed a gas line that follows the path of the bridge. That line is currently filled with inert gas at pressure.
The Newsroom at Key Bridge Response 2024 has all of the press releases, including those detailing the steps for the removal of MV Dali. Since the entire process will unfold over hours, the incident response team has set up time-lapse cameras, and will upload the video after the fact.
The Minorcan Mullet YouTube channel (fixed link) will likely have the best video of the move, assuming that the weather holds. Though as mentioned, it is likely to be a slow-motion operation.
Because of a conversation earlier today with a friend (you know who you are) I thought I would look up how much bigger container ships have gotten over the years. Why is it is of interest? It is because the size of ships today is quite different from what engineers were envisioning in the '70s.
First a definition. TEU is a measure of containers, it stands for Twenty-foot Equivalent Units. 20 ft containers are fairly standard in international shipping, even if most of the ones you see in the US are 40 foot - exactly the size of a semi trailer.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge over the Patapasco River in Baltimore was built in the 1970s, so the types of vessels that the engineers had in mind were (probably) at most the Panamax ships from the 1980s. These ships are in the 3,000 to 3,400 TEU range. Even if the engineers accounted for some growth is size starting with Pananmax, I don't think they would have planed for a threefold increase in size.
The MV Dali is rated at 9,971 TEUs - roughly between the C and D categories of the diagram.
Container ships continue to grow. As of January 2024 the largest ships are of MSC's Irina-class with the capacity of 24,346 TEU, or roughly two and one half times the size of the MV Dali.
You can find info on the collision of the MV Dali with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore anywhere. For my reaction to the insanity surrounding that incident see my post MV Dali Has Become the Conspiracy Theory Du Jour.
Unless you are living under a rock, you probably know that the Francis Scott Key Bridge over the Patapasco River in Baltimore was struck by a cargo vessel and collapsed. It didn't take long for people who know nothing of ship operations, or civil engineering to trot out a series of conspiracy theories, which have little relation to reality. #BridgeCollapse.
The only thing really published at this point is that the vessel in question was the 948 foot container ship Dali, which was leaving the port of Baltimore when it lost power, and collided with one of the bridge pylons. This caused the entire span to collapse. From the photos it is clear that the vessel was loaded.
Fighting against the tide of conspiracy theories at this point is moot. As someone on Twitter/X noted, everyone is suddenly an expert in civil engineering and large vessel operations. Instead of wading into that swamp, I thought I would shamelessly steal a post from myself, about a similar bridge collapse from 44 years ago.
On Friday 9 May 1980, at 7:33 in the morning, the vessel MV Summit Venture, in fog and rain, struck one of the supports of the southbound lanes (the west span) of the Sunshine Skyway, causing about 1200 feet of the bridge to fall 150 feet into the water. 35 people died. Cars, trucks and a Greyhound bus fell into the water that day. Most died of blunt-force trauma. Some drowned. One man survived when his truck landed on the deck of the Summit Venture before falling into the water.
The principle difference between the collapse today, and the one from 44 years ago, is that the Sunshine Skyway was a double span, so that when the west span collapsed, the east span was still standing, and could carry half the traffic. There is also the fact that the MV Summit Venture, which struck the bridge in Florida, was not carrying cargo, but was "light," with only ballast, while the Dali appears to be fully loaded.
This story is from 2020, in which the Tampa Bay Times marked the 40th anniversary of that collapse. The Skyway bridge collapsed 40 years ago. Here’s how we’re remembering the tragedy. That is a collection of links to things about the collapse. Interviews with people who worked search and rescue, information about the trial of the pilot, and a few other links.
Saturday marks 40 years since the 19,734-ton Summit Venture freighter slammed into the old Skyway bridge. Six cars, a truck and a Greyhound bus plummeted 150 feet into the choppy waters of Tampa Bay below. Thirty-five died.
In the case of The Sunshine Skyway, a two-lane bridge opened in 1954. A second structure, similar to the first opened in 1959 making the crossing 4 lanes, connecting the south end of Pinellas County with the north end of Manatee County.
The Key Bridge (as it is known in Baltimore) was built between 1972 and 1977, opening to traffic on March 23rd of that year.
