A few collected thoughts on "If you see something, say something"

A few collected thoughts on "If you see something, say something."

Thesis: "If you see something, say something" leads to more interactions with law enforcement authorities than would otherwise occur; and may have the unintended consequence of increasing violent interactions with police.

Thesis: "If you see something, say something" allows authorities to plausibly investigate things that are the result of other people's prejudices (i.e., a man saying a prayer in Arabic on an airplane). Since the authorities did not initiate the investigation, but rather followed up on a tip, they're free and clear of such claims as profiling.

There are no winners, reconsidered

My last post received a lot of reaction, mostly negative. Friends who I know and trust told me my comparison between Gaza and Ferguson was "ridiculous" and "tone deaf."

I don't regret making the comparison. I do regret that the comparison became the focus of the post. When readers rejected the comparison, my thesis fell flat. That's unfortunate, because I don't think anyone who read the post and rejected my comparison would actually disagree with my thesis. Here it is again, without any reference to Gaza or Ferguson:

People who use innocent civilians to shield violent behavior are cowards...They use the very presence of innocent civilians to blanket their lawlessness. [T]the response is likely to be indiscriminate enough to catch innocent people in the fray. When that happens, we all lose.

I scarcely believe that anyone would disagree with this (do you disagree? If so, please, let me know). Evaluate this statement without my comparison. Then tell me what you think.

I chose Gaza because the conflict is fresh in people's minds, but that obviously backfired. Expecting resistance about my comparison, I tried to allay those concerns:

I'm not suggesting that a violent protester in Ferguson is the same as a Hamas terrorist. As far as we know, the violence done by protesters in Ferguson has not killed anyone. The violence in Gaza is on another scale.

Obviously, that wasn't enough. I'll agree with you that my comparison was absurd. The conflict in Gaza is different by orders of a magnitude from the rioting in Ferguson. I'll go further--I understand if you think no comparison between the two is valid. But that's beside the point. Why I regret the comparison is because my post wasn't about Gaza or Ferguson. The title of my post, There are no winners, is directly in reference to innocent civilians. I intentionally used the word innocent eight times because innocent people are suffering the consequences. Police departments are responding to irregular tactics with force and militarization. Journalists are being arrested and tear-gassed in Ferguson. The police are training sniper rifles on unarmed civilians. The police fired tear-gas on people standing in their own yards.

These are just the immediate results in Ferguson, but we have seen other results from the over-militarization of police forces: a flash bang thrown into the crib of a two-year old boy; SWAT teams invading the wrong homes; Occupy protesters were pepper sprayed as they sat on the ground. Sleepy small towns are acquiring armored vehicles. The capabilities that the feds had at Ruby Ridge or Waco two decades ago are now in the hands of police departments all over the country. Check out Radley Balko's work at the Washington Post  or his book Rise of the Warrior Cop for more on this subject.

This problem won't go away. What's happening in Ferguson right now is happening in small bits and pieces in cities and towns all over the country. It's time we faced the issue head on instead of burying our heads in the sand.

There are no winners

I've been spending a lot of time over the last month or so thinking about the Israel-Gaza conflict. Specifically, I've been wondering how to respond to irregular warfare. When Hamas militants launch rockets from beside a school or hospital, how should Israel respond? Do you expect them to just ignore the threat of rockets? War is a nasty business. No matter how hard they try, Israel's response is unlikely to be considered reasonable or proportionate. If Israel counter-attacks the rocket launch site, they may (and probably will) kill innocent civilians at the hospital or school. Hamas is violating all sorts of international norms here by subjecting their own innocent civilians to the horrible violence of war. Israel, too, seems to have been indiscriminate in some of their attacks. Whether the overreach comes from Hamas or Israel, it is innocent civilians who suffer.

Much can be said about the ongoing violence between protesters and police in and around Ferguson, Missouri. Let's say you have a group of 100 protesters. 95 of these protesters have no violent intent. They're content to wave signs, chant slogans, and yell at the police. But five of those protesters have sinister motives. They're not at the front of the crowd but interspersed among the peaceful protesters. From the perspective of the police, they see rocks, bricks or Molotov cocktails thrown from the crowd. How should the police respond? You can imagine that they're going to try to disperse the demonstration. They may try to break it up and/or respond with teargas. 95 peaceful protesters are going to bear the brunt of the force for the actions of a few bad apples. Whether the overreach comes from the few violent protesters or the police, it is innocent civilians who suffer.

