Tuesday night was cold with a biting wind, the kind of weather that would suggest one stay within the warm comforts of home.
Yet, finding a parking place behind or around Berlin Town Hall required some patience and parallel parking.
It was just as difficult to find an empty seat in the crowded Town Council hearing room. Berlin’s citizenry had shown up in solidarity, saddened and concerned.
On Friday, Nov. 8, Tymeir D. Dennis, a 16-year-old Stephen Decatur High School honor student, was one of two brothers hit by an unmarked state police car driven by Trooper Nicholas Hager on Route 113 in Berlin. Tyheim D. Bowen, Dennis’ teenage brother, was also hit and taken eventually to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.
We learned from the council that some 63 accidents have happened along Route 113 since the year 2000. Yet nothing has been done. The high-speed pace of traffic continues.
People came out in numbers to tell their elected officials and town administrators that something has to change.
There is no safe way for a pedestrian to cross this stretch of highway. Often, citizens said, drivers “fly” through the stretch of road without any regard for the safety of citizens who call Berlin home.
Enough.
This occurs while politicians look to be elected to statewide office such as governor or attorney general. It is a time when our very governor Martin O’Malley is flirting with the possibility of a national run for president. The value of votes has to extend beyond Baltimore City, its suburbs and those of suburban Washington, D.C. Our votes, our concerns have value, equal value.
We wish the governor, attorney general and even Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who is competing against Gansler for the Democrat nomination for governor, were in that Berlin room Tuesday night.
The governor needs to step down from presidential candidacy dreams and hear the daunted dreams of Berlin’s families. AG Gansler was in a nearby South Bethany room to watch his son drink, but was nowhere in sight Tuesday night. Of course, that’s perhaps unrealistic to suggest. But it’s got to be as real as Tymeir’s unnecessary death.
Had this tragedy occurred on the Baltimore Beltway, I-95 or the Capitol Beltway, statewide officials would be falling over themselves in expressions of remorse.
Route 113 is a stretch of road that cuts through a beautiful, small American town. We doubt you’d find it, state politicians, without your GPS.
The point is, we all vote, and the people of Berlin deserve a quick, dedicated response. There has to be a better way to cross Route 113 along Bay Street.
We shouldn’t be mourning the loss of Tymeir today. We pray his brother recovers and we offer Tymeir’s family our deepest sympathy and support.
This didn’t have to happen. Speed limits have to be lowered. Pedestrians need to be given a traffic signal in their favor with a countdown sign. Speed violations need to be enforced with violators ticketed. Everyone, including law enforcement personnel, need to slow down and take the road with caution even when responding to a dispatched call.
We’re not out to point fingers at the state trooper who was involved in Friday’s accident. God only knows the pain he’ll endure going over in his mind what happened, and having to tell his story possibly many times.
On a cold, blustery night in Berlin, its citizens turned out to talk. It was useful as it was cathartic.
Gov. O’Malley, we’re asking you to take a ride on that road.
Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, you want desperately to be the next governor. You should have been in that room in Berlin Tuesday night.
Attorney Gen. Gansler, as the state’s chief lawyer, you know this situation is unacceptable.
Or do you any of you know?
Let’s not let Tymeir’s life be forgotten. Let’s take this moment to make it clear in Tymeir’s memory, that this stretch of Route 113 is a thoroughfare of potential injury or death and it is visible in plain sight.
It doesn’t have to stay this way.
We applaud the solidarity of a Town Council public hearing room in Berlin. Out of the darkness, we demand that their voices are heard in Annapolis.
Before the next pedestrian is hit.
Because for the Berlin residents who came to City Hall, this wasn’t about another neighbor or citizen, Tymeir was a son, a brother, a cousin, a relative. He was a child of Berlin and a member of everyone’s family.
Do the right thing, State of Maryland. Expedite this and turn this inexcusable hazard into a safe place.
And do it now.
Yet, finding a parking place behind or around Berlin Town Hall required some patience and parallel parking.
It was just as difficult to find an empty seat in the crowded Town Council hearing room. Berlin’s citizenry had shown up in solidarity, saddened and concerned.
On Friday, Nov. 8, Tymeir D. Dennis, a 16-year-old Stephen Decatur High School honor student, was one of two brothers hit by an unmarked state police car driven by Trooper Nicholas Hager on Route 113 in Berlin. Tyheim D. Bowen, Dennis’ teenage brother, was also hit and taken eventually to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.
We learned from the council that some 63 accidents have happened along Route 113 since the year 2000. Yet nothing has been done. The high-speed pace of traffic continues.
People came out in numbers to tell their elected officials and town administrators that something has to change.
There is no safe way for a pedestrian to cross this stretch of highway. Often, citizens said, drivers “fly” through the stretch of road without any regard for the safety of citizens who call Berlin home.
Enough.
This occurs while politicians look to be elected to statewide office such as governor or attorney general. It is a time when our very governor Martin O’Malley is flirting with the possibility of a national run for president. The value of votes has to extend beyond Baltimore City, its suburbs and those of suburban Washington, D.C. Our votes, our concerns have value, equal value.
We wish the governor, attorney general and even Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who is competing against Gansler for the Democrat nomination for governor, were in that Berlin room Tuesday night.
The governor needs to step down from presidential candidacy dreams and hear the daunted dreams of Berlin’s families. AG Gansler was in a nearby South Bethany room to watch his son drink, but was nowhere in sight Tuesday night. Of course, that’s perhaps unrealistic to suggest. But it’s got to be as real as Tymeir’s unnecessary death.
Had this tragedy occurred on the Baltimore Beltway, I-95 or the Capitol Beltway, statewide officials would be falling over themselves in expressions of remorse.
Route 113 is a stretch of road that cuts through a beautiful, small American town. We doubt you’d find it, state politicians, without your GPS.
The point is, we all vote, and the people of Berlin deserve a quick, dedicated response. There has to be a better way to cross Route 113 along Bay Street.
We shouldn’t be mourning the loss of Tymeir today. We pray his brother recovers and we offer Tymeir’s family our deepest sympathy and support.
This didn’t have to happen. Speed limits have to be lowered. Pedestrians need to be given a traffic signal in their favor with a countdown sign. Speed violations need to be enforced with violators ticketed. Everyone, including law enforcement personnel, need to slow down and take the road with caution even when responding to a dispatched call.
We’re not out to point fingers at the state trooper who was involved in Friday’s accident. God only knows the pain he’ll endure going over in his mind what happened, and having to tell his story possibly many times.
On a cold, blustery night in Berlin, its citizens turned out to talk. It was useful as it was cathartic.
Gov. O’Malley, we’re asking you to take a ride on that road.
Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, you want desperately to be the next governor. You should have been in that room in Berlin Tuesday night.
Attorney Gen. Gansler, as the state’s chief lawyer, you know this situation is unacceptable.
Or do you any of you know?
Let’s not let Tymeir’s life be forgotten. Let’s take this moment to make it clear in Tymeir’s memory, that this stretch of Route 113 is a thoroughfare of potential injury or death and it is visible in plain sight.
It doesn’t have to stay this way.
We applaud the solidarity of a Town Council public hearing room in Berlin. Out of the darkness, we demand that their voices are heard in Annapolis.
Before the next pedestrian is hit.
Because for the Berlin residents who came to City Hall, this wasn’t about another neighbor or citizen, Tymeir was a son, a brother, a cousin, a relative. He was a child of Berlin and a member of everyone’s family.
Do the right thing, State of Maryland. Expedite this and turn this inexcusable hazard into a safe place.
And do it now.