Ben Conarck joined The Baltimore Banner as a criminal justice reporter in July 2022. Previously, he worked for the Miami Herald as a healthcare reporter and led the newspaper’s award-winning coverage on the coronavirus pandemic. He was a member of the investigative team studying the forensics of Surfside’s Champlain Towers South collapse, work that was recognized with a staff Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.
Prior to his time in Miami, Conarck was an investigative reporter covering criminal justice at the Florida Times-Union, where he received the Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award and the Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting for his series with ProPublica on racial profiling by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Baltimore jail officials lost track of nearly 92,500 methadone pills — controlled substances that carry a high street value — over a three-month period.
Gov. Wes Moore announced that the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services will cancel millions of unpaid parole debts for more than 6,700 people.
The Baltimore Police Department continues to make slow and steady progress in a wholesale reform effort mandated by its agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and a federal judge, but hopes of exiting that oversight anytime soon remain dim at best.
Many of the people incarcerated in the mental health unit are awaiting transfers to psychiatric facilities run by the Maryland Department of Health for evaluation or treatment.
Daniel Myers was sentenced last week to 50 additional years in prison for first-degree murder. He had pleaded guilty in February to killing Nicholas Delfosse in May 2023.
The charged officer was found by investigators to have given a prisoner “unauthorized privileges,” and to have spoken to her on a recorded phone line more than 800 times in three months.
The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which runs Baltimore jails, confirmed on Wednesday that one of its facilities has been without air conditioning since Friday after a blower motor malfunctioned on a housing unit tier.
Updated Jul 18, 2024
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