A few obvious points here:

I'm not suggesting that a violent protester in Ferguson is the same as a Hamas terrorist. As far as we know, the violence done by protesters in Ferguson has not killed anyone. The violence in Gaza is on another scale. The analogy here is not a moral equivalence between terrorists and violent protesters but that the irregular tactics are essentially the same.

Neither am I defending the police's tactics. I'm not sure there is a "right way" to do things. I'm no expert, so someone else with actual law enforcement experience can surely weigh in on why I am completely wrong about this. But if I were in a position of authority, I'd regroup and refocus on doing a better job of identifying the few individuals who are instigating violence. If they're already doing this, it's not coming across in any of the news articles I've been reading. Then again, maybe that's the point: finding the few bad apples in Ferguson may be as difficult as finding the few Hamas terrorists among the larger groups of innocent Gaza civilians. 

People who use innocent civilians to shield violent behavior are cowards, whether they are Gaza terrorists or rabble-rousing rock throwers on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. They use the very presence of innocent civilians to blanket their lawlessness. When Israel responds, or when the police respond, the response is likely to be indiscriminate enough to catch innocent people in the fray. When that happens, we all lose.

Adventures from the strange police department files

In yesterday's post about the Veterans Affairs Police, I questioned whether it was necessary for every executive branch department to have their own branded police department. Rather, I thought it might be worthwhile to consider a government-wide, cross-agency, federal police department that staffs each executive branch agency as appropriate, without having to deal with an extra layer of bureaucracy of individual departments in each agency. But I did not question whether the VA needed police. On the other hand, you might reconsider your position about this one:

Yes, look again. The D.C. Public Library Police. It does exist--or, at least it used to exist. There is some evidence that it may have been wrapped up into the Protective Services Department. Still, Library Police. Better get those overdue books turned in!

So the Veterans Administration has their own police department...

It's understandable that federal agencies and departments would need police forces, but I'm not sure I understand why agency each needs its own distinct police force. It seems like there could be a generic government-wide police force that is assigned to the various agencies.

VA Police cruiser on the southeast corner of Baltimore and Paca Streets.

Police shut down an underage drinking party, but what about the Fourth Amendment?

Police in Anne Arundel County shut down an underage drinking party and cited 22 juveniles between the ages of 14 and 17. Aside from the important issue of underage drinking, let's take a look at this incident from a Fourth Amendment perspective.

Consider the following police report (emphasis is mine):

On March 23, 2013, at approximately 9:00 p.m., officers were dispatched to a residence in the 100 block of Southway Drive in Severna Park for a report of an underage drinking party.  This was the third such call in four months at this address. 

As the first officer arrived, the officer observed juveniles walking out of the residence with cans of beer in their hands. The officer subsequently entered the open door and found the home full of juveniles consuming alcohol. Several subjects fled from the home before additional officers arrived, but officers were able to detain 22 individuals in the residence. One of the juveniles fell out of a second story window as he attempted to avoid detection by the officers, yet he was uninjured and brought in with the rest of the subjects. All of the individuals were under the legal drinking age and in the possession of alcohol. The adult homeowner was not at home. 

 In total, 22 juveniles, males and females between the ages of 14 and 17, were charged via citation with underage liquor law violations. Due to their various states of intoxication, the juveniles were all detained at the residence until officers were able to contact their parents who responded to take custody of their children.

Probable cause here is simple: The police had received three calls in four months at this address; the the officer observed juveniles walking out of the residence with cans of beer in their hands. Police could have obtained a search warrant; However, there is no evidence that they did.

The police presumably entered the private residence without a warrant. Warrantless searches are presumed to be unconstitutional. As a result, to be a valid search, the police must point to a warrant exception. Probably the most likely exception here is plain view, because the officer, while standing outside the home, observed juveniles walking out of the residence with cans of beer in their hands. On the other hand, the officer found the home full of juveniles consuming alcohol after he entered the open door. Plain view permits the seizure of evidence if police are lawfully in the location from which the evidence can be viewed.

