Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 21 November 2002 — Page 6

The Muncie Times, November 21, 2002, page 6

N F W S R R T F F S

NEWS BRIEFS FROM PAGE 5 , Juan Ortiz, 12, and LaWanda Ortiz, 14. During a press conference, police commissioner Edward Norris, calling the day the saddest in his career, admitted that the reality of life in Baltimore—despite his zero tolerance for drug dealers—is that when a family like the Dawsons is threatened by drug dealers, there is little the police can do besides relocating them for their own protection. A message of death was sent to Angela and Carnell Dawson when they asked dealers selling drugs in front of their East Baltimore row house to move and set up business elsewhere. The heartless answer from these street thugs came Oct. 4 when they threw two Molotov cocktails into the family home. As fire swept through their kitchen, and suffocating smoke filled the three-story house, the couple blindly grabbed their five children and stumbled outside into the darkness. They stood there trembling in terror. Mrs. Dawson, realizing the deadly danger posed by the attempted arsonist, wrote a hand-written note to police asking for help. Two weeks later, on Oct. 16, shortly after midnight, the fear and retaliation the family had expected arrived in flames and death. One resident said the house looked like it “blew up, just burst into flames,” as if caused by “an incendiary device.” The blaze erupted into a raging fire that swept through the sleeping family’s corner house at 1401 E. Preston St. The mother and her five children were burned to death. Carnell Dawson Sr., 43, jumped through a window, and was in critical condition at the Bay View Burn Center with burns over 80 percent of his body. He died last Wednesday, the day before his wife and children were buried.

Kevin Cartwright, fire department spokesman and former firefighter and paramedic, stood helpless as flames and black smoke poured from all the windows. It took an hour before firemen could enter the inferno and burst through the steel front door. Elevated ladders were raised at the front and back of the roof. It was too late. The entire family, except for the father, had been killed. Police arrested Darrell Brooks, a 21-year-old neighbor, on Oct. 17, and charged him with the murders by arson of six members of the Dawson family. Additional charges are expected. Norris said police are looking at other suspects in the case. Meanwhile, police are waiting for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to determine what kind of incendiary device was used. He said police could not provide protection for the Dawson family, even after the first fire at the home, beyond inviting them to enter the witness protection program. According to reports, they refused, saying the family should not be run out of town by thugs.

...and they make great

“They were murdered in a vicious and vile manner because they tried to do the right thing and fight crime in their community,” a friend said. “Who wants to be uprooted from their home because drug dealers are conducting business in front of your house?” the friend reasons. “You expect the police to come in and make some arrests and clear this corner and make it safe for decent folks.” Apparently, the Dawson’s house had become the center of a battleground between a mother who wanted to protect her children and drug dealers who had staked out the corner as their turf. NEWS BRIEFS ON PAGE 9