Midday

We begin today by keeping you up to date with the ever-changing news about the Coronavirus.

Last Thursday, Governor Larry Hogan announced that Maryland led the nation in lowering the number of COVID-19 cases, and that our state had the lowest transmission rate in the country. The statewide positivity rate has fallen steadily for the last several days.

At the same time the Governor was heralding the state’s progress, Baltimore City was being identified as a COVID hotspot, with large increases in cases, deaths and the COVID positivity rate.

Dr. Letitia Dzirasa is the Commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department.

Dr. Dzirasa joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guest today is Justin Fenton, who covers crime and police accountability for the Baltimore Sun. Under the best of circumstances, those are two distinct beats. But for the last four years, Fenton has been covering one the biggest policing scandals in American history, in which the criminals were cops.

The Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force was created in 2007, designed as an elite, plainclothes unit that would excise guns from city streets. The GTTF came to international attention when it was exposed as a criminal enterprise that had thrived for years, undetected and even celebrated by the senior leadership in the BPD.

The scope of their malfeasance continues to unfold, and the ramifications of it, in terms of past convictions and future prosecutions, are significant. In Justin Fenton’s telling in his assiduously reported book, the story is as riveting as it is horrifying.

The book is called We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption.

Justin Fenton joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's next guest is Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau. She's the director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, and a professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

For more than two decades, Dr. Letourneau has been researching clinical practices and legal policies related to adult and adolescent sexual abuse of children. She's also developed a variety of tools for assessing and treating juvenile and adult sexual interest in children, and addressing the problem of sexual recidivism. Here is her 2016 TEDMED Talk on the topic.

As the Moore Center's inaugural director, Dr. Letourneau has focused her efforts on the prevention of child sexual abuse. She currently leads three research studies looking into intervention strategies for populations most at risk for child sexual abuse.

There’s evidence to suggest child sexual abuse has increased during the COVID 19 pandemic.

The Moore Center is hosting a virtual symposium, in collaboration with the prevention training group Darkness to Light, tomorrow through Thursday (April 27-29), that will explore ways to stop and prevent the sexual abuse of children. To register for the free symposium, click here.

You can find links to online resources for parents and help-seekers at the Moore Center's Website at: www.jhsph.edu/moorecenter

Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guest today is Wes Moore, the best-selling author, social activist and the host of Future City here on WYPR.

Along with Erica Green of the New York Times, he wrote an excellent book last year about the 2015 uprising in Baltimore sparked by the death of a 25 year-old Black man named Freddie Gray, from injuries he sustained while in police custody. The book is called Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City. It’s just been released in paperback.

Six years after Freddie Gray, protests for police reform and racial equity have taken place worldwide. Derek Chauvin sits in a maximum-security prison awaiting sentencing for the murder of George Floyd, and African Americans still face threats from law enforcement that White people simply do not face.What has changed in Baltimore and around the country since violence paralyzed our city in 2015?

Today on Midday: The state of America’s reckoning on race.

Wes Moore joins us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

President Joe Biden is hosting dozens of world leaders at a virtual climate summit at the White House today. Having rejoined the Paris Climate Accord, this morning, the President pledged to an even faster pace for reducing US carbon emissions than the US had previously committed to.

Today on this Earth Day edition of Midday, we’re going Back to the Garden with Denzel Mitchell of The Farm Alliance of Baltimore, a non-profit coalition of urban farming organizations and growers; and Carrie Engel, the greenhouse manager at the family-owned Valley View Farms Garden Center and Nursery in Cockeysville, Maryland.

From flowers to food, we'll talk today — and take listener questions — about how to prepare our gardens for spring planting, and also discuss an effort here in Baltimore to have the city cede farmable land back to Black communities as a form of reparations.

Carrie Engel and Denzel Mitchell join us today on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Convicting cops of murder is a rare event, but McMillan’s testimony, the testimony of other eyewitnesses and experts, and the horrifying tape of Derek Chauvin resting his deadly knee on George Floyd’s neck proved to be insurmountable evidence for a defense of what many people considered indefensible.

Welcome to Midday. Today on our program, reactions to the guilty verdicts in the trial of the former Minneapolis Police Officer, from three Baltimore attorneys.

We begin with William “Billie” Murphy, Jr. a former judge and the founder and senior partner at Murphy, Falcon and Murphy. Judge Murphy is the attorney who represented the family of Freddie Gray. He joins us on Zoom.

Then Tom is joined by Kim Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, a former Assistant US Attorney, and the author of two excellent books, How to Read the Constitution-And Why, and What You Need to Know About Voting-And Why. Kim is also the host of an Instagram Show called #Simple Politics. She joins us on our digital line.

