D, Wallace, Stringer & Bodie all died for the same reasons.
What Made Marlo Stanfield's Crew So Dangerous (The Wire)
- Thread starter The Emperor
- Start date
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I think D, Wallace and Bodie died for snitching.. Stringer died for double crossing the Fruit of Islam
chuckifubuck
...
It was a solid plan tho. They nailed them up with some extra strength shyt so it wasn't like some crakhead could just stumble in. Like they said the smell would be masked by all the other smells and its not like the city is gonna be checkin up on them vacants. I think burning a body is a bigger hassel than just dropping them in vacants. If a few years down the line someone finds the bodies then
you switch up and the cops have a whole bunch of cold cases on their hands
Omar would see that set up coming a mile a way.
Especially D'Angelo
This thread had me watching the Wire from season one all the way through for like the 1 millionth time. Just finished season 1 again last night. So much piff
This is true. There's no difference between Kenard in Marlo's crew and say a Poot or someone like that in Avon's, except age
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My wife thinks I'm crazy because I watch the whole series from start to finish like every 2 years.. Now that I live in the area I notice little things like one of my favorite BBQ spots is Chaps Pit Beef off Pulaski where Stinkum, DeAngelo and Weebay went to eat to celebrate Stinkums promotion to getting points on the package...
I sit at that same table to eat and be geeking out sometime....
ignorethis
RIP Fresh RIP Doe RIP Phat
I wanna rewatch the Wire again but I'm waiting for the HD remaster thats coming in a few weeks.
fukk it my nikkas...I'm just got add this story to the Marlo Crew thread.
Baltimore Club Hammerjack's in the mid 90'$ me and my South Baltimore CH crew was with Marlo Crew (Westport nikkas...I.E. DMX on We Be Clubbin' Remix {All I do is import to export/Transport to Westport})... Get to scrappin in a big ass brawl bouncers and all against some other nikkas...then here come Frank Ski (ATL)...who was in Baltimore and big on V103 at the time...trying act like he a bouncer
and got his eye swollen shut 
He was at the club the next week with a big white patch and bandage still over his eye and nikkas was like I bet u won't jump in no more fights will you 
shortly thereafter I assume he went home and had a 
moment and announced he was leaving for Atlanta. Never came back 
ask him what made Marlo's crew dangerous 
I still have the lil cut over my left eye from that fight that night a big ass bouncer hit me with that 3 piece and I'm not a big nikka but I ain't fall and I still got wit em 
no 
Baltimore Club Hammerjack's in the mid 90'$ me and my South Baltimore CH crew was with Marlo Crew (Westport nikkas...I.E. DMX on We Be Clubbin' Remix {All I do is import to export/Transport to Westport})... Get to scrappin in a big ass brawl bouncers and all against some other nikkas...then here come Frank Ski (ATL)...who was in Baltimore and big on V103 at the time...trying act like he a bouncer
and got his eye swollen shut He was at the club the next week with a big white patch and bandage still over his eye and nikkas was like I bet u won't jump in no more fights will you shortly thereafter I assume he went home and had a moment and announced he was leaving for Atlanta. Never came back ask him what made Marlo's crew dangerous I still have the lil cut over my left eye from that fight that night a big ass bouncer hit me with that 3 piece and I'm not a big nikka but I ain't fall and I still got wit em no 
fukk it my nikkas...I'm just got add this story to the Marlo Crew thread.
Baltimore Club Hammerjack's in the mid 90'$ me and my South Baltimore CH crew was with Marlo Crew (Westport nikkas...I.E. DMX on We Be Clubbin' Remix {All I do is import to export/Transport to Westport})... Get to scrappin in a big ass brawl bouncers and all against some other nikkas...then here come Frank Ski (ATL)...who was in Baltimore and big on V103 at the time...trying act like he a bouncer
Yo, Why you think DMX don't like to talk about him being in Baltimore? I only heard about it from people in baltimore or from people who came to see him from nyc, and they talk about his past.
I just watched all of season 1 in 2-3 days this week.
goat TV show
goat TV show
+
... =
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Nino Soprano
Superstar
Bruh!!! Chaps is the spot! Pit beef sandwich...Extra horseradishMy wife thinks I'm crazy because I watch the whole series from start to finish like every 2 years.. Now that I live in the area I notice little things like one of my favorite BBQ spots is Chaps Pit Beef off Pulaski where Stinkum, DeAngelo and Weebay went to eat to celebrate Stinkums promotion to getting points on the package...
