gaithersblog.net

District 6 has released its weekly crime report. It was, thankfully, a slow week for crime. The summary table reports two robberies, no aggravated assaults or rapes, three commercial and five residential burglaries, twenty thefts from cars, and five stolen vehicles. Here’s a few of the more serious and, well, interesting incidents:

Officers responded to the Marriott Hotel, 204 Board Walk Place, on Tuesday 1/30 at 0100 hours for the report of an assault and battery. The male victim called an escort service and, during the course of the evening, the male gave her money and then asked for sex. When the female refused and went to leave, the dispute turned physical. The female claimed that the male hit her but the officer noted there were no marks. Both suspects were arrested on the scene for prostitution charges.

Defendant: Jeyandra Sanmugam, W/M, 45 yrs. old, 5’10”/170 lbs., of Aurora, Colorado

Defendant: Amy Persaud, W/F, 21 yrs. old, 5’5”/170 lbs., of Woodbridge, Virginia

An armed robbery occurred at Girard Road and N. Summit Avenue on Sunday 2/4 at 2230 hours. The suspect came from behind, displayed a knife and demanded the victim’s wallet, or he would ‘kill the victim’. The victim took out an unknown amount of money and gave it to him. The suspect told the victim to run and again threatened to kill the victim. The victim did not report the incident until the next day.

Suspect: B/M, black ski mask, NFD

A vehicle was taken from the parking lot of Bloom Foods, 833 Russell Avenue on Saturday 2/3 between 1800 hours and midnight. The employee had put her keys in a jacket pocket and hung the jacket on a hook in a common area. The video showed the suspects standing by the coat and then reaching in the pocket, presumably to take the keys. The vehicle, a blue ’06 Honda Civic 4D, MD/tags was stolen.

Suspect: B/M, white plaid shirt, blue jeans

Suspect: B/M, black hooded shirt, black pants

On Tuesday 1/30 at 0145, officers saw a vehicle speeding and weaving in and out of traffic and made at vehicle stop at N. Frederick Avenue and Odend’hal Avenue. The suspect immediately admitted to the officers he had a numerous handguns in the vehicle. The victim suffers from manic-depression and according to his family was in a manic mode. The family is making arrangements to have the suspect committed in Virginia.

Defendant: Richard Shurock, W/M, 61 yrs. old, 5’11”/200 lbs., of Harrisburg, PA

Vehicle: red ’03 GMC SUV, PA/tags

Ann E. Marimow writes in the Post, Panel Supports Montgomery’s Plan for Third Laborer Center

Montgomery County’s planning advisers yesterday endorsed County Executive Isiah Leggett’s proposal to open a third county-funded day-laborer center between Rockville and Gaithersburg.

The unanimous decision by the Planning Board moves Leggett a step closer to bringing an end to a contentious chapter in the local debate on immigration.

Gaithersburg’s elected officials rejected more than 25 sites because of opposition from business owners and residents. Leggett’s plan to open a center in a double-wide trailer on industrial public land beyond the Gaithersburg border gives the county the flexibility to act quickly.

Their sister publication, the Gazette, finally started getting this right recently. I guess the Post is never going to give up on it. Gaithersburg’s elected officials did not reject more than 25 sites. In all but a handful of cases, the property owners refused to lease those locations. In two cases, David Rocha, a day laborer advocate, opposed them.

But the location — bound by Shady Grove Road and Interstate 370 on Crabbs Branch Way — is not without critics. One by one, opponents directed much of their criticism at Leggett, whom they accused of trying to circumvent public scrutiny. The Planning Board’s review yesterday was advisory, and the site is not subject to approval by the County Council.

CASA de Maryland Inc., which runs the county’s two other centers, in Silver Spring and Wheaton, would also run the new center. In addition to providing an organized place to assemble and bathroom facilities, the center would offer English-language classes, legal services, worker ID cards and technical advice for workers who want to start businesses. The county anticipates spending $24,000 a year, in addition to $45,000 in start-up costs.

The Planning Board’s endorsement came with advice. Chairman Royce Hanson urged the county to prevent a nearby shopping center from becoming an alternative pickup spot for employers. Commissioner Meredith Wellington asked the county to report back with a timeline for the center, which Leggett has said he does not consider a permanent solution.

“There’s a difference between temporary and indefinite,” she said.

I missed this one in the Gazette the other day:

Sebastian Montes writes, Knapp: Upcounty immigrants need more:

When the idea of opening a day-laborer center upcounty first started being discussed more than two years ago, Knapp, (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown, hoped the idea might be expanded to inspire a new range of non-profit groups to meet the needs of the upcounty’s growing — and increasingly diverse — immigrant population.

City of Gaithersburg and county officials had agreed to call the center the Gaithersburg Upcounty Regional Employment Center.

But that plan crumbled under the weight of public outcry. In the heat of the ensuing controversy, Knapp said, many of the long-term human service issues the center was supposed to address got lost in the mix.

In this article, Mr. Knapp is quoted as stating that:

• CASA de Maryland was expected to run the day laborer center, but he’s now thinking that creating opportunities for new “non-profit groups specific to the upcounty” might be a better idea.
• He had hoped that the day labor placement would have been only one of many services for immigrants at the new center.
• He’s concerned that the temporary-trailers-and-porta-johns approach may not convey the “the kind of dignity and respect we think [day laborers] deserve”, and that he sees this as only delaying a permanent site.

First, I want to say that I really believe that for the day laborers, there is no loss in dignity in a trailer and some porta-johns. To my knowledge, and to the extent that they actually get jobs, they are typically working in construction and other outdoor work. More than likely, where they wind up working, everyone — from the foreman on down — is working out of trailers and using porta-johns. These sorts of facilities are a fact of life for people doing that sort of work (or at least, it was when I was doing it) and there is a strong likelihood that they would actually prefer these surroundings over whatever Mr. Knapp has in mind as conveying “dignity”. Imposing a white-collar, air-conditioned office mindset on this employment sector can actually be kind of insulting; not everyone wants to be coddled.

While I applaud his having come to the realization that there may be better options than using CASA de Maryland to run these centers, I’m concerned that he still hasn’t figured out a lot of the other problems associated with what appears to be his vision for a grand facility offering an immigrant-services smorgasbord. Among other things, I would prefer that he would be up front about the fact that many of the people he hopes to serve — the day laborers in particular — are not “immigrants” in the legal sense of the word. It occurs to me that many of the services needed by illegal migrants are somewhat different than those needed by immigrants. For example, illegal migrants often need help finding employers willing to break the law to hire them, while immigrants generally do not. Also, if the facility is a day laborer center first and a social service agency second, then there is the risk of the services being tied to the immigrant’s status as a day laborer. Would immigrants — especially legal immigrants with jobs — be happy about having to go to the day laborer center to get assistance?

I’m also curious as to why the locations he seems to prefer for providing these services are never in his district, which is even more “up-county” than Gaithersburg.

If Mr. Knapp wants there to be an up-county immigrant services agency, then fine, go ahead and propose that one be built. But go through the process, calling it an immigrant services agency, instead of trying to go through the back door to tack one on to a day-laborer center.