Other warrant exceptions (search incident to lawful arrest, consent, stop and frisk, automobile exception, emergencies or hot pursuit) probably don't apply. One might try to make a case that underage drinking was an emergency, but absent any view of someone passed out or in otherwise immediate need of medical attention (as viewed from outside the home), this probably doesn't add up.

As for standing, unless one of the juveniles actually lived at the home, none of them could likely challenge the search because they don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that home as temporary social guest. Only the homeowner could do that. It would be interesting to see a challenge here, but I think it's unlikely that would happen. It is an interesting fact pattern, nonetheless.

If you want to restore and protect the Fourth Amendment, you have to be able to look past criminality. You have to be able to say that even though police thwarted underage drinking, that end result is worth challenging if it violates a basic principle of the Bill of Rights. Challenging questionable police conduct doesn't mean I condone underage drinking. But the Fourth Amendment (and the Bill of Rights in general) is more important than a house party.

What do you think?

Is this protected speech?

A few days ago, a Baltimore blogger was sitting in his home when the Baltimore Police brought their SWAT team to arrest him. While the police were outside, he was tweeting and broadcasting live audio, including his phone call with a police negotiator (read here for the story).

One of the principle issues surrounded the fact that the police department sent the SWAT team to arrest someone for a failure-to-appear (FTA) on a probation violation (added to the fact that his probation had since ended).

Knowing that there was a warrant for his arrest, he tweeted this:

Anyone trying to capture me, ur gonna have to kill me, before I kill you. I'm a nice guy, but I'm a bad, bad man. Dangerous us, so don't try
— Baltimore Spectator (@BaltoSpectator) December 1, 2012

(image here in case the tweet gets deleted)

He also tweeted a lot of other things, including other threats of violence, and about his impending death.

Additionally, he has a conviction for assault and a weapons charge.

Are you surprised, then, when the police showed up with a SWAT team?

More importantly, given the situation, what the police knew, what he knew, do you think the tweet above considered protected speech?

Maryland smart meter opt-out bill gets unfavorable report in committee

So, HB 878, the smart meter opt-out bill that I testified in favor of, did not do so well when the House Economic Matters Committee voted:

I suspect that the committee was not so much voting against the opt-out provision, persuaded by the utility companies to defer to the Maryland Public Service Commission make the decision at their May 22nd hearing:

Either way, that's the next step. I don't know if I'll be able to make it to the hearing, but no doubt I'll be submitting my comments.

Maryland smart meter testimony (audio)

Here is the audio to my testimony this afternoon to the Maryland House of Delegates Economic Matters Committee on smart meter privacy. Yes, I know I talk too fast--this is a problem when you get three minutes and the delegates are impatient to get through the hearing. :-)

Testimony to the Maryland House Economic Matters Committee on HB 878 (3/15/2012)

Next week, I am scheduled to testify on behalf of HB 878, which would allow Maryland consumers to opt-out of smart meter installations. This is the statement I submitted. Your comments are welcome. Note that statements are generally limited to three minutes, so I had to keep it pretty short.

March 15, 2012
House Economic Matters Committee
Statement of Mr. Michael Schearer on behalf of HB 878

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee,

My name is Michael Schearer and I am a Maryland homeowner, as well as the owner of a small business here in Maryland. For the past several years, I have been keenly interested in a number of matters involving privacy. I started a project called the Assault on Privacy which documents privacy abuses; and more recently I started a news aggregation website called Freedom Report which links to issues of freedom, liberty, and privacy both here in Maryland and across the nation. I appreciate the opportunity to offer testimony today regarding HB 878, and I want to thank Delegate Glass for sponsoring this bill. There are any number of concerns involving smart meters, but because of my background, I want to focus on the issue of privacy. I am here today on behalf of myself and my family, and thousands of other Marylanders who only seek a choice.

This spring, BGE plans to begin installation of “smart meters” in their customer area, and in Anne Arundel County in particular. I am here today because BGE expressly tells me that I am not permitted to opt-out of this device, and must accept its installation in order to have electric service in my home.

These sophisticated devices are called “smart meters” because they provide detailed and timely information about energy usage. The technology in today’s smart meters can provide in excess of 3,000 data points a month. This is a benefit for any number of reasons, but it’s also a cost for the very same reasons. “Smart meter” sounds like a nice thing, but let’s be clear—with this data in someone else’s hands, this is a surveillance device being installed at your home.

