CRIME LEADS TO DECLINE OF LEXINGTON PARK

LEXINGTON PARK CRIME & DECLINE
AS TOWN BECOMES NEEDY AND SEEDY

PART ONE

By Kenneth C. Rossignol

THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY

LEXINGTON PARK, MD. – Economic prosperity and the quality of life has to work for everyone, and the largest population center of St. Mary’s County has seen more violent crime and serious incidents leading to a decline in both residential housing and commercial neighborhoods.

With shootings at the social hall of the Bay District Fire Department and riots at the Lexington Park IHOP to fights and brawls at Nicolet Park, the deterioration of community has led to the strong economic engine of the downtown commercial area becoming stalled and mired in crime.

Bay District VFD Social Hall scene of gunfire and two people wounded.
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY All Crime All The Time

A few bright spots exist, such as the new construction of the old Bill Raley’s Furniture store on Great Mills Road, but in all other commercial locations, the downturn is obvious.

BATTLES & BULLETS: IHOP & Bay District Firehouse Party Room & Scene Of Gunfire; Wounded Pack Hospitals

Traditional neighborhoods built in World War II that have seen both boom and blight over the last four decades, rising and falling with economic activity on the Patuxent River Naval Air Warfare Center now are becoming slums, a cancer to nearby newer and more prosperous neighborhoods.

Oddly enough, most of the visible symbols of a slum could be remedied by the enforcement of housing codes to remove junk cars, garbage, and debris and order the repair of deficient structures.  The number of deteriorating houses in the Patuxent Park neighborhood could keep Christmas in April busy every month of the year.

St. Mary’s County has a housing code and has code enforcement officers.  Those officials are clearly deficient, as evidenced by the condition of dozens of houses in Patuxent Park as well as the deteriorating conditions of the old Belvedere Motor Inn, now the Motel 6.

 Bureaucrats may point to hearing delays and inability to force landlords to repair deficient structures. The sheer number of slum houses in Patuxent Park makes it clear that the efforts, as they may be, by St. Mary’s code officers is seriously lacking.

Midway Drive in Patuxent Park has been repaved with new curbs and gutters after sewer and water lines were replaced.

The county government has been involved in the community, undertaking a massive replacement of sewer and water lines and installing new gutters and curbs as the streets are repaved once the utilities are revamped. That part of the redevelopment may well be serving developers who are inching into the sprawling neighborhood with teardowns and rebuilds of the nearly eighty-year-old ‘cracker boxes’.

Prominent among the slum houses are neat, clean and well-kept homes of citizens who must contend with the condition of slummy neighbors, all while St. Mary’s officials sit on their hands and their code violation books.

Larry-Millison-at-construction-site-of-Millison-Plaza-in-Lexington-Park.-Photo-courtesy-of-Commissioner-Larry-Millison.
Betty and Larry Millison present a check for Air Expo to a Navy commanding officer from Pax River NAS in the lobby of the Belvedere Restaurant, during its heyday as a gathering place for social events and destination as a popular dining spot. A day rarely passed that Millison was not in Lexington Park.

Detached and Non-Resident Commissioners

There has never been a county commissioner who represents Lexington Park that lived in Lexington Park.  Commissioner George Aud who operated bars and sold automobiles in Lexington Park lived on Rt. 235 in California and then in a pricey waterfront home in Esperanza Farms.  Commissioner Larry Millison lived on his horse farm in Hermanville while he owned about half of the commercial property in Lexington Park during his three terms as commissioner from 1974 to 1986. Both Aud and Millison were daily fixtures in Lexington Park during their terms.

St. Mary’s County Commissioner George Aud with his trademark blackeyed Susan on his lapel.

Commissioner John Lancaster, a retired extension agent, also didn’t live in Lexington Park, but near Aud in California.