I sit at that same table to eat and be geeking out sometime....
The Wire in the (Fourth) Circuit: Civil Rights Claims Proceed Against Police Who Inspired David Simon Characters
By Jonathan Biran
On September 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an opinion in Owens v. Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office et al., largely vacating a lower court’s dismissal of a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action brought by James Owens seeking damages for wrongful conduct by Baltimore City police officers and an assistant state’s attorney that, Owens alleges, resulted in his spending more than two decades in prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit. If Owens can prove his allegations of intentional suppression of exculpatory evidence by police, it will be a tremendous black eye for the Baltimore City Police Department and perhaps in particular for Jay Landsman, a former BCPD detective sergeant who lent his name to a character in HBO’s The Wireand who also acted in that series.
A brief summary of the facts, as alleged by Owens in his complaint: In August 1987, Colleen Williar was raped, robbed, and murdered in her Baltimore City apartment. One of Williar’s neighbors, James Thompson, came forward to police the next day, seeking a reward for information relating to the murder. Thompson told police he had found a knife outside of Williar’s apartment the previous night, which he had carried home and cleaned before realizing its connection to the crime. Thompson subsequently changed his story seven times under questioning by Landsman, who supervised a homicide squad, and two detectives on the squad, Thomas Pelligrini and Gary Dunnigan.
Thompson went from initially asserting no involvement in the crime to finally claiming that Owens had raped and killed Williar while he, Thompson, had masturbated at the foot of her bed. There were material changes to Thompson’s story in all eight of its iterations. However, the State only elicited two of the eight iterations from Thompson during his two appearances as a witness at Owens’ trial, and did not disclose the six other versions to the defense; thus, the jury never heard about most of Thompson’s inconsistent statements. The assistant state’s attorney who prosecuted the case also allegedly failed to disclose to the defense that a pubic hair belonging to Thompson was found on Williar’s body; this fact also was kept from the jury.
The jury convicted Owens of burglary and felony murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Owens filed an unsuccessful appeal as well as unsuccessful post-conviction petitions.
Meanwhile, Landsman, Pellegrini, and Dunnigan achieved a degree of fame when all were featured in David Simon’s 1991 book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Simon wrote the book about the year he spent with three of BCPD’s homicide squads, including the one supervised by Landsman. That year was 1988 – the year that Owens’ trial took place. (I don’t know if Owens’ trial is referenced at all in the book, but I suspect that Simon was well-aware of the trial as it was happening.) Homicide: Life on the Street, the excellent NBC television series based on Simon’s book, then featured two characters inspired by Landsman and Pellegrini:John Munch, played by the incomparable Richard Belzer, was based on Landsman, while Tim Bayless, played by Kyle Secor, was modeled after Pellegrini. Landsman later played BCPD Lieutenant Dennis Mello in The Wire, a show that also included a detective sergeant in a homicide unit named Jay Landsman, played by the actor Delaney Williams.
As for Owens, in 2006, a state court granted his petition for post-conviction DNA testing. The results indicated that Owens’ DNA did not match the blood and semen evidence found at the scene of the crime.
On June 4, 2007, a state court granted Owens a new trial. During the next 16 months, Owens remained in state prison awaiting retrial. However, on October 15, 2008, the State’s Attorney entered a nolle prosequi, dismissing the charges against Owens, and Owens was released from incarceration after spending more than 20 years in prison.
