— A Working Archive —

The Record

“The record mattered more than the hand holding it.”

— J. Grey, Sentinel Post · Dhahran, 1996

Curator’s Note

These thirteen artifacts were recovered from court filings, firm archives, newsroom morgues, and one shoebox in a house on Broad Street. They are presented here in the order they were found — not the order they occurred. Some names have been redacted by the court. Others were redacted by time. The collection remains open.

The Westport Files — Baltimore Sentinel Post front page, January 9, 2006

Featured Artifact · Record No. 009

The Westport Files: What the City Sold and Who Paid

Baltimore Sentinel Post · January 9, 2006

The Foundation

What the four founders signed in 1982. What grew from it. What it cost them all.

Firm HistoryRECORD No. 001 Articles of Organization

Maryland SDAT · Charter Division · October 20, 1982

Articles of Organization

Davidson, Bates, Dawson & Barber, P.A.

Four signatures. Four men who believed process could outpace consequence. They were wrong, but it took twenty-four years and a body on the courthouse steps to prove it. Dawson would get a community center. A deputy mayor would die inside it. Bates would leave for the Eastern Shore and never come back. And Leo — Leo would build the thing that swallowed them all. The notary's red seal still holds. Everything else cracked.

Maryland SDAT · Charter Division · Book 1982/M, p. 4731 Retrieved by V. C. Barber · Public Inspection · 09-22-2006

Firm HistoryRECORD No. 002 New Law Firm Opens on St. Paul Place

Baltimore Afro-American · October 20, 1982

New Law Firm Opens on St. Paul Place

Baltimore Afro-American Business · Page B-3

Rain on the sidewalk, brass plate beside the door. Dawson's hand on the plate. Bates and Davidson and Barber a step back. Twenty-four years later, a copy of this photograph hung crooked in Leo's study — torn at the edge where someone had taken themselves out of it by force. The version in the firm archive is untouched. Someone decided which one to keep whole. (See Chapter One.)

Davidson & Associates Firm Historical Archive Volume I — Founding Years 1982-1989

Firm HistoryRECORD No. 003 Pinnacle / Harbor East Closing

Davidson & Associates LLC — Internal · March 6, 1998

Pinnacle / Harbor East Closing

Three parcels. Four point two million. Father and son, both signed.

Shawn was twenty-five. His signature sits beside his father's at the bottom of the deal memo — the first time a Davidson appeared twice on the same closing. Four point two million dollars. Three parcels in the Harbor East TIF District. Eight years later, Jordan Grey would follow this transaction through seventeen shell transfers and arrive at a question no one at the firm wanted asked. The Macallan 25 on the table is Leo's. It always was.

Davidson & Associates Firm Records Vault File DA-98-0234 · Volumes 1 of 3 · Storage 1998-Active Retrieved by V. C. Barber 09-15-2006

The Westport Files

Eight months. Seventeen parcels. One reporter who did not stop.

The Westport FilesRECORD No. 004 Deputy Mayor Shot at Town Hall

The Baltimore Sentinel Post · November 14, 2005

Deputy Mayor Shot at Town Hall

Garrick Killed at Dawson Center; Teen Suspect in Custody

The center was named for Charles Emmanuel Dawson — founding partner, dead six years by then. A deputy mayor was shot inside it. A seventeen-year-old was arrested before midnight. And when Leo Davidson stood on the Mitchell courthouse steps nine months later to speak about this case, he never finished the sentence. The Westport TIF sidebar shares the front page. Nobody read it that morning. Jordan Grey did.

Sentinel Post Bureau Archive · Front Pages Vol. 47 Retrieved 02-09-2006 · J. Grey, Features

The Westport FilesRECORD No. 005 Sealed Property Transfer

Worcester County Circuit Court · Sealed 14 March 2006

Sealed Property Transfer

Pinnacle Investments LLC · grantor and consideration redacted

Sealed by court order three weeks before opening statements. The Pinnacle name survived the redaction only because it was already on the public side of the transaction. Everything else went under black bar — grantor, consideration, the names behind the names. The Worcester County Clerk who processed the seal signed the bottom in blue ballpoint: P. Bates. The founding partner's surname. In a courthouse where his son sat on the bench. Coincidence is a word people use when they'd rather not look.

State of Maryland · Worcester County Circuit Court Sealed Matter AH-2005-1127 · Retrieved by P. Bates, Clerk

III

The People

The men inside the system. The men the system kept files on.

Personal EffectsRECORD No. 007 Internal Affairs Review

BPD Professional Standards Bureau · September 18, 2004

Internal Affairs Review

Han, Phillip · Badge 3847 · Demotion Sustained

What did Phillip Han do that cost him two grades in a single action? The city sealed the answer. But the cover sheet survived — and the name at the bottom is Capt. R. Harley, the same Harley who authorized the release of Daniel Han's file to outside counsel twenty-six days later. A brother demoted. A brother's file handed to a law firm. Same approving officer. No one in the department has explained why.