Ironically, Lancaster who opposed Millison in the Democratic Primary in 1982 and lost, announced his bid to take on the two-term incumbent on Feb. 1, 1982, in Millison’s restaurant at a gathering of supporters while Millison was in George Washington University Hospital recovering from open-heart surgery. Millison went on the win the election and served until he was term-limited in 1986.

 Lancaster was elected to two terms, often dozing during commissioner meetings, and served until 1974 when he lost the Democratic Primary to liberal activist Mary Ann Chasen, who then lost the General Election to conservative Republican Frances Eagan.

St.-Marys-Commissioner-Frances-Eagan-at-the-GOP-booth-at-the-St.-Marys-Fair.-THE-CHESAPEAKE-TODAY-photo

Eagan also did not live in Lexington Park but instead lived in the Town Creek section of California, that is served by the Lexington Park Post Office but is located two miles north of the California Post Office. But that’s the Postal Service for you.

Commissioner Dan Raley. THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo

Following Eagan as the county commissioner representing Lexington Park in 1998 when she declined running for another term, was three-term commissioner Dan Raley.

Raley operated a family grocery store in Ridge for most of his time in office and lived halfway between Great Mills and Park Hall in a family compound – again a far different area of housing from the area he represented.

St. Mary’s Commissioner Todd Morgan is in this third term in office and reportedly is interested in running for the House of Delegates.

Taking over representing the declining old Navy town of Lexington Park in 2010 is the current commissioner, millionaire defense contractor Todd Morgan; who lives on an estate near the Patuxent River about a mile north of the California Post office.

About half of the Motel 6, the former Belvedere Motor Inn/Days Inn is now closed down and turning into a play area for hobos and junkies.

The reaction by the St. Mary’s County’s commissioner board to burgeoning crime and the declining commercial district has been to construct a $3 million police district station in order to allow more law officers to have desks and be remote from the public while crime continues to reflect the drug-addicted community.

When the station is completed, more cops will turn into desk jockeys as they hide out in the building.

Not too many drug dealers are arrested for peddling heroin and fentanyl in police stations, yet that is where many deputies will be spending time when the new police station is finished.

The St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department has been through a series of police outposts over the past thirty years, first with a small lockup and office next to the former movie theater where the Lexington Park Post Office now stands. Next, the Sheriff’s Department rented a small office in the old Lexington Park Rescue Squad building on Great Mills Road. 

Following that station was one in the center of crime town LP City at the St. Mary’s Square Shopping Center. There was seldom a deputy in that office due to the troublesome public knocking on the door and wanting to seek assistance or make a complaint. Therefore, the office was mostly unoccupied.

The Sheriff then took over a large part of the old Carver Elementary School in Southampton which for the past thirty years has been the location of an important open-air drug market and location of frequent drug raids targeting dealers such as the legendary Twin Heavies, Knoxie Carson and Wendell Ford.

When the rescue squad obtained land and funds for a new building next to the Lexington Park Library, the old site of the squad on Great Mills Road, across from a liquor store popular with local street drunks and hobos and next to the Church of the Ascension became available.

Now the new building when it becomes populated by law officers will have the opposite effect on Lexington Park, leading to more crime with less police presence on the streets.

St. Mary’s Board approved the new police station.

Instead of building more office square footage for cops who will become desk jockeys, the building should be turned into a treatment center for serving the hundreds of addicts in the area.

Sheriff Tim Cameron raided a hobo camp behind the new Lexington Park Library.

With hobos and junkies living in the woods around the town, and fatal overdoses from heroin and fentanyl taking place on a daily basis, a Heroin Addiction Center is needed. Jail terms are an excellent way to get people off of addiction as long as the guards aren’t bringing drugs in for inmates.

As part of Gov. Larry Hogan’s Before It’s Too Late program, new funding for treatment programs was announced on Aug. 28, 2019.

Efforts that will receive funding in FY 2020 include:

 $4 million in block grants distributed to local Opioid Intervention Teams for each jurisdiction to determine how best to fight the opioid epidemic; and

Over $5.6 million in competitive grants to fight the opioid crisis through prevention & education, enforcement & public safety, and treatment & recovery programs.