Tom's third guest is Ivan Bates, a former prosecutor who is now a defense attorney and the founder of the firm Bates & Garcia. He was also a candidate in the Democratic primary for Baltimore State’s Attorney in 2018. He joins us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

After a shooter killed eight people at three spas in the metro Atlanta area a little more than a month ago, he headed to Florida to continue his murderous rampage. Police apprehended him before he could kill more people. Since that day, up until the early morning hours of Sunday, when three were killed and two were wounded at a bar in Kenosha Wisconsin, there were 50 mass shootings across the United States in cities large and small. So far this year, at least 150 incidents in which multiple people were shot have occurred in the United States.

In the city of Baltimore, 93 people have been victims of homicides so far this year, most of them killed with a gun. Another 175 people in our city have been injured in non-fatal shootings.

In 2019, nearly 24,000 Americans committed suicide using a firearm.

There are more guns than people in the United States, and there are more tragedies involving guns than at any time in our history.

With each passing day and each horrifying incident, are Americans finally ready to respond to the uniquely American epidemic of gun violence? And if so, what form will that response take?

Even in an era of rigid political polarity, 84% of Americans agree on measures like universal background checks. President Biden has issued executive orders, but Congress does not appear poised to act on legislation.

Today on Midday, the search for solutions to end the epidemic of gun violence.

Tom's guests today are Dr. Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy and the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence; and Mark Pennak, an attorney and president of Maryland Shall Issue, a gun owners' rights organization.

They both join us today on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

President Joe Biden enjoys an approval rating of more than 60%. But in a poll released two weeks ago by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only 42% of Americans approve of Mr. Biden’s handling of immigration.

Last Friday, the Biden administration announced it will limit the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year to the historically low levels of the Trump years, walking back a promise to welcome more than 60,000 refugees fleeing desperate conditions, a decision that drew the ire of longtime allies. That pressure led the White House to announce that a new number of allowable refugees will be announced next month, although White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the 60,000 + number is, quote, “unlikely.”

The administration has proposed an ambitious overhaul of the immigration system, but it has already stalled in Congress.

Tom's next guest today is an immigration lawyer whose firm - The Murthy Law Firm - is based in Owings Mills, with satellite offices in Hyderabad and Mumbai, India. Sheela Murthy grew up in Bangalore, India, the daughter of a Colonel in the Indian Army. She holds a law degree from Harvard. She is the subject of a new biography, written by Adithi Rao, called Being Sheela: The Life Journey of an Immigration Lawyer.

Sheela Murthy joins us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Closing arguments are underway in Minneapolis in the trial of Derek Chauvin. The case is expected to go to the jury sometime today.

The litany of young African Americans who have been killed by current or former police officers in high profile cases is heart-wrenching: Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Ahmaud Arbery, Stephon Clark, and Breonna Taylor are all names that have become etched in the public consciousness, and which have animated protests around the country, and around the world. Daunte Wright was killed just last week not 10 miles away from the courtroom where justice in the death of George Floyd is being decided.

Protests that took place in cities large and small following George Floyd’s death led to calls for police reform, and even to defund the police. Those protests increased as each new horrifying video has been released. Here in Baltimore, Brandon Scott ran for Mayor on a platform that emphasized reimagining public safety and addressing the root causes that have led to the unthinkable levels of violence we have seen in our city for years.

Tom's Newsmaker guest today is Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, the city's chief prosecutor since her swearing-in on January 8, 2015.Ever since she came to national attention when she charged six officers in the death of Freddie Gray in 2015, she has garnered a reputation as a progressive prosecutor who has prioritized reducing incarceration, along with reducing violent crime. And for the past year, she has had to navigate a criminal justice system that has struggled cope with a global pandemic.

Last month, she announced that some of the temporary changes she implemented in the way her office has been handling non-violent crimes will be made permanent.

State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby joins us on Zoom to explain what those changes are…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

In this year’s unprecedented Maryland General Assembly session, members of the state Senate sat divided by plastic barriers. House of Delegates sessions were held in two different buildings. But the physical divisions occasioned by precautions to prevent the spread of COVID 19 did not portend insurmountable political divisions.

Republican Governor Larry Hogan called it the best session in his seven years in office, despite the Democratic majority’s override of his vetoes of several high profile bills.

The legislature can count among its accomplishments this year the passage of measures dealing with pandemic relief, groundbreaking police reform, aid to HBCUs, K-12 school funding, sports betting, expanded broadband access and help for small businesses.

On today's Midday on Politics, perspectives on the 2021 General Assembly Session in Tom's live conversations, first, with Democratic Senate President Bill Ferguson and then with Republican former House Minority Leader Nic Kipke.

They join the program on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.