BPD Professional Standards Bureau Case IA-04-0918-H · Personnel File PF-H.3847 · Sealed

Personal EffectsRECORD No. 008 File Requisition · Han, D. J.

BPD Central Records Division · October 14, 2004

File Requisition · Han, D. J.

Released to outside counsel · same day Shawn resigned

Why does a law firm need a detective's brother's assault file? Forty-seven pages — incident report, witness statements, medical exam — released to Davidson & Associates at 2:47 PM on October 14, 2004. The same afternoon Shawn Davidson signed his resignation and left Baltimore for Snow Hill. Same authorizing officer as the IA demotion: Capt. R. Harley. Someone needed this file badly enough to move it the day the firm lost its heir. The question is whether it was leverage or cleanup.

BPD Central Records Division File BPD-04-08-1129 · Subject: Han, Daniel J. · DOB 05-22-74

Firm HistoryRECORD No. 009 Departure File

Davidson & Associates LLC · October 14, 2004

Departure File

Personnel Action — Resignation · Shawn A. Davidson

Leo's memo to Vincent Barber, signed in violet ink: No reason given. None asked for. Beneath it, the Court of Appeals registration change — filed the same day. New address: 215 Broad Street, Snow Hill, Maryland. Two hours east. A different world. When Chapter One opens, Shawn has been there for two years, practicing law in a courthouse small enough to sentence the man you see at the gas station. Leo never visited. The memo never asked him to.

Davidson & Associates Firm Archive · 2004 Q4 Personnel File DA-P-04-0108 · Sealed — Active

Personal EffectsRECORD No. 010 Eddie's Boxing Club

Eddie's Boxing Club · Est. 1978 · 1847 Montford Avenue · circa 2003

Eddie's Boxing Club

Come in hungry. Leave honest.

Found in the glove compartment of Han's city-issued Crown Vic, between a vehicle registration and a pair of latex gloves. The handwritten note is Eddie O'Connell's: Phil — Key under the mat. — E. A polaroid edge peeks from underneath. The boxing club is where Han went when the badge stopped making sense. Eddie never asked why he came in at 5 AM. The latex gloves are harder to explain. No one at the precinct has tried.

Personal effects of Det. Phillip Han Recovered from glove compartment, BPD-issued sedan

Trial ExhibitsRECORD No. 011 Property Receipt · Moretti, A. R.

Baltimore City Booking and Intake Center · November 14, 2005

Property Receipt · Moretti, A. R.

Wallet ($14). Brown shoelaces. Nothing else.

He was seventeen. Born on Valentine's Day. His property at intake: fourteen dollars in cash and a pair of brown shoelaces. That's everything Antonio Moretti owned when the state of Maryland charged him with killing a deputy mayor. Eight hours and thirteen minutes between the shooting and the booking photo. The cheek wound is still fresh in the mugshot. Nobody asked how he got it. Leo Davidson would take this case all the way to the courthouse steps — and never come back down.

Baltimore City Booking and Intake Center Subject: Moretti, Antonio R. · DOB 02-14-88 · #05-1465

The Family

What was kept. What was pressed between pages.

Family ArchivesRECORD No. 012 In Memory of Leo Arthur Davidson

The Baltimore Sentinel Post · August 14, 2006

In Memory of Leo Arthur Davidson

1948 — 2006 · Maya's scrapbook · taped, with rosemary

Maya kept it. Taped at four corners into a leather book she never showed anyone. Rosemary pressed beside it — for remembrance, the old way. The funeral program from August 17 to the right. In the lower-left corner, a blue note in her hand: He hated the photo they used. — M. She was there when he fell. She was there when the cameras arrived. She was there when they stopped. The scrapbook is the only record that remembers him the way she did.

Davidson family archive · Maya Davidson Clarke Memorial scrapbook · pressed pages · private holding

The Work

Where the title came from. The hand that held the shutter.

Personal EffectsRECORD No. 013 From the Rubble

The Baltimore Sentinel Post · April 14, 1996

From the Rubble

A soldier, a child, and the morning after the market · By Jordan M. Grey

Where the archive gets its name. Jordan Grey filed this dispatch from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on April 12, 1996 — a soldier carrying a child through rubble that used to be a market. Grey took a round under the left rib just after the second blast. He kept shooting. He kept writing. The record mattered more than the hand holding it. Pulitzer, 1997. Nine years later he'd aim that same instinct at Baltimore, and Baltimore would aim back.

Sentinel Post Morgue · Reel 1996-04 · Frame 14A Printed 02/07/2006 · Personal correspondence J. Grey 1994-1998