What happens when you keep hand grenades around and rob houses?
Once again, Hawker's out of town when something big goes down. (This time, Hawker was visiting a relative in the hospital, so there will be no snarky comments about her lack of timely coverage.)
Serving an arrest warrant in Hampden, Baltimore police found a house full of "chemicals" and "weapons." The house was on the 3400 block of Roland Ave., and apparently, a couple of blocks surrounding the area were closed for hours. Plus, the five houses on either side of the chemical filled home were evacuated for a while.
Items found inside included a machine gun, an inert hand grenade, chemicals used for gold finishing and material that may have been an inert explosive. Cops are denying the meth lab rumors, but not emphatically so.
The homeowner was identified as Jonathan S. Hollands, 39. Police had originally gone to the home to serve Hollands with an arrest warrant for stolen household items.
Labels: crime
posted by Plantastic @ 9:52 PM
4 Comments:
Actually, this home is owned by a friend of mine, and the whole thing was a misunderstanding (to put it mildly).
Bottom line: They are not thieves, not running a meth lab, not trafficking firearms, and not planning treachery involving hand grenades.
The homeowner is an antiques dealer. He hadn't stolen anything, and was able to quickly and effectively clear up that misunderstanding with the HoCo police.
However, while in his house, HoCo police saw suspicious-looking parts of weapons and were obligated to report that observation to City police. The parts of weapons were related to his active-duty training as a national guardsman. The grenade was an antique and was inactive. And the chemicals found that necessitated the evacuation were just common chemicals used to refinish furniture.
This family are long-time residents of Hampden, and are good friends and good neighbors who have done nothing wrong and who pose no threat to the neighborhood whatsoever. Police have a job to do and 9 times in 10 I'm glad they're there to do it; unfortunately, in this instance, it has resulted in undue and inordinate stress on a lovely family.
I promoted your comment to another post, because I've heard a similar story from good friends.
Court records are for public viewing and if you check the Howard County Court records you can see that the theft did happen. Hollands is due to appear in court in April.
Gee, where was the follow up in The Baltimore Sun? Seems like grabbing headlines is far more important than reporting the truth. The reporter "breaking" this story originally should be forced to devote just as much air time apologizing as she did misreporting and sensationalizing.
Post a Comment
<< Home