A District Two-Fer

ONE:
In my continued mocking of my police chief's latest decision, the Metropolitan Police Department declares this weekend's neighborhood blockade a rounding success. But my favorite quote from the whole article is this:

"As cars came up, they made lefts and rights and went the other way," neighborhood activist Wilhelmina Lawson said. "I support them, and I understand what they're trying to do, but I think they're missing it by not sitting down and talking to the residents. We can help them much better if they talk to us."

But that's not all. My second favorite comes just paragraphs later:

Police in Baltimore, where there has been a 36 percent decrease in homicides and shootings this year, said they attribute that to targeting violent criminals and improving relationships with members of the community.

"You lock up the baddest of the bad in part by working with people in the neighborhood," Baltimore police spokesman Sterling Clifford said. "You look to people in the neighborhood to tell you who they are and where they are."

If B'more gets it, why can't we?

TWO:
How much did Harriette Walters syphon away before getting caught? $50 million? Not even close. Try closer to $185 million!

Following Harriette Walters's input, officials left her small unit out of the new software system, making it easier for her to escape detection as she allegedly produced fake checks that prosecutors say amounted to $50 million.

Directors in the scandal-plagued tax department now want to scrap the $135 million system rather than try to upgrade it to make it more secure. The chief financial officer's technology manager says the system, installed between 2000 and 2004, is too outdated and clumsy to be worth fixing.

This has been a rough couple of years for my poor city.