Baltimore, Maryland

From the Baltimore Sun of March 17, 2006

City police say man fatally shoots attacker

A man who was being robbed today in a shopping center parking lot shot and killed one of his attackers, police said.

The incident occurred about 1:50 p.m. outside Cross Keys Village in Baltimore when a man was attacked while getting out of his car, Baltimore Police spokesman Officer Troy Harris said.

The man pulled out a gun and fired several shots, hitting one of the attackers, according to police.

The man, who was described by police as being in his 50s, was registered to carry a concealed weapon, police said.

"He was severely beaten but nothing life-threatening," Harris said.

Crews transported both the wounded suspect and the victim to Sinai Hospital, where police say the wounded suspect died.

Two suspects remain at large, and a white car they were using was found at Cold Spring Lane and Greenspring Avenue, according to police.

A companion story from the WBAL Radio of March 19, 2006

Cross Keys Robbery Victim Identified

The owner of at least one gasoline station has now been identified as the man who turned the tables on a gang of violent bandits Friday in a parking lot at the Village of Cross Keys.

Police confirm that Mark Beckwith of Bel Air was the man being beaten as he left his car, apparently on his way to a Columbia Bank branch in the Cross Keys shopping center off Falls Road in north Baltimore Friday afternoon.

Beckwith was able to get back to his sedan and get his handgun, which he fired. One of the attackers soon died at Sinai Hospital, while another one was wounded in the hand. That man, 29-year-old Corey Mcleaurin, was treated at two hospitals and has been charged by police in connection with the attack on Beckwith, who is 57.

Authorities say that Beckwith has a permit to legally carry a handgun. While the specific reason he was issued such a permit has not yet been released, in Maryland concealed carry permits are given to persons who carry quantities of cash or valuables or who have reason to believe they may be under threat. One police spokesman Friday said that persons "in the public eye" may be issued concealed carry permits.

The man who died at the hospital has been identified as 22-year-old Keith Love of Yale Avenue in Baltimore.

Two other men involved in the attack, including a getaway car driver, are still being sought by police. The car was found soon after the incident, abandoned at Cold Spring Lane and Greenspring Avenue.

The exact location of Beckwith's gasoline station or stations remained unconfirmed early Sunday morning. A Baltimore Sun article in 1997 said that Beckwith quit a banking job to join partners in running a gas station in Timonium, and the newspaper story said that he also owned stations in East Baltimore at the time. Some neighborhood residents said that Beckwith owns one of the gasoline stations at Cold Spring Lane and Falls Road, but that information has not been confirmed. The intersection is a few blocks from the entrances to the Village of Cross Keys, an upscale and gated community not far from Roland Park and Hampden.

No charges have been field against Beckwith.

From Baltimore’s WBAL.com of April 10, 2006

Let Marylanders Protect Themselves by Ron Smith

I can get quite worked up while reading the morning newspaper. It happened again Saturday when I got to the Sun’s Maryland section and saw a story headlined, “Two killings test right of self-defense.” I knew what was coming.

Here’s Jennifer McMenamin’s lead. “Karen L. Foxx had sought court orders to keep her estranged husband away, had filed criminal charges against him and changed her phone number. She also bought a gun to protect herself, and last Saturday, her lawyer says, Foxx did just that when she fatally shot her husband.”

The story then tells us that her case and that of businessman Mark Beckwith, who fatally shot one of three men who attacked him in the upper parking lot at the Village of Cross Keys in North Baltimore a couple weeks ago, has led to the legal right of self-defense being “under examination.”

Consider the known facts of these cases and then ask what in the world would make these killings criminal. Foxx shot her estranged husband, Herman Bullock, in her home, from which a court order banned him. “In requests for protective orders,” the Sun story says, “she wrote that Bullock had threatened to kill her, slapped her, dragged her down the stairs, threatened her with an ax handle and kicked, punched pushed and choked her.” Also, she wrote that he had killed their Chihuahua by throwing it out the door, breaking its neck.

Furthermore, there are ample court records alleging violence by Bullock, not only in his relationship with Foxx, but also accusations from his first wife who filed for divorce from him in 1999. She alleged that Bullock had abused her in front of their children, dragged her down the stairs by her hair and abused their dog.

So this brute shows up at a home he is legally forbidden from visiting, she shoots him dead and we’re supposed to take seriously the notion that maybe she could have violated the rules governing self-defense? Like how many shots did she fire or where the gun was in the house whether his fingerprints were on the ax handle and whether she could have handled the threat from him by calling the police. Remember, “Call 911 and Die?” Remember the warning, “Call for a cop and call for a pizza and see which one gets there first?”

In the Beckwith case, the gas station owner pulls into the Cross Keys parking lot on St. Patrick’s Day to deposit money from his gas stations, when he’s set upon by three men apparently intent on robbing him. They hit him and try to grab the cash when he pulls away, yanks his Glock from a shoulder holster and opens up. One assailant dies, another is wounded and later arrested while seeking treatment for his wound.

Beckwith, whom I’ve known for thirty years, has been legally carrying a gun for two decades because of the necessity in his business of dealing with substantial amounts of cash. Never had he used it, or even brandished it. But the reason concealed carry permits are issued even in Maryland to people like him is to enable them to protect themselves in pretty much the kind of scenario that unfolded in that parking lot.

Some states give their residents the unquestioned right to protect themselves with force against those who would do them violent harm. Maryland should too, since there should be no question in cases like these that the law sides with the potential victim, not with the attacker.