According to Governor Hogan, the following amount has been allocated to St. Mary’s: $107,634 for these purposes.

  • Support peer-recovery support specialist.
  • Support for Opioid Intervention Team (OIT) coordination.
  • Support treatment services to persons with substance-use disorder who are incarcerated.

St. Mary’s officials need to hurry up as local rescue squads are each week finding that it is indeed too late as addicts are being revived repeatedly from overdoses by EMTs and cops administering Narcan.

Pedestrians-jaywalking-on-Great-Mills-Road-from-the-Canopy-Liquors-are-dangers-to-themselves-and-others-with-one-woman-killed-near-this-spot, in front of the new Sheriff police station. THE-CHESAPEAKE-TODAY-photo
The former Lexington Park Vol Rescue Squad Building which housed a Sheriff outpost for years has been replaced by a new building which is under construction. The new structure will remove cops from the streets and turn them into desk jockeys.
Tim Cameron with Dan Alioto upon graduation from DEA Academy. Alioto was the intended successor to Cameron until he suddenly resigned while under investigation for truthfulness – an incident Cameron has kept secret.

Southern Md. Police Beat: Samantha & Wayne Somerville mace victim in a robbery in Millison Plaza, say police; tracked by a witness to restroom lair

Southern Md. Police Beat / The Blizzard Bandits Strike Motel; Sheriff Tracks Footprints of Snowflake Armed Robbers

Southern Md. Police Beat: Two armed robberies of stores in two days in Sin City of Lexington Park

Southern Md. Police Beat / Feds will show Drugstore Cowboys Butler & Shields what a slammed slammer door sounds like and keep these vermin off the street for years

GREENBELT, MD. – Quantaz Lamar Shields, 30, of Leonardtown, Maryland, was sentenced by the United States District Judge Paul W. Grimm to 23 years of imprisonment for committing four armed robberies in St. Mary’s County, and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to those robberies.

The sentence was announced by Acting United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Stephen M. Schenning on Oct. 18, 2017.

According to the guilty plea and accompanying factual stipulation, between October 20, 2015, and October 28, 2015, the defendant entered multiple locations while brandishing a firearm and stole business proceeds and other items.

Backward BOZO SHIELDS USED A FLIP PHONE!

On November 5, 2015, law enforcement executed a search warrant at a location associated with Shields and located a 9mm Beretta handgun with a magazine containing six 9mm live rounds that Shields had used during each of the armed robberies. Law enforcement also located a Samsung flip phone that was used to communicate with the codefendant, Trevone Butler, during one of the robberies.

During another search warrant executed at Shields’s sister’s residence, law enforcement seized over $2,000 in U.S. currency hidden throughout the house. Prior to the warrant, law enforcement obtained a recorded conversation between Shields (who was incarcerated) and his sister, where Shields directed his sister to deposit money into his commissary account from money hidden in her shed.

Butler was previously sentenced on December 2, 2016, to 57 months imprisonment for his role in the robberies.

MARYLAND STATE POLICE BEAT / Geezer Junkie Christina McCauley, guilty of manslaughter in death of Mary Miller; left trail of deals with prosecutors for heroin DUI raps

DWI & DRUG HIT PARADE: Dennis Evans still going strong with drugs and DWI in the 21st Century

So. Md. Police Beat / KID SHARED POT-LACED FOOD WITH PALS AT SPRING RIDGE MIDDLE SCHOOL

Murder USA: Stabbed or shot? Killer wanna-be’s of Lexington Park now in the pokey

Southern Md. Police Beat / Armed robbery by drug dealers staged in area of million-dollar waterfront homes; pistol-whipped druggie customer

Ghetto Days in Sin City: GUNFIRE ON YORKTOWN

St.-Mary’s-Deputy-Keith-Fretwell-with-the-Bad-Luck-Bandit-hogtied-on-the-floor

Southern Maryland Police Beat: The Story of The Bad Luck Bandit

Canopy Liquors on Great Mills Road.

