Well That's Good to Know

Regarding the two recent incidents in which groups of young blacks attacked white bus passengers while shouting racial epithets Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon declared that the assaults were not racially motivated and did not qualify as hate crimes:

"I would say, again, that these motives are not race based," she said. MTA police said they are investigating other possible motives and looking for any lead that would explain why the teens allegedly launched an unprovoked attack on two fellow bus riders.

She also said that it wasn't her problem because the buses are operated by a State agency:

"It is a state system. Their responsibility is so that people can ride the buses and feel safe," Dixon said of the MTA.

Here's a picture of Mayor Dixon.



Everywhere she goes she has a police bodyguard. Unfortunately these citizens of Baltimore, for whose safety she is responsible, didn't have guards.





Read about it here.

UPDATE: Sarah Kreager, the first victim of these thugs has been given police protection because a relative of one of the assailants issued threats against her.

There were two other victims in the first assault, another passenger and an MTA authority. There have been other attacks, some fatal, on city buses in recent months.

Tuesday's incident was one in a string of high-profile crimes to have taken place on or near MTA facilities recently.

In one of those cases, 17-year-old Nicole Edwards was fatally stabbed near the North Avenue Light Rail station in November, 2006, in an armed robbery of herself and her brother. A 17-year-old girl, Lataye S. King, was sent to prison for 25 years yesterday after entering a no-contest plea to first-degree murder and aggravated assault. A 15-year-old co-defendant is to be sentenced in February for robbery conspiracy and aggravated assault.

In October, a twice-convicted rapist was accused of yet another rape in an attack upon a woman at the Nursery Road Light Rail station in Linthicum.

Late last year, there was a spate of violence on transit lines that led police to stake out the Reisterstown Road Metro station. After detectives saw one man rob another of his bus pass, police said, an MTA officer chased 23-year-old Jeffrey Marrow of Baltimore onto the tracks and fatally shot the suspect when he pulled a gun.

Read about it here.

Oh yeah,

Mayor Sheila Dixon released a statement saying she was "extremely concerned" about the attack.

Somehow that doesn't make me feel safer.