She wouldn't stop calling the police. The 19-year-old woman kept reporting that there was drug dealing right outside her home in the 800 block of Lennox St. in Reservoir Hill.
In short order, she said, the retaliation began: vandalism, assaults, threats, and then a gunshot fired through her bedroom window late at night.
Yesterday, a Baltimore Circuit Court judge sentenced 28-year-old Omar Parker to 20 years in prison for a felony intimidation conviction. By contrast, for a heroin distribution conviction, he received two years.
"This is exactly the kind of message that we want to send," said Margaret T. Burns, a spokeswoman for the city state's attorney's office, pointing out the difference between the sentences.
"Good citizens trying to report illegal activity shouldn't be threatened or intimidated," she said.
It's one of the first intimidation sentences to be handed down since a change in the law went into effect in October 2005. Before that, intimidation was a misdemeanor with a maximum prison sentence of five years.
Now, it is a felony with a 20-year maximum. Judge M. Brooke Murdock gave Parker every day of it.
The young woman began calling the police about drug dealing in the spring of 2005. The Sun is not naming her because of the circumstances of the case. She has been relocated through witness assistance, Burns said.
Her phone calls drew the attention of the police -- and of the drug dealers. The woman said that her car was vandalized several times and that she was assaulted and threatened. She reported those incidents.
Then, late at night May 23, 2005, someone fired a gunshot through a bedroom window of her apartment. She reported that, too.
The shooting investigation did not go far until an exchange that November near her apartment. A man passed by her and said, according to charging documents, "[Expletive], keep calling the police and I'm gonna shoot you. And I'll shoot your windows out like I did before."
He pulled up his shirt to show her a handgun tucked in his waistband, the documents state.
Narcotics detectives working in the area showed the woman photographic arrays, and in February 2006, she identified Omar Parker as the man who had threatened her. Parker, who gave an address that was about a mile south in Sandtown-Winchester, was arrested and held in jail while awaiting trials.
In the fall, he was convicted of possession with intent to distribute and later sentenced to five years with all but two suspended, Burns said. An online check of his criminal record did not show that conviction, but Burns said Parker used many aliases.
Then it came time for the intimidation trial.
There were so many false starts to the trial that Assistant State's Attorney Nicole Lomartire thought to herself that the woman would just give up and stop cooperating, Burns said.
There was a problem with the first jury. Then there was a sick judge. Then there was a fire drill.
But the woman always came to court, Burns said. In June, during the two-day trial, she took the stand and told a jury what had happened to her.
She was one of two witnesses in the case. The jury convicted Parker of the intimidation charge and of second-degree assault.
Murdock sentenced him to the 20-year term and to five years for the assault, which will be served concurrently.
julie.bykowicz@baltsun.com