Southern Md. Police Beat / drug dealer Kevin Chase shot at liquor store across from Church of Ascension on Sunday afternoon

Southern Md. Police Beat / Cops: Dumbest Burglar in History Left His Credit Card Behind After Stealing Laptop

Sheila Vernon posed with buds and Governor O’Malley at boat landing…now she is busted for prostitution…again…on Great Mills Road

Southern Md. Police Beat: Rat on this Dirtbag Armed Robber of Lexington Park Family Dollar and Win Cash

Keep those cat-fighting teenyboppers out of the stacks of pancakes

MARYLAND STATE POLICE BEAT / Car 54: ‘Hollering Hobo with pants down’; good way for a drunk to attract cops – even if it is ‘Sin City’

Dodge City Update: Sydney Strain charged in Lexington Park gunfire rampage

Maryland State Police Beat / Hell-raising in California! Police: The Butler did it. The Record: Butler did a lot more than this.

Cameron sends deputies to march in Annapolis parade instead of joining manhunt for shooter in Lexington Park

Lexington Park: Hobos & Hookers report exposes need for police – hobos pick-up horseshoe tournament

Southern Maryland Police Beat: Lexington Park store window bashed, burglarized

Lexington Park Hobos & Hookers: dirtbags rounded up include dangerous folks

Lexington Park: stabbing in Sin City

Black Bandit Strikes Three Times in Lexington Park

Lexington Park: Reynold O’Brien Gibbs charged with breaking the bones of his infant daughter and inflicting spinal trauma

Sheriff short on details of armed home invasions in Lexington Park

Box-cutter Barnes and Lexington Park Liquor Stores Selling Singles & Miniatures

DRUG DEALERS GIVE FACEBOOK THUMBS UP St. Mary’s Sheriff Police Beat / Indictments for dealing cocaine in Lancaster Park served on Dayshawn Nolan and Deuan Herndon

Southern Md. Police Beat / Thugs rounded up after mayhem, vehicle burglary and drug dealing at Myrtle Point Park

Southern Md. Police Beat: cops say armed robber approached a victim in the California Walmart parking lot

Five-time DUI Driver Christopher Cotsford Crashed into home in Trailer Park; Gained Set of Teeth Marks from K-9 Hakan

So. Md. Police Beat / Hoodie Boys Headed for Life In Slammer; Future Inmates of America – Will They Get To Keep Their Smart Phones in Jail?

Southern Md. Police Beat: Tales from the Hotel St. Mary’s; No honor among heroin couriers

Southern Md. Police Beat: Defense worker Alan Huff charged with child rape of two girls; held on $150,000 bond

Southern Md. Police Beat: Butt Burglar; Beer Can Toss; The L. P. City Strangler

Wayne William Webb III’s pot-dealing business sniffed out by hotel manager; search raid revealed stash and cash

Southern Md. Police Beat: Chau Pham charged with burglary at Queen Anne’s Apartments

Southern Md. Police Beat: POPCORN CLERK CHARGED WITH MOVIE MANAGER ROBBERY

Southern Md. Police Beat: Troopers charge two in burglary

Michael-Semiklose-heroin-dealer-arrest-June-2014-SMCSD

Nine indicted by Caroline Grand Jury in Heroin Slam; St. Mary’s Adds to Tally with Heroin Dealer Suspect and Leonardtown High Teacher

Leonardtown High School teacher Charles Russell Elburn Jr. charged by police with Xanax scam report.

The Girly Burglar — Malik Sharon Jordan charged with theft from auto and attempting to steal it

Malik-Sharon-Jordan-The-Girly-Burglar

Guns, heroin, door-busting and stolen trucks keep Maryland Troopers on the go

Lashonda and the Noisedelles now appearing at the Hotel St. Mary’s after a smashing success at Hermanville Music Festival

Heroin Hell: Region’s cops add Duo of Dumb to arrest rolls

Dirtbag Roundup: Ex-con armed robber Jason Armstrong sent to federal prison for ten years in home invasion robbery

WHERE IS SHERIFF TIM CAMERON?