On October 12, 2011 – three days before the three-year anniversary of the nolle prosequi – Owens filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against multiple defendants, including the Baltimore City Police Department, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, and Pellgrini, Dunnigan, and Landsman. U.S. District Judge (and former Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge) George Russell III dismissed all of Owens’ claims as time-barred. Judge Russell alternatively dismissed Owens’ claims against the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office on the basis of sovereign immunity; dismissed the claims against the individual officers on the basis of qualified immunity; and dismissed the claims against the Police Department for, among other grounds, failing to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
On appeal, a divided Fourth Circuit reinstated most of Owens’ claims, with Judge Motz authoring the majority opinion. In my view, the most interesting question addressed by the Court was whether the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office is an entity that is capable of being sued. The majority – on this issue, Judge Motz and Chief Judge Traxler – answered that question in the negative, relying heavily on Boyer v. State, 594 A.2d 121 (Md. 1991). In Boyer, the Maryland Court of Appeals made clear that, absent a statutory or constitutional provision creating a government agency, an “office” or “department” bears no unique legal identity, and thus, it cannot be sued under Maryland law. In this case, the majority concluded that no constitutional or statutory provision establishes a “Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office.” To be sure, the State’s Attorney is a constitutional officer, but because no constitutional provision or statute creates something called the “Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office,” Owens could not proceed against what most of us probably think of as a distinct governmental entity. The majority noted that Owens could have sued the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City in his individual or official capacity, had he wanted to do so. But he could not sue something called the “Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office,” which the majority described as “a term of convenience only” that “refers to the collection of government employees who work under the supervision of the Baltimore City State’s Attorney.” Slip Op. at 27. Because the majority held that the State’s Attorney’s Office is not an entity that can be sued, it didn’t address the alternative argument raised on behalf of that “entity,” namely that it is an “arm of the State” and therefore entitled to sovereign immunity.
Judge Wynn disagreed with the majority on this issue. He read the Maryland Constitution as having effectively created an Office of the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City and therefore an entity that is amenable to suit. He would have remanded for further proceedings concerning whether the State’s Attorney’s Office was entitled to sovereign immunity.
Judge Motz and Chief Judge Traxler parted company on two of the other issues decided by the Court. (However, Judge Wynn sided with Judge Motz on both of those issues, so Judge Motz’s opinion also spoke for a majority of the panel throughout.) First, Judge Motz and Chief Judge Traxler had a lengthy debate about when the applicable three-year limitations period for a Brady-type Sec. 1983 claim begins to run. The majority held that Owens’ claims were timely because, applying the most analogous Maryland common-law tort – malicious prosecution – they did not accrue until the criminal proceedings were terminated in Owens’ favor in such a manner that they could not be revived. Judge Motz explained that the grant of a new trial to Owens in 2007 did not meet this requirement. It was not until October 15, 2008 – slightly less than three years before Owens filed his Sec. 1983 action – that the nolle prosequi resolved the criminal case in Owens’ favor with sufficient finality to commence the running of the limitations period. The point that Chief Judge Traxler struggled with was that, although Owens could not have filed a malicious-prosecution case under Maryland law until October 15, 2008, he could have filed his Sec. 1983 claim based on a Brady violation well before that date. Owens indisputably knew of the Brady issue no later than 2007, when he was granted a new trial.
Second, Judge Motz delivered bad news to Landsman and the other two police officer defendants, holding that the district court had erroneously applied qualified immunity to the claims against the officers. All three judges agreed that Owens alleged a plausible claim that the officers had suppressed evidence favorable to Owens; that they had done so in bad faith; and that Owens was prejudiced thereby. Judges Motz and Wynn further held that it was clearly established by the time Owens was tried in 1988 that police officers may not intentionally suppress exculpatory evidence. Judge Traxler dissented on this point, reasoning that applicable precedent prior to 1988 stood only for the proposition that a police officer’s knowledge of exculpatory evidence will be imputed to the prosecutor for Brady purposes, and did not put officers on notice that they could be sued under Sec. 1983 for intentionally suppressing exculpatory evidence. The majority found this to be a distinction without a difference for purposes of the “clearly established” analysis.
Finally, all three judges agreed that Owens had stated a plausible Sec. 1983 claim against the Baltimore City Police Department. In this regard, the Court noted Owens’ allegation that, during the relevant period, BCPD maintained a custom, policy, and/or practice of condoning its officers’ conduct in knowingly, consciously, and repeatedly withholding and suppressing exculpatory evidence. In addition, Owens pointed to the existence of reported and unreported cases from before and during 1988 that tended to show that BCPD had a custom, policy, or practice of knowingly and repeatedly suppressing exculpatory evidence. Thus, Owens sufficiently alleged a theory of municipal liability under Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). The Court noted that proving this sort of municipal liability “is no easy task.” Slip Op. at 46. But Owens had alleged the Police Department’s liability with enough specificity and plausibility to survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).
So now the case comes back to the district court. It will be interesting to see if the case settles relatively quickly, or whether the City gears up for discovery and possibly a trial.
This opinion underscores Judge Motz’s position of power on the current Fourth Circuit. My sense is that, just as Justice Kennedy is a key vote in close cases at the Supreme Court, Judge Motz is more often than not the linchpin in a close case that comes to a panel that she is on. (In a subsequent post, I am going to do an empirical analysis of which judges on the Fourth Circuit can stake a claim to linchpin status.)