This data will provide unique identifiers and specific functionality of individual home appliances. Access to such data allows the reconstruction of one’s daily activities. Patterns of energy usage can be analyzed. You can determine sleep, work, or travel habits; these are highly personal routines.

There is a strong incentive for third parties to seek access to this data. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “[w]ithout strong protections, this information can and will be repurposed by interested [third] parties. It's not hard to imagine a divorce lawyer subpoenaing this information, an insurance company interpreting the data in a way that allows it to penalize customers, or criminals intercepting the information to plan a burglary. Marketing companies will also desperately want to access this data to get new intimate new insights into your family's day-to-day routine–not to mention the government, which wants to mine the data for law enforcement and other purposes.”

In fact, law enforcement agencies already rely on energy consumption data to gather evidence of possible crimes. In Kyllo v. United States, law enforcement used energy consumption data to develop probable cause that marijuana was being grown. Agents used a thermal imaging device to detect amounts of heat within the home. The Supreme Court reversed Mr. Kyllo’s conviction because, as Justice Scalia wrote, “[i]n the home…all details are intimate details, because the entire area is held safe from prying government eyes.” Lest you suspect this information would only protect criminals, in California, police raided a home suspected of growing marijuana because of their high energy usage—only the family wasn’t doing anything illegal.  Of course, BGE isn’t law enforcement, but without strong constitutional protections, is there any doubt that this data will easily find its way to any interested third parties?

The availability of this data to outsiders brings to light another particularly important issue called the third party doctrine. The Supreme Court has held that “[t]The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities.”  In the recent case involving warrantless GPS tracking, Justice Sotomayor recently expressed concern about this very issue: “[m]ore fundamentally, it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties.”

House Bill 878 simply gives customers a choice—the opportunity to say “no” if they have concerns about smart meters. This opportunity is not unique to Maryland. Last month, the California Public Utilities Commission gave PG&E customers the right to opt-out.  And barely two weeks ago, Nevada’s Public Utilities Commission did the same thing.  The people of Manchester, Vermont voted against smart meters at their Town Meeting last week.

Lastly, I would also suggest that the bill be amended such that opting out remains available at no cost to the customer. The smart meter program is being financed partially by “stimulus” dollars, and eventually by BGE customers through rate hikes; those that choose not to participate should not be penalized by unnecessary fees.

Sir Edward Coke wrote, “"[t]The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress..."  The enormous amount of data that will be collected by smart meters has the potential to reveal the intimate activities inside our homes. Regardless of how it is collected, this information should receive the highest amount of Fourth Amendment protection. At least until that protection is ensured, and even afterwards, for privacy reasons, customers should be permitted to opt-out of smart meter programs. I strongly urge the members of this committee to pass this bill.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee on this important issue. I remain available for your questions.

Problems and limitations to the exclusionary rule

Consider the following situation:

A police officer notices a car driving 43 MPH in a 25 MPH zone.  He stops the car and tickets the driver.  He then searches the car, and finds a bag of marijuana and a "pot pipe" underneath the driver's seat.  The driver is arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance.

Now consider a similar situation:

The same officer returns on his shift and soon again, notices yet another car driving 43 MPH in a 25 MPH zone.  He stops the car and tickets the driver.  He then searches the car, but does not find any additional evidence.  The police officer sends the driver on his way.

Now, what is the difference?  We'll answer that eventually, but let's first look at the results of each situation.  The first situation actually occurred, and was the subject of a Supreme Court case called Knowles v. Iowa.  The Court found that:

[t]he search at issue, authorized as it was by state law, nonetheless violates the Fourth Amendment. Neither of the two historical exceptions for the "search incident to arrest" exception, see Robinson, supra, at 234, is sufficient to justify the search in the present case. First, the threat to officer safety from issuing a traffic citation is a good deal less than in the case of a custodial arrest. While concern for safety during a routine traffic stop may justify the "minimal" additional intrusion of ordering a driver and passengers out of the car, it does not by itself justify the often considerably greater intrusion attending a full field-type search. Even without the search authority Iowa urges, officers have other, independent bases to search for weapons and protect themselves from danger. Second, the need to discover and preserve evidence does not exist in a traffic stop, for once Knowles was stopped for speeding and issued a citation, all evidence necessary to prosecute that offense had been obtained. Iowa's argument that a "search incident to citation" is justified because a suspect may try to hide evidence of his identity or of other crimes is unpersuasive. An officer may arrest a driver if he is not satisfied with the identification furnished, and the possibility that an officer would stumble onto evidence of an unrelated offense seems remote. Pp. 3-6.