In Florida a new bridge was built to replace both of the old spans. You can find some info on that new bridge at this link. The video shows what I consider to be a work of art.
26-year-old Pava Lapere was a "tech entrepreneur" committed to "building a deeply inclusive culture." She was murdered when she apparently let a convicted sex offender into her apartment building because he acted as though he had forgotten his keys.
Say that again. She let a stranger into her building in one of the most dangerous cities in America. Why? Because to not do so would have seemed racist. It may have seemed racist, but in reality it would have been prudent.
Reality is true even if you don't want it to be. I wouldn't let a stranger into my apartment building - when I lived in apartment buildings - no matter the race. And that was decades ago. Magical thinking includes things like, "most people I meet are good, so I don't need to worry about criminals."
Standing against “systemic racism” is all fine and good, I suppose, up until the moment you die from blunt force trauma because a convicted sex offender, who was sentenced to 30 years, gets out of prison early under a “criminal justice reform” law that gave him “good time” credits
There is much more from The Other McCain, including his thoughts on why the police didn't warn anyone about this guy, when he apparently assaulted a woman and tried to murder a couple days before this incident. You should click thru.
24. Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
I think that how Pava Lapere's life ended could be described as "nasty, brutish, and short." At 26 years of age, her life was certainly short.
The reality of cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. are that criminals of all colors are being allowed to operate without fear of police or government. You may not like that, and you may not think that is the way "things are supposed to be," but reality is true whether you like it or not.
They didn't count the students from the high school located in the Baltimore City Detention Center. That leaves a total of 32 high schools, and 13 that I think you can say are failing to teach math.
The latest round of state test results is raising alarm in Baltimore City Schools. Project Baltimore found that 40% of Baltimore City high schools, where the state exam was given, did not have any students score proficient in math. Not one student.
And I'm sure someone will say say something like, "This means we need to spend more money on schools."
Last school year, Baltimore City Schools received $1.6 billion from taxpayers, the most ever. The district also received $799 million in Covid relief funding from the federal government. And still, not a single student tested at 13 City high schools scored proficient on the state math test.
“So, it's not a funding issue. We're getting plenty of funding,” said [Jason Rodriguez, deputy director of People Empowered by the Struggle, a Baltimore-based nonprofit].
And these numbers are not public. They were provided by a source inside the school system. The school system doesn't want parents to know how bad the schools really are.
When the state officially releases them later this month, the results will likely be heavily redacted, making it more difficult for parents to see how many schools are performing.
Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron told the 11 News I-Team that his office found that 60% of violent criminals are also committing some type of COVID-19 fraud, and because of that, his office investigates every single violent crime target to see whether they've committed pandemic fraud.
Since the pandemic relief fund came from Washington, fraud against that fund is a federal offense.
The U.S. Attorney goes on to make a claim that I don't know is completely supported by the facts, but he probably has contributed to the reduction in violent crime by taking violent criminals off the street.
There is more on pandemic fraud and reference to vehicle thefts.
This illustrates something about the “broken windows” theory of crime prevention pioneered by George Kelling and James Q. Wilson: Criminals are not specialists. That is to say, the drug dealer is often also the rapist, and the car thief is also often the armed robber. Habitual criminals have a general disposition toward lawlessness and antisocial behavior.
There is more about Bill Bratton and enforcing laws in NYC, and proverbial "routine traffic stop" that results in an arrest for a far more serious crime. Click thru for more.
In 2020, Brandon Scott was elected mayor of Baltimore with more than 70% of the vote in a city whose per-capita violent crime rate (2,027 per 100,000 residents) is nearly twice as high as Chicago (1,099). There’s no sign that this carnage will abate anytime soon:
In responding to the carnage the mayor blamed everyone else.
It’s not the people of Baltimore — the ones who elected Brandon Scott as their mayor — who are to blame, it’s those out-of-state guns! See, the citizens of Baltimore are all innocent angels, and their city would be a peaceful utopia, were it not for those bad people in other states.
So in other words, he has no ideas. Click thru for more.
You can't have two opposites be true at the same time.
The problem is that there is a fundamental disconnect between two main planks in the progressive platform for our utopian future. In that platform, DEI is plank A. But plank B is that the black children must be forced to attend failing Democrat-run unionized public schools in big cities.
