Props to the Sun's Justin Fenton for keeping his ear to the ground regarding the Blackwell clan's ongoing drama. As he reports today, police arrested Stephen "JR" Blackwell, Jr. and charged him with disorderly conduct on Monday night. This is what the old heads used to call a "humble."
You don't usually see these kinds of busts in the newspaper, but Blackwell, 25 years old, is special. According to Fenton, police consider him a drug lord, and suspect he and his east-side family have been involved in numerous shootings and other violence during the past year. Blackwell was injured in an infamous shootout at a backyard picnic last month. His younger brothers were kidnapped last spring in a bizarre incident that prompted federal and state law enforcement to call an "amber alert" for the missing children. And that brings us to the real news in Fenton's piece:
[Correction: the incomparable Julie Bykowicz draws our attention to
which disclosed both the $500,000 ransom, and connections between the Blackwell's alleged kidnappers and Demetrious Rich, brother of Otis Rich, lately sent to prison after
in the
].
City Paper
reporters had heard a bit here and there about how, after the boys' return, the cops supposedly began paying special attention to Blackwell, and how Blackwell supposedly told the cops he was going to take care of business and that they couldn't stop him. Suppposedly. All of this on the DL, of course. Not for publication.
Which leads us to the reason this humble made the news: it's an occasion to quote the police report quoting Blackwell:
What, like the last year was easy?
