tv ABC2 News at 6PM ABC March 19, 2012 6:00pm-6:30pm EDT
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downtown baltimore saturday night. what city police plan to do now to prevent if from -- it from happening again. >> reporter: it's a wild scene saturday night. large groups of teenagers running through city streets. police say one juvenile was stabbed. 10 were arrested. >> 10 individuals were arrested for charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assault to scur few violation -- curfew fie lagses. it did require extra police officers. >> reporter: police said there were several groups from different parts of the city, one neighborhood versus another all converging on downtown, disrupting the city and getting into what detectives call petty fights. the baltimore city police are beginning to realize this wasn't random but may have been planned on social media.
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twitter, facebook, the social tools of this generation. this weekend using it to orchestrate what amounted to a menacing nuisance. >> believes that this movement started on social media. we're tapping that hard looking at what we may have missed and what we could do going forward. >> reporter: including working more closely with city schools, police and better monitoring social media, a technique the mayor said is being used in other cities and soon more so in baltimore. >> you'd be surprised and how really stupid people are giving out information about not just things like this but information about crimes, so we have to be smart. if they're going to be stupid, we have t smart. >> a lesson learned from this weekend's near flash mob the mayor said will help the city be more prepared so there isn't a
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next time. downtown baltimore, brian kuebler. >> the juvenile crime sup 10% from this same time last year. now listen to this next story. we have a high school student in anne arundel county. felt so overwhelmed by bullying, she reached out to her website for help. she posted her plea on read it.com. she was looking for advice on how to make the school more aware. she went to bed. by the next morning she had more than 1,000 supportive response. the next morning the bully had been identified. the school admits that social media helped solve this problem. >> social media present as wide array of challenges for a school system like ours where you have 76,000 students. >> so a 17-year-old boy has been charged with the juvenile citation for harassment. abc2 news wants to help your
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kids say no to bullies. so we have a resource guide. you can take it with your kid. you can find this right now at abc2news.com/no to bullies. well, how's that state budget coming along. the house ways and means committee has looked over the paperwork. it includes raising our income tax. it already passed the senate but the house is expected to make some changes in that. a house committee is trying to work out the details. mayor stephanie rawlings-blake wants to reduce your property tax. the mayor introduced the bill at tonight's city council meeting and is aimed to reduce it by 20 cents by the year 2020. on a $200,000 home that could mane a savings of up to $400. she says making property taxes more competitive is essential
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for a growing baltimore. >> a lower property tax. i'm targeting it to baltimore city homeowners. i knew it would be a revenue source that would help us reduce property tax. >> the mayor says that tax relief will come from being more fiscally responsible and she is set to disthat on wednesday morning. at this hour a public meeting is underway for a proposed new elementary school. the top choice is this 20-acre site where mays chapel park is located right at padonia road. the school would accommodate 700 students making it the largest in baltimore county. seniors say the noise and the traffic would make it unbearable to live here. >> i've been here. i've lived down the road. moved in 23 years ago.
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this was all open sparkes wooded areas, but in those 23 years it's been greatly overdeveloped. there's precious little open space. this is about it. >> the new school would alleviate overcrowding at eight other schools and the public hearing at loch raven is the last chance to be heard before the school board votes on the site tomorrow night at its regularly scheduled meeting. >> spring has arrived f you want it enjoy the perks of spring, how about the cherry blossoms. experts say the cherry blossoms will reach their peek blooming season this week. that's perfect timing for the festival in d.c. the event starts tomorrow and it's celebrating its 100th anniversary. the festival is scheduled to last five weeks. closer to home, how will the weather be for us?
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meteorologist wyatt everhart joins us with a look at your first forecast. this is the last day of winter. you like the sound of that? temperatures in the 70s and the blooms not just in d.c. but around baltimore. pollen levels sky high. low to mid-70s. 60s on zel marva and north of the state line. been tracking a couple of hours of unsettled weather, the first of which is up here in northern carroll county, westminster toward taneytown. manchester you're beginning to get precipitation and then decent rain through caroline county through dorchester county. we'll keep an eye on that. tomorrow not much rain around but back in the low 70s we will go with a mix of sun and clouds. we'll talk about how things will change by the end of the week
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and especially into your weekend. it's all coming up. today family, friends and colleagues took time to remember a man they loved. a funeral was held in lutherville for major robert marchanti. the officer was one of two assassinated in afghan last month by an afghan they thought to be a trusted ally. marchanti was most recently over at carney elementary. his service to others is something his family knows others have appreciated. >> he touched people's lives that he didn't meet in person. it's an honor. >> i know he's looking down and he is excited. >> well, the major will be buried tomorrow with full military honors at arlington national cemetery. two people are in critical
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condition after an atv accident that happened in union bridge. 36-year-old james mattie sack and another were not wearing helmets. anne arundel county police have arrested two men who assaulted a man and robbed them. the two men, joseph sanford and joshua tingler attacked a man. they both have been charged with robbery, assault and other charges. all right. now to a developing story that is make national headlines. emergency rooms are seeing more and more of your children suffering from the effects of synthetic marijuana. the so-called legal weed is putting them in the hospital. abc2 news roosevelt leftwich joins us with more. >> reporter: the spois -- poison
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control center received 7,000 calls about the use of fake weed. the maryland poison center has received calls. the problem is doctors in emergency rooms may not be familiar with the reactions of the drug. they're seeing symptoms that are totally the opposite of what's expected from marijuana. many are calling the poison control on their own because they are freaked out. many people don't know what they are getting and what it will do to them. >> those are the calls we hear about. when people use the stuff, they're expecting to get mellow, expecting to get chill. what happens is people get very anxious, very agitated and they don't realize what's happening. they know it's different from what people are expected to feel. >> reporter: another thing they are getting more calls about are bath is the salts which causes
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things from paranoia to sudden death. the synthetic compounds have no quality control. roosevelt leftwich, abc2 news. it's not every day we get a corporate company that comes together to get students to stop using their product but that's what we saw today at mt. st. josephs. this was a teen summit to focus on the dangers of texting and driving. at&t was there. it's called the last text. family members who lost teens were there. they tried to drive home the fact that distracted driving kills. >> very optimistic because all the kids we talk to, the teens are receptive to the message and they pay attention. we're concerned about my
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generation because it's gotten into such terrible habits. >> those who send text messages while driving are 23 more times likely to be in a crash and it is illegal to text while driving here in the state of maryland. congratulations exxon, you are now selling gas at $4.09 a gallon. more and more gas stations are approaching just over $4 a gallon and know bell -- noble prize winners. >> all right. more sunshine expected today. 74 at bwi, almost 20 degrees above average. no winner. when we come back, we'll talk about the showers we're tracking across parts of the state of maryland as we go into the first day of spring. it's coming up.