This disconnect sprang onto the front pages in the past few days when something called Project Baltimore analyzed some data from the Maryland Department of Education, and reported that there were 23 schools in the Baltimore City district where not a single student tested at the “proficient” level on the state math exam.
If you look at all of Baltimore, only about 7 percent of students in the city were proficient at math.
Now multiply that across Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and the rest of the cities that have mostly-failing public-education systems, and explain how we will achieve equity in anything that relies on math? Engineering. Science. Accounting. Even the skilled trades - like running a lathe, or reading a blueprint - needs some math.
But this is the 21st Century and facts don't matter. Only feelings matter.
Then we will get the "Math Is Racist" statements about a minute after the request for .
WBFF analyzed the results and found a shocking number of Baltimore City schools where not a single student is doing math at grade level.
“We're not living up to our potential,” said Jovani Patterson, a Baltimore resident who made headlines in Jan. 2022, when he filed a lawsuit against Baltimore City Schools. The suit claims the district is failing to educate students and, in the proces, misusing taxpayer funds.
“We, the taxpayer, are funding our own demise,” Patterson said at the time.
Say it again because it is really hard to believe.
In 23 Baltimore City schools, there were zero students who tested proficient in math.
So what exactly are the people of Baltimore paying for? How many math teachers have been fired? And what are they using to teach math? (New Math? New-new Math or Common-core math? Personally I like old math.)
Click thru for all the horrible details. Hat tip to William Teach at Pirate's Cove, but via Twitter.
Subhan Zaib, 26, was being sought in connection to the June 10 attack on a 19-year-old woman — whom he allegedly approached from behind, put in a chokehold and slashed multiple times as she walked down the stairs at the Delancey/Essex Street station, the sources said. [SNIP]
After the attack, Zaib headed down to Baltimore — where he allegedly raped and robbed a victim four days later in the area of Shipping Place in Dundalk, cops in the Charm City said.
So, how's that Criminal Justice Reform working out? How do you think the victims would answer that question?
Like other Soros-backed prosecutors, Marilyn Mosby instituted a set of policies that amount to the non-prosecution of crimes. It is all done in the name of social justice, which apparently has little to do with actual Justice.
And now prosecutors are resigning and retiring.
Resignations at the office of Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby have left prosecutors such as Warren with crushing caseloads. The number of assistant state’s attorneys — the people who prosecute crimes in the city — has declined 24% over the past three years from 217 to 164, according to the office.
And shocker, the more experienced people are leaving. People who have a history of actually prosecuting crimes. The ones resigning, not retiring, are in some cases going to the suburbs, where crimes are actually still being prosecuted. In other cases they are leaving for private practice.
I don't think any of this will impact the people of Baltimore to vote for someone else. Social Justice is the thing. Nothing else matters. Or at least things will need to get much worse before anything matters.
He found a drunk guy passed out in his apartment. When he finally got the guy to wake up, the drunk attacked him, and a fight broke out.
The DA had him charged with assault.
His trial concluded in a single afternoon. The victim didn’t show. When prosecutors finished their case, which consisted only of the officer’s testimony, the defense attorney urged the judge to throw out the charges. Before the prosecutor could respond, Circuit Judge Jennifer Schiffer cut off arguments.
“I’m going to call counsel back into my chambers,” she said, sternly.
When they returned to the courtroom, Schiffer said she was granting Taylor’s request for a judgment of acquittal and dismissing the case.
“Given the fact that Mr. Brown has encountered a burglar in his house, I am convinced that Mr. Brown was entitled to use deadly force,” she said.
As the defense attorney noted, with all the insanity that is going on in Baltimore, the DA decides to pursue this case. Why, because self-defense CANNOT be allowed to stand. You MUST rely only on The State.
I hope the people of Baltimore tie this case around that DA's neck like a milestone, but I am pretty sure that they won't.
I haven't checked in a few weeks, but on a per-captia basis, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Philadelphia have been fighting it out for the title of Most Dangerous City in America.
Self-defense is a human-right, but if the prosecutor in Baltimore has his way, it is not your legal right.