By Jonathan Biran
On September 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an opinion in Owens v. Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office et al., largely vacating a lower court’s dismissal of a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action brought by James Owens seeking damages for wrongful conduct by Baltimore City police officers and an assistant state’s attorney that, Owens alleges, resulted in his spending more than two decades in prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit. If Owens can prove his allegations of intentional suppression of exculpatory evidence by police, it will be a tremendous black eye for the Baltimore City Police Department and perhaps in particular for Jay Landsman, a former BCPD detective sergeant who lent his name to a character in HBO’s The Wireand who also acted in that series.
A brief summary of the facts, as alleged by Owens in his complaint: In August 1987, Colleen Williar was raped, robbed, and murdered in her Baltimore City apartment. One of Williar’s neighbors, James Thompson, came forward to police the next day, seeking a reward for information relating to the murder. Thompson told police he had found a knife outside of Williar’s apartment the previous night, which he had carried home and cleaned before realizing its connection to the crime. Thompson subsequently changed his story seven times under questioning by Landsman, who supervised a homicide squad, and two detectives on the squad, Thomas Pelligrini and Gary Dunnigan.
Thompson went from initially asserting no involvement in the crime to finally claiming that Owens had raped and killed Williar while he, Thompson, had masturbated at the foot of her bed. There were material changes to Thompson’s story in all eight of its iterations. However, the State only elicited two of the eight iterations from Thompson during his two appearances as a witness at Owens’ trial, and did not disclose the six other versions to the defense; thus, the jury never heard about most of Thompson’s inconsistent statements. The assistant state’s attorney who prosecuted the case also allegedly failed to disclose to the defense that a pubic hair belonging to Thompson was found on Williar’s body; this fact also was kept from the jury.
The jury convicted Owens of burglary and felony murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Owens filed an unsuccessful appeal as well as unsuccessful post-conviction petitions.
Meanwhile, Landsman, Pellegrini, and Dunnigan achieved a degree of fame when all were featured in David Simon’s 1991 book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Simon wrote the book about the year he spent with three of BCPD’s homicide squads, including the one supervised by Landsman. That year was 1988 – the year that Owens’ trial took place. (I don’t know if Owens’ trial is referenced at all in the book, but I suspect that Simon was well-aware of the trial as it was happening.) Homicide: Life on the Street, the excellent NBC television series based on Simon’s book, then featured two characters inspired by Landsman and Pellegrini:John Munch, played by the incomparable Richard Belzer, was based on Landsman, while Tim Bayless, played by Kyle Secor, was modeled after Pellegrini. Landsman later played BCPD Lieutenant Dennis Mello in The Wire, a show that also included a detective sergeant in a homicide unit named Jay Landsman, played by the actor Delaney Williams.
As for Owens, in 2006, a state court granted his petition for post-conviction DNA testing. The results indicated that Owens’ DNA did not match the blood and semen evidence found at the scene of the crime.
On June 4, 2007, a state court granted Owens a new trial. During the next 16 months, Owens remained in state prison awaiting retrial. However, on October 15, 2008, the State’s Attorney entered a nolle prosequi, dismissing the charges against Owens, and Owens was released from incarceration after spending more than 20 years in prison.
On October 12, 2011 – three days before the three-year anniversary of the nolle prosequi – Owens filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against multiple defendants, including the Baltimore City Police Department, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, and Pellgrini, Dunnigan, and Landsman. U.S. District Judge (and former Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge) George Russell III dismissed all of Owens’ claims as time-barred. Judge Russell alternatively dismissed Owens’ claims against the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office on the basis of sovereign immunity; dismissed the claims against the individual officers on the basis of qualified immunity; and dismissed the claims against the Police Department for, among other grounds, failing to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
On appeal, a divided Fourth Circuit reinstated most of Owens’ claims, with Judge Motz authoring the majority opinion. In my view, the most interesting question addressed by the Court was whether the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office is an entity that is capable of being sued. The majority – on this issue, Judge Motz and Chief Judge Traxler – answered that question in the negative, relying heavily on Boyer v. State, 594 A.2d 121 (Md. 1991). In Boyer, the Maryland Court of Appeals made clear that, absent a statutory or constitutional provision creating a government agency, an “office” or “department” bears no unique legal identity, and thus, it cannot be sued under Maryland law. In this case, the majority concluded that no constitutional or statutory provision establishes a “Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office.” To be sure, the State’s Attorney is a constitutional officer, but because no constitutional provision or statute creates something called the “Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office,” Owens could not proceed against what most of us probably think of as a distinct governmental entity. The majority noted that Owens could have sued the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City in his individual or official capacity, had he wanted to do so. But he could not sue something called the “Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office,” which the majority described as “a term of convenience only” that “refers to the collection of government employees who work under the supervision of the Baltimore City State’s Attorney.” Slip Op. at 27. Because the majority held that the State’s Attorney’s Office is not an entity that can be sued, it didn’t address the alternative argument raised on behalf of that “entity,” namely that it is an “arm of the State” and therefore entitled to sovereign immunity.