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it's oysternomics 101. you start with a u.s. senator named ben. by helping restore thousands of acres of oyster beds, he kept hundreds of oystermen on the job... which keeps wholesalers in business... and that means more delivery companies... making deliveries to more restaurants... which hire more workers. and that means more oystermen. it's like he's out here with us. he's my friend, ben. i hope he's your friend, too. i'm ben cardin, and i approved this message. i had to switch my insurance plan. but then my prescriptions got more expensive. i felt helpless... frustrated. it was very frustrating. then john... maurice... jill stepped in... made some calls... and saved me hundreds of dollars. that's a lot.
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gas prices continue to go up, steadily, steeply and according to aaa, the national average for regular gas is $3.84, up 17 cents. the average preels of regular gas in baltimore is $3.87, up nine cents since last week. a month ago we were paying just $3.59. it doesn't get better with mid-grade where the average is over $4 a gallon. premium praises, forget it, $4.14, up eight cents in a week. 28-cents in a month.
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each week we give you a warning about the latest scam. so we have been working for you for three years. a few have highlighted our coverage. >> today is our third scam aversary. in the past 5 weeks we've given you the heads up on new scams we've never seen before, things like phone hacking where scammers get your personal information, not through the computer but by dialing into your calls at home. and then -- >> we the jury find the defendant not guilty. >> reporter: scammers use everything from the casey anthony trial to the japanese tsunami an the death of steve
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jobs to capture your attention and information. we've been giving you the tools to stay out of their trap f you miss any of our scam alerts, you can find them on our website, abc2news.com/scam alert. send on the link to send all the information i need to get the warning out to our viewers. joce sterman abc2 news. if you want to be a doctor you go to johns hopkins. now if you want to be an astronaut go to jhu. it will build a sequence of internships around it. johns hopkins has been the home of the hubble and a physicist won a prize for his work in accelerating expansion of the
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universe. all right. we start off with a look at maryland's most powerful radar. a heavy shower crossing state line. northern carroll county. manchester you're getting a decent shower. this reaches all the way up into pennsylvania and the other main batch of showers we're tracking on the eastern shore if you're watching from car row line county, denton. this cell looks like it may produce lightning in short order. watch out for lightning in northern carroll county. this moisture up to bar clay. we'll continue to watch some hit and miss downpours through the rest of the evening. by the way you can see the showers from our annapolis cam. watch as we're looking across the chesapeake. the instability in the atmosphere and one, two storm cells. so that's a sort of different
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perspective. all right. take a look out there right now, central maryland, 7 1-rbgs very little rain in the heart of the state. winds are southeast at seven miles an hour. it is generally a very warm pattern. temperatures will be tricky, not just today but the rest of the week. at times if we get a true southeast wind that will act to cool things down. we see it in ocean city now. we saw it last week thursday night into friday when we saw the marine layer. that could happen again this week at times. right now winds are completely scattered and variable and no set pattern. humidity relatively high. this could mean some patchy fog into daybreak. once again, want to show you although the eastern u.s. continues to run well above average, you got a big ridge all across the east. to the west it is much colder than average out in billings, seattle, san fran all the way down to they had
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parts of arizona and parts of new mexico. that cold air is out there. right now it's trapped in the western u.s. that's going to be the case through the rest of the week. we may cool off some but as long as our subtropical highs hangover the coast that will keep us running warm. we take the chance for hit and miss showers. tuesday conditions look quiet. maybe a couple of showers to our south. south carolina. we may get that easterly flow. that will cool us off and cloud us up. for this last night of winter we're dry. 52. your first day of spring 72. a carbon copy of our last day of winter. tomorrow night down to 54. here's your seven-day forecast. we're talking spring fever. the outlook is warming up, thursday into friday.
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could get to 80 degrees in spots. what a way to start the first full week of spring. >> this makes up the last four years we didn't have spring. >> we're evening it out. all right. the women's back theme -- team in maryland still alive in the ncaa tournament. they will be battling louisville in 40 minutes. the terps beat the mid-shipmen. they used a 14-4 run to pull the game away. louisville beat michigan statement of terps and cards will play at the comcast center starting at 7:00. your baltimore blast will have to wait at least another year for another championship, title number sifntle the blast lost to the wave and a major
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before we go, a look at what's coming up at 11. >> facial recognition. companies are using it to tailor how they sell to you. plus a high school english teacher was told she needed to read blacker. what she meant by that. all right. winter is almost, what, six hours, almost gone. >> early tomorrow morning in the wee hours. we flipped the season. the equinox is tomorrow. check out maryland's most powerful radar, still checking -- tracking downpours. so just be advised of that. that's for you, kelly, the
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