The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court (which had upheld the search).  The case was sent back to the trial court, who re-opened the case and eventually dismissed the case against Knowles.  Why?  Because the drug evidence would then be suppressed on account of the exclusionary rule, which holds that illegally obtained evidence is (usually) inadmissible at court.  Now Knowles has been through a lot!  But without the only evidence of the crime, he goes free.

And a quick review of court records shows that Patrick Knowles was not exactly a model citizen, having convictions for multiple counts of domestic abuse, unauthorized possession of weapons, and probation violations.

(Note: It's difficult to find any further details, but I'm not sure why the Iowa courts didn't allow the evidence to be admissible under the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule established in United States v. Leon in 1984, since the officer was acting in accordance with established state law.)

Now let's return to the second situation.  This is a hypothetical based on the first one, but given the circumstances, is just as likely (or perhaps even more likely) to occur.  As the Supreme Court noted, a "search incident to citation" was lawful in Iowa at the time.  So it seems likely that many such searches occurred at the time.

If the search was illegal in the first situation, it seems obvious that it should also be illegal in the second situation.  However, in the first situation, Knowles has a remedy--the judicially-created exclusionary rule (see Weeks v. United States and Mapp v. Ohio).  What is the remedy for the second driver?

He could file suit against the officer, but because the officer was in performance of his official duties, and acting within already established Iowa law, the officer is likely to enjoy some form of immunity from prosecution; and even if he was prosecuted, the search was not illegal at the time (meaning the officer acted in good faith), nor was the officer acting with any malice.  So in reality, the second driver has no remedy.

By its name and definition, the exclusionary rule only protects those suspected of criminal behavior--it has no effect on, and is no remedy for innocent victims of illegal searches.  A criminal like Knowles is allowed to go free, yet the unnamed drivers who were also stopped but had no contraband have no legal recourse.  Theoretically, the exclusionary rule it is also meant as a disincentive to police and prosecutors--"if your searches aren't legal, we'll throw out the evidence"--but there are already now additional limitations on the exclusionary rule.  So it's difficult to see if the deterrent factor truly exists in all but the most obvious situations.

FCC challenges app makers to protect open Internet

From Reuters:

U.S. regulators are asking software developers in an 'Open Internet Challenge' to create apps that let Internet users know when their service provider -- fixed or mobile -- is interfering with content.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is trying to get consumers to help police Internet service providers for network management abuses such as slowing bandwidth-hogging content from movies.

The wants to spur the deployment of innovative technologies to protect the openness of the Internet.

The FCC adopted Internet traffic rules last month that ban landline Internet providers such as Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc from blocking lawful traffic or discriminating against bandwidth-heavy content.

Fifth Circuit Permits Warrantless Government Searches Based on Previous Private Search Not Known To Police

From Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy:

Last week the Fifth Circuit handed down a significant decision on the “private search” doctrine in Fourth Amendment law, United States v. Oliver. Oliver permits warrantless searches under the private search doctrine even when the police who conducted the search didn’t know about the private search. I don’t think the private search doctrine can extend so far, and in this post I hope to explain why I think the decision is wrong. I also want to explain why a different Fourth Amendment rule, the “apparent authority” doctrine, very possibly applies to the facts of this case. The apparent authority doctrine was not litigated in the Oliver case, but it should have been. If I’m right about that, the Oliver decision may have reached a plausible result but did so using a rationale that is quite troubling and likely to cause more problems in the future.

Follow the link for Kerr's analysis on the case; the text of the decision is below.

United States v. Oliver

Warantless cellphone search is much ado about nothing

I linked to the article, Court clears warrantless cellphone searches, over at Assault on Privacy.  SFGate has a similar article covering the same decision, entitled Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant.  I've seen both of these articles posted on Twitter today and the headlines are certainly eye-opening.  The comments (in particular on the SFGate article) complain about the police state, but here the devil is really in the details (which in this case are the articles themselves).

