Rain every now and then, but mostly just cloudy today, with highs in the 80s. Sunny tomorrow, but with the chance of storms.
Here’s your weekend catch-up:
Things got tense when police in riot gear cleared out a weekly dirt bike gathering along Reisterstown Road last night. Hundreds gather at the spot every Sunday without serious incident, but police claim yesterday’s heavy-duty response was necessary because the crowd became unruly and started throwing rocks at officers. No injuries were reported and no arrests were made (one dirt bike was seized).
Two men were shot and killed in the city on Sunday. Yesterday morning, a man was killed in northwest Baltimore’s Howard Park neighborhood, and another man was gunned down in east Baltimore’s Middle East area yesterday afternoon. The killings are Baltimore’s eighth and ninth for August (following another shooting death on Friday afternoon, and three on Thursday). This takes Baltimore to 198 homicides in 2015 (that’s more than in all of 2011.).
A rowhouse fire near E. Lombard and Conkling in the Baltimore Highlands injured two firefighters last night. Their injuries were minor. First responders believed people were trapped in the home, sending the firefighters in to search (it was empty).
BGE is offering to buy Baltimore’s underground conduit system for $100 million. The negotiation comes as Baltimore considers a potential usage rate hike for utilities like BGE and Comcast that use the conduit system (which carries electric and telecom lines). Right now, Baltimore charges less than a $1 a foot for access to the system, with other cities averaging around $2/foot. An increase could bring in up to $16 million in extra revenue for the city – but BGE warns that it’d pass new costs on to customers, potentially adding an $8/month charge to bills. So, BGE is offering to buy the system as an alternative. Economists think the price is too low, considering the long-term revenue for the city. Nothing has been decided yet.
