Mostly cloudy, with highs in the low 80s and the potential for rain later. Tomorrow will be rainy all day, with heavy downpours and thunderstorms. Sunday will be drier, but windy.
EDITOR’S NOTE: On Fridays, Baltimore Rex used to highlight local dogs in need of rescue. The Friday news dogs are back!
Gov. Larry Hogan announced that he will not build the Red Line, a long-proposed light rail project through Baltimore.Hogan will instead focus resources on highway improvement projects around the state and a cheaper version of the Purple Line rail project to run through the DC suburbs.
The Red Line, as intended, would have created an east-west transit option through Baltimore, aiming to ease congestion downtown and in East Baltimore (where major traffic magnets, like Canton Crossing and Harbor Point assumed the line was coming), while providing better access to economic opportunity for residents in West Baltimore. The state will forfeit nearly a billion dollars in potential federal funding for the public transportation project, and the city will lose the economic stimulus of building the line.
During the announcement, Hogan noted that every county in Maryland would be receiving new highway funding. Then, @LarryHogan tweeted a map touting this achievement, with Baltimore conveniently erased from the map. (Just like Baltimore in the map, the tweet later disappeared. Good thing for screenshots.)
🔥🔥🔥 “Rarely has a Maryland governor delivered such a direct blow to Baltimore’s future — and the region’s economy — like the one Larry Hogan has landed.” That’s just the first line of The Sun’s fiery editorial about Hogan’s choice.
+ How long will it take Baltimore to implement a body camera program? At least four years, according to new documents from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s office. Previously, the mayor vetoed a city council bill that would have implemented a body camera program ASAP, before endorsing a body camera plan that’d kick off with a pilot program by the end of this year.
Council president Jack Young: “It’s totally unacceptable that we cannot have this body camera program implemented immediately,”
+ Baltimore Police are defending the April 27th “credible threat warning” about gangs targeting cops after it was revealed that the threat wasn’t that credible.
Capt. Eric Kowalczyk, police spokesperson: “Due to the exigency of the circumstances, the credibility of the threat at the time it was received, extraordinary action was taken.”
Councilman Brandon Scott, in a letter to police commissioner Anthony Batts: “Falsifying a threat of this magnitude during a highly tense time should result in the strongest penalty possible. If we are going to repair our city, this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated.”
+ The Department of Justice explained how it is conducting its investigation of the Baltimore Police during a town hall meeting attended by about 200 people last night. The civil rights investigation could lead to legally-binding reforms and federal oversight of the department.
+ Responding to a domestic disturbance call, Baltimore County Police shot and killed an unarmed man, 41-year-old Spencer Lee McCain, in an Owings Mills home. Officers say that they believed McCain had a weapon, and pointed to a history of domestic violence calls involving McCain at that address.
There are even more options, like Gogol Bordello, a twilight swim at Riverside Park, and the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower Open House, in SouthBmore.com’s weekend events list.