Judge Wynn disagreed with the majority on this issue. He read the Maryland Constitution as having effectively created an Office of the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City and therefore an entity that is amenable to suit. He would have remanded for further proceedings concerning whether the State’s Attorney’s Office was entitled to sovereign immunity.
Judge Motz and Chief Judge Traxler parted company on two of the other issues decided by the Court. (However, Judge Wynn sided with Judge Motz on both of those issues, so Judge Motz’s opinion also spoke for a majority of the panel throughout.) First, Judge Motz and Chief Judge Traxler had a lengthy debate about when the applicable three-year limitations period for a Brady-type Sec. 1983 claim begins to run. The majority held that Owens’ claims were timely because, applying the most analogous Maryland common-law tort – malicious prosecution – they did not accrue until the criminal proceedings were terminated in Owens’ favor in such a manner that they could not be revived. Judge Motz explained that the grant of a new trial to Owens in 2007 did not meet this requirement. It was not until October 15, 2008 – slightly less than three years before Owens filed his Sec. 1983 action – that the nolle prosequi resolved the criminal case in Owens’ favor with sufficient finality to commence the running of the limitations period. The point that Chief Judge Traxler struggled with was that, although Owens could not have filed a malicious-prosecution case under Maryland law until October 15, 2008, he could have filed his Sec. 1983 claim based on a Brady violation well before that date. Owens indisputably knew of the Brady issue no later than 2007, when he was granted a new trial.
Second, Judge Motz delivered bad news to Landsman and the other two police officer defendants, holding that the district court had erroneously applied qualified immunity to the claims against the officers. All three judges agreed that Owens alleged a plausible claim that the officers had suppressed evidence favorable to Owens; that they had done so in bad faith; and that Owens was prejudiced thereby. Judges Motz and Wynn further held that it was clearly established by the time Owens was tried in 1988 that police officers may not intentionally suppress exculpatory evidence. Judge Traxler dissented on this point, reasoning that applicable precedent prior to 1988 stood only for the proposition that a police officer’s knowledge of exculpatory evidence will be imputed to the prosecutor for Brady purposes, and did not put officers on notice that they could be sued under Sec. 1983 for intentionally suppressing exculpatory evidence. The majority found this to be a distinction without a difference for purposes of the “clearly established” analysis.
Finally, all three judges agreed that Owens had stated a plausible Sec. 1983 claim against the Baltimore City Police Department. In this regard, the Court noted Owens’ allegation that, during the relevant period, BCPD maintained a custom, policy, and/or practice of condoning its officers’ conduct in knowingly, consciously, and repeatedly withholding and suppressing exculpatory evidence. In addition, Owens pointed to the existence of reported and unreported cases from before and during 1988 that tended to show that BCPD had a custom, policy, or practice of knowingly and repeatedly suppressing exculpatory evidence. Thus, Owens sufficiently alleged a theory of municipal liability under Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). The Court noted that proving this sort of municipal liability “is no easy task.” Slip Op. at 46. But Owens had alleged the Police Department’s liability with enough specificity and plausibility to survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).
So now the case comes back to the district court. It will be interesting to see if the case settles relatively quickly, or whether the City gears up for discovery and possibly a trial.
This opinion underscores Judge Motz’s position of power on the current Fourth Circuit. My sense is that, just as Justice Kennedy is a key vote in close cases at the Supreme Court, Judge Motz is more often than not the linchpin in a close case that comes to a panel that she is on. (In a subsequent post, I am going to do an empirical analysis of which judges on the Fourth Circuit can stake a claim to linchpin status.)