See PART TWO

SCROLL DOWN FOR READER RESPONSES

St. Mary’s County Sheriff Tim Cameron. THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo

RESPONSE FROM A READER:

Well…..
Just because Larceny Park has a lot of bums doesn’t mean there ain’t some good ones. Somebody’s got to work the back of the garbage trucks and cook up all that Chinese stuff for carry-outs. Also being a good Lookout can pay well for a summer job too. Sometimes just getting the crumbs from these big birthday cake jobs can be lucrative for the little guy. It does take a lot of ants to keep the mound functioning.
Police substations are also wonderful places for substandard employees. You have to be qualified for that you know.
One of the key roles for all of the substandard police officers in the substandard police stations is to keep up with the tally boards they have posted in front of the place. It’s one thing to gain the public attention with overdose reports and deaths, but you got to have somebody to take care of those numbers on the board. God forbid somebody would ask it’s one thing to report the numbers, but it’s another thing to ask what are you doing about it? The answer to that is to start another program and hire your friend to run it. There’s money to be made there you know.
Everybody has to get a little bit of the pie. Of course, the money that will be thrown at this problem is a token effort of “I gave you something”.  Sort of like money for the schools, and the use of lottery addiction funds to support it.  If we just sold and taxed all drugs, every kid would have a doctorate.
Looking at all the money to be had, it seems as though the allocations are to pick up Strays on the street or in Hobo heroin camps. I note that enforcement is in the middle. Usually, enforcement is where you catch the Rogues causing most of the problems and robberies. “I couldn’t help it, you know I have an addiction.” That’s a great defense because it’s more compassionate and understanding for all involved with their hearts just bleeding out of control. Maybe instead of treatment, methadone, or touchy-feely of a counselor, maybe you could unload the dog pound and give each one of them a comfort Pitbull.
In looking at all of these competitive funds, I’m sure that you first have to hire a director, and then someone to answer the phone, and then someone to get the mail, and then someone to make sure that the lights are turned off at night, and then you’ll have to have several cars so they can get around the building, and then you’ll have to have an expense account, and then you’ll have to be able to attend meetings and have membership fees for associations, and then, of course, you have to find a minimum wage Lackey to do the job. It’s very lucrative if you can get it.
The Sham of all of this is that much has been proven not to work. It’s easier and more effective to put somebody in jail, and then force them to undergo treatment or at least try to somewhat separate them from their drug Network. At least you know where they are, and they’re not waving a gun in a liquor store clerks face.
I can easily think of an officer sleeping on the night shift in a substation (car parked inside of course), and as he goes to the supply room to get a box of flares, he happens to trip over a number of these drug awareness signs. He stumbles across the DUI signs of deaths and accidents to date from the 70s/90s, he then trips over the DARE sign from the 80s and then moves the crack cocaine sign out of the way to a dusty, unused pile of flares.  BTW, the crack epidemic in the 80s only impacted “those people” and was not an affluent white concern.
So how does this end?  “Mo money, mo money, mo mo money” will solve all social ills.  It’s for the children you know.

Efforts that will receive funding in FY 2020 include:

 $4 million in block grants distributed to local Opioid Intervention Teams for each jurisdiction to determine how best to fight the opioid epidemic; and

Over $5.6 million in competitive grants to fight the opioid crisis through prevention & education, enforcement & public safety, and treatment & recovery programs.

According to Governor Hogan, the following amount has been allocated to St. Mary’s: $107,634 for these purposes.

  • Support peer-recovery support specialist.
  • Support for Opioid Intervention Team (OIT) coordination.
  • Support treatment services to persons with substance-use disorder who are incarcerated.
  • MECHANICS WANTED
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