If Baltimore kept a family album for every year of its life, the one for 2014 would be dominated by dazzling pictures of September's Star-Spangled Spectacular. The city never looked better than when it celebrated the 200th anniversary of the national anthem with tall ships, the Blue Angels and its largest-ever fireworks display.
But of course, that wouldn't tell the whole story of the year, which predictably had both high and low points. Here's a look at some of the stories that unfolded over the year, the people — and even a few animals — that for better or worse made for memorable news.
Policing the police
Baltimoreans joined nationwide protests after grand juries failed to indict police officers who killed unarmed suspects in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., even disrupting the holiday season lighting of the Washington Monument. But there were also local cases that raised similar concerns of accountability.
A Baltimore Sun investigation found that the city paid nearly $6 million since 2011 for court judgments and settlements in lawsuits alleging police brutality — leading to a U.S. Department of Justice review of the department.
As elsewhere, videos emerged to highlight some rough treatment of residents by police. In September, an officer was suspended after a surveillance camera showed him repeatedly punching a man at a North Avenue bus shelter. This month, a woman who had been recording an arrest was herself arrested on assault charges; they were later dropped. She said the police deleted her cellphone video, although it already had automatically been archived elsewhere. Also in December Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot his ex-girlfriend in the stomach at her Owings Mills home, then traveled to New York and killed two police officers. He then shot himself in the head, committing suicide, in a nearby subway station.
Shifting political sands
Reliably Democratic Maryland became less so this year, as the national GOP wave left its mark on these shores.
Republican Larry Hogan's anti-tax stance helped him pull a surprise victory over Democrat Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, the heir apparent to outgoing Gov. Martin O'Malley. While still the minority party in the General Assembly, the GOP picked up nine seats in November. The party also picked up the county executive's post in Howard County, with Republican Allan Kittleman defeating Courtney Watson to replace outgoing Ken Ulman, who was Brown's running mate.
Earlier in the year, the June primaries all but settled some key races. Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein was ousted by fellow Democrat Marilyn Mosby after just one term; she easily won the general election. And longtime state Sen. Brian Frosh won the Democratic primary, and later the general election, for attorney general.
Meanwhile, O'Malley, who has said he'll decide soon whether to run for president, could have familiar company on the campaign trail: One-term Gov. Bob Ehrlich and retired Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson, both Republicans, are testing those waters as well.
Personalities and transitions
Astronaut Reid Wiseman, a graduate of Baltimore County's Dulaney High School and the Johns Hopkins University, charmed the Twitterverse with photographs from the International Space Station. His @Astro_Reid account drew more than 300,000 followers with views of awe-inspiring sunrises, storms and cities — including his hometown.
Former Baltimore Sun reporter Sarah Koenig captivated millions with "Serial," a podcast revisiting a 15-year-old murder case in Baltimore. The most downloaded podcast ever, "Serial" investigated whether Woodlawn High School student Adnan Syed was wrongly convicted of strangling his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
David M. Kennedy, the long-haired urban criminology guru, was brought back to Baltimore in February for a second attempt at curbing the city's gun violence. While a lack of a total buy-in from city leaders stymied his first attempt in the 1990s, subsequent successes of his "Ceasefire" program — based on confronting suspected perpetrators of street violence — convinced officials to ask him back.
The ever-revolving door at City Hall kept spinning: In May, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake tapped longtime friend Kaliope Parthemos as her fourth chief of staff since 2010. In August, the mayor replaced Brenda McKenzie with City Councilman William H. Cole IV as head of the Baltimore Development Corp. That led to a curious process by which Eric Costello, who was favored by City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young to replace Cole, was nominated over 13 other candidates after virtually no discussion.
After a 50-year career in higher education, William E. "Brit" Kirwan announced in May that he would step down as chancellor of the University System of Maryland; by year's end, his successor was named: Robert L. Caret, the president of the University of Massachusetts who previously headed Towson University. In July, former Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke took over the presidency of the University of Baltimore after Robert L. Bogomolny retired. Baltimore City public schools opened in the fall with a new CEO, Gregory E. Thornton, who previously headed the Milwaukee district.
Horseshoe opens
Showgirls, aerialists and Iggy Azalea made for a "Fancy" opening of Baltimore's long-awaited casino on Aug 26. Lines stretched around the Horseshoe Casino on Russell Street, as 15,000 people crowded in to give the slot machines and table games a spin. The opening of the $442 million casino came after years of litigation and other delays, making it the last of the original five Maryland venues approved in the 2008 referendum to join the increasingly crowded gaming landscape. (Another location, in Prince George's County, has since been added.)
Even before opening, though, controversy erupted over the diversion of $3 million in local impact funds — casino revenues meant for community improvements — to replace a steam pipe that city officials feared might break under increased traffic at the site.
And, finally, the casino fell short of revenue expectations, averaging $22.8 million a month, rather than the projected $32 million to $35 million.
Extreme weather and a landslide
The new year was just a week old when the first weather record was broken — temperatures dropped to three degrees at BWI, breaking by five degrees a record set in 1988. Fire hydrants, water pipes and even cellphones froze as the "polar vortex" blasted the region.
Then on Feb. 5 came the ice, as much as a half-inch thick in some places, causing an eventual 182,000 power outages. The region had barely recovered when on Feb. 13 Mother Nature dumped up to 19 inches of snow in the area — even as athletes in the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, were facing springtime temperatures and melting snow.