Both articles explain that the search of the cellphone was a search incident to a lawful arrest, which is one of the clearly defined exceptions to the warrant requirement.  Moreover, this isn't some creation of the modern Rehnquist and/or Roberts Court designed to scale back the excesses of the Warren Court.  In fact, this exception is firmly rooted in English common law and has continued to the present.

Teens facing second set of murder charges in Glen Burnie slayings

According to the Baltimore Sun, Anne Arundel County police have connected the murders of two individuals in Glen Burnie this past year by their suspected killers:

Two of four teenagers charged in the killing of a man during a holdup at a Glen Burnie take-out restaurant are now facing additional first-degree murder charges — this time in the summertime slaying of a clerk at a 7-Eleven in Glen Burnie.

Vincent Ethan Bunner, 17, of the 100 block of Dunlap Road in Pasadena and Shawn Anthony Johnson, 18, of the 7800 block of Windbourne Drive in Glen Burnie were charged Tuesday in the second fatal shooting, Anne Arundel County police said. Investigators are seeking a third person. Police made the announcement at a news conference Wednesday.

The Sun goes on to mention possible gang affiliations.

For additional coverage, see the Washington Post.

Anne Arundel police say man admitted to fatal stabbing outside McDonald's

The Baltimore Sun has more information on the stabbing in the McDonald's parking lot of the Cromwell Field Shopping Center in Glen Burnie here.

Police investigate two Anne Arundel County homicides

From the Baltimore Sun:

Anne Arundel County police are investigating two homicides — one outside a Glen Burnie shopping center and another in a Severn neighborhood Saturday night.

Officers were called at about 6:40 p.m. to a parking lot of the Cromwell Field Shopping Center in the 7300 block of Baltimore Annapolis Blvd., where two men had been fighting, resulting in one being stabbed, police said. [Note: this is directly across the street from the Cromwell/Glen Burnie Light Rail stop]

The suspect was detained at the scene, police said, and taken into custody. The victim was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died.

His identity is being withheld pending family notification.

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About half an hour later, at about 7:15 p.m., police responded to the 1800 block of Meade Village Circle, where they found a 46-year-old injured man. Police said he suffered trauma and was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where died.

View Larger Map

Police are investigating both deaths as homicides but did not release additional details.

Anyone with information is asked to call Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7LOCKUP.

Delaware Court Strikes Down Warrantless GPS Tracking

From the Electronic Privacy Information Center:

The Delaware Superior Court has ruled that police must obtain a warrant before using GPS devices to monitor vehicles. The Court said that the Delaware Constitution protects its citizens' reasonable expectation of privacy from "constant surveillance." "Everyone understands there is a possibility that on any one occasion or even multiple occasions, they may be observed by a member of the public or possibly law enforcement," the Court reasoned, "but there is not such an expectation that an omnipresent force is watching your every move."

Here is the text of the decision:

Delaware v. Holden

"Particularized suspicion" required for strip searches

From WBALTV.com:

A Maryland appeals court has ruled that suspicion is enough for police to conduct a strip search.

The Court of Special Appeals issued the opinion last week, explaining why it overruled a lower court in October.

Prosecutors appealed a Baltimore County judge's pretrial ruling that a bag of cocaine found after a suspect was ordered to remove his pants at a police station was not admissible as evidence.

The suspect was pulled over for speeding following a tip from an informant and arrested after a police dog indicated drugs were in the car.

Retired Judge Charles E. Moylan Jr. wrote in the opinion that all that is required is a particularized suspicion that drugs may be hidden on or in the suspect's body.

Here is the full text of the decision:

Maryland v. Harding

Homeless man charged in killing of man Laurel woods

From the Baltimore Sun:

A 45-year old homeless man is facing first degree murder charges in the beating death of another homeless man found in woods near Laurel Race Track Thursday, according to Anne Arundel County police.

Adalberto Rodriquez-Tolledo was found walking along a the 8800 block of Gorman Road in North Laurel Friday afternoon around 5:30 p.m., police said. He was arrested on an unrelated warrant, but under questioning, police said he implicated himself in the beating death of Flavio Garcia, 55, of San Pedro, Jicayan Oaxaca, Mexico.

Garcia had been found dead with head injuries Thursday in the woods near eastbound Rt. 198, where he and other homeless people live not far from the race track located on the Anne Arundel-Howard County line.

This is an update to the previous story here.