Press Release Link

CITY MAN CHARGED UNDER CITY’S NEW

GUN OFFENDER REGISTRY ACT

Quentin Benjamin Adams, Convicted of Firearm Possession, Allegedly Failed to Register as Gun Offender by Giving False Address
Baltimore, MD – April 4, 2008 – Late yesterday, city police arrested Quentin Benjamin Adams, 18, of the 1900 block of Hillcrest Road and charged him with failing to register as a gun offender. Adams allegedly provided a false address during his required registration as a gun offender under the City’s recently enacted Gun Offender Registry Act (GORA). Adams is being held on $75,000 bail at Central Booking.

Mayor Sheila Dixon signed GORA into law September 20, 2007 and it took effect on January 1, 2008. The city ordinance requires gun offenders to register with the Police Department immediately upon sentencing and/or release from imprisonment and every six months thereafter for three years. The Police Department through the Gun Offender Monitoring Unit is charged with maintaining the registry and enforcing compliance. A gun offender who violates any of the provisions is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and/or a $1,000 fine. Each day the violation continues constitutes a separate violation. The Act applies to every gun conviction in Baltimore City.

On February 4, 2008 Adams pled guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court to illegal possession of a CDS and illegal possession of a firearm and Judge Emmanuel Brown sentenced him to four-years suspend all but three-years, nine-months for the narcotics count and five-years suspended for the firearm count. Adams was required to register as a gun offender under GORA.

Court documents allege on March 11, 2008 Adams responded to the Gun Offender Registry Unit to register as a convicted gun offender, giving police a Salisbury address. On March 31, 2008 detectives from the Gun Trace Task Force responded to that Salisbury address and learned from a resident of the address that Adams never resided there and a warrant was issued for his arrest April 1, 2008. Police arrested him late yesterday and brought him to Central Booking.

A court commissioner ordered Adams held on $75,000 bail and he is being held at the Baltimore City Detention Center on that bail, awaiting a bail review hearing. A preliminary hearing date has been set for May 5, 2008 in Wabash District Court.

the full link can be found here:

http://www.stattorney.org/Press_Release/2008/442008.htm


After reading this press release, I would want to talk to a representative from the Mayor's office, if not the mayor herself, about the gun control law itself, not just how it applies to this case. I would also like to talk to someone from the Gun Offender Monitoring Unit about how realistic this new law is and what they think its strengths/weaknesses are.