And next, the rains — and a landslide. Near-record April showers soaked the area, and the retaining wall on 26th Street in Charles Village collapsed and sent pavement, parked cars and streetlights plummeting onto the CSX train tracks below. The stunning landslide, captured on a video that went viral, displaced residents of the pastel rowhouses on the block for several weeks.
Even more rain soaked the area on Aug. 12, with the 6.3 inches that fell at BWI becoming the second-highest single-day total on record for Baltimore.
Laws made and vetoed
The General Assembly made Maryland the second state, after Connecticut, to hike the minimum wage to $10.10. It will take until July 2018 to get to that level, though, from the current federal minimum of $7.25.
Legislators also decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana — adults found with less than 10 grams would be cited and fined, similar to the way traffic violations are handled, with no threat of jail time. Meanwhile, Maryland's slow-moving process to make the drug available for medical uses crept forward, with a state panel in November setting licensing fees for growers and dispensaries that were among the nation's highest.
In Baltimore, the City Council at least temporarily defied the mayor, banning plastic bags and requiring police to wear body cameras to record interactions with residents. Rawlings-Blake made good on her vow to veto both measures, and the the council didn't even try to override her.
Sports highs and lows
Ray Rice dominated the news after knocking fiancee Janay Palmer unconscious in an Atlantic City hotel/casino in February. The couple married, Rice was accepted into a program for first-time offenders, allowing him to avoid jail time, and the NFL suspended him for two games. Outrage ensued over the seemingly light penalty, engulfing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Ravens officials. It rose even higher when, in September, a video surfaced showing the knockout blow. The Ravens released him, and the NFL indefinitely suspended him. But in November, Rice won his appeal and became available to other teams.
The Orioles doggedly overcame injuries (Matt Wieters, Manny Machado) and suspensions (Machado for a bat-throwing injury, Chris Davis for Adderall use) to win their division and sweep the Detroit Tigers in the first round of the playoffs. But the magic ended when the Kansas City Royals swept the team to win the American League pennant, and the off-season brought the exit of several key players, including the longest-tenured Oriole, Nick Markakis.
Crime
A gunman shot and killed two employees at a store in The Mall in Columbia on Jan. 27, sending shock waves through the placid planned community, where the shopping center served as the town square. The 19-year-old gunman, Darion Marcus Aguilar, killed himself, leaving behind writings indicating mental health issues and a fixation with the Columbine school shootings.
The University of Maryland was struck by hackers in February, exposing the Social Security numbers of more than 300,000 current and former students, faculty and staff. By year's end, officials were still trying to bolster their network's security systems.
In August, Baltimore's new curfew, one of the country's most restrictive, went into effect. Unchaperoned children under 14 had to be home by 9 p.m., and those between the ages of 14 and 16 by 10 p.m. on school nights and 11 p.m. on weekends.
In a case that rocked social circles in Baltimore, Molly Shattuck, the 47-year-old ex-Ravens cheerleader and former wife of coporate leader Mayo Shattuck, was arrested in November for allegedly raping a 15-year-old boy. Shattuck has pleaded not guilty.
WMAR-TV's news staff had to cover themselves when a disturbed man drove a stolen truck through the front doors of the station's offices on York Road in Towson in May. After a barricade situation that lasted several hours and shut down the busy street, he was taken into custody.
In sickness and in health
As the Ebola epidemic continued to kill thousands in West Africa, 20 volunteers joined a vaccine trial at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. Additionally, Baltimore-based Profectus BioSciences received $32 million in federal funds to help its quest for a vaccine and hoped to start trials next year.
Earlier this month, a nurse exposed to Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone was admitted to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. The NIH had previously and successfully treated another nurse, Nina Pham, who contracted the virus while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of the disease in a Dallas hospital.
The overdose death of renowned actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in New York in February brought to the forefront a heroin crisis sweeping much of the East Coast. In Maryland, heroin overdose deaths continued a steep upward trajectory, prompting health officials to issue a warning in January about fentanyl-laced heroin and police departments to equip officers with the life-saving naloxone antidote.
A class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of former patients of Dr. Nikita Levy, the Johns Hopkins obstetrician-gynecologist accused of surreptitiously filming some of them, was settled for $190 million — one of the largest of its kind. More than 8,000 women conceivably could make a claim, attorneys have estimated, because it was impossible to identify the subjects of more than 1,300 photos and videos found by investigators. Levy killed himself in February 2013, shortly after police began investigating allegations against him.
Animal escapades
A nearly 800-pound steer made a brief run for freedom in June, jumping a fence at the George G. Ruppersberger & Sons Inc. slaughterhouse and cantering down North Avenue for a couple of miles. But less than an hour later, a Baltimore police officer firing from his vehicle gunned the steer down near Charles and Preston streets. The cop was cleared in an internal investigation of the shooting.
Free Nani and company? In May, the National Aquarium announced it was thinking of discontinuing its popular dolphin exhibit as the institution shifted more fully to a focus on conservation. Officials are still assessing possible changes, but have floated the idea that the aquarium's eight Atlantic bottlenose dolphins could be released to an oceanside sanctuary, which would delight activists who consider their captivity exploitive and damaging to the animals.
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