Notorious Apartment Complex Torn Down

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore city officials knocked down an apartment complex Thursday that was known for being crime-infested.

Barry Simms Reports

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon took the first strike to bring down the 31-unit Pall Mall Apartments on Pimlico Road, which is the complex notoriously known as The Ranch.

City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she got plenty of complaints about the place.

"When I represented this area, I got call after call after call -- guns found, murders, stabbings, people living in fear," she said.

The complex had a national reputation for the quality of illegal drugs sold there and the ease in which drug dealers peddled narcotics. On Christmas Day 2004, three people were shot in what police called a drug-related crime. Police conducted numerous raids to try to get rid of the problem.

City Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano said it was a long process to get to the demolition.

"We are here to end this nightmare," he said.

The Ranch was the first property Baltimore city took over under a new crime fighting policy that pooled the resources of police, city prosecutors and the Housing Authority.

In 2005, the city revoked the owner's multi-family dwelling license. It got Housing and Urban Development to provide vouchers so residents could move.

"The message is if there's properties in Baltimore and crime that goes along with those properties, we will shut them down," said city police Officer Cheryl Kuomony.

The absentee owner of the complex, who is based in Las Vegas, took the issue to court. His company claimed it tried to get rid of illegal activity, but a judge ruled that evidence in the case supported the housing department's finding that Pall Mall knew its properties were being used for drug trafficking and other criminal activity and took no or minimal steps to try to abate it.

As the bricks fell Thursday, Park Heights resident Kenneth Morrison said he considered the change a sign of hope.

"I believe Park Heights is in transition. There are so many possibilities for this community," he said.

City officials said they plan to develop new mixed-income housing on the site. It also got HUD to foreclose on six other Baltimore properties owned by the absentee landlord. The city said it will demolish five of them and also build new housing at those locations.