BALTIMORE, Md. — He grew up in Baltimore, and for years, Kshawn Burrell never realized the lead paint surrounding him in his apartment was poisoning him.
“Well, I had the experience when I was like 15,” said Burrell, “and it takes an impact on me today and, you know, it’s hard for day-to-day life to deal with certain things.”
The impacts of lead poisoning have been well-documented for decades now, which adds to the shock of a 43-year-old Maryland-certified inspector named Rodney Barkley pleading guilty to criminal charges for issuing fake lead paint certificates.
Guilty plea in bogus lead paint inspections
The Maryland Department of the Environment has invalidated more than 14 hundred of them.
“In many of those instances, in most, right, gave people comfort that they either lived In or were moving into safe housing,” said Ruth Ann Norton, the president and CEO of Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, “and the result of the children who moved into housing and then became poisoned through the exposure to lead in those units is just beyond unacceptable.”
At the height of the problem here in Baltimore back in the early 90s, experts identified 14 thousand children who’d been poisoned by lead paint. Under today’s standards that number would have been 65 thousand.
Through his company called Green Environmental, LLC, Barkley performed dozens of inspections in apartment buildings like ones we found on North Howard and North Eutaw streets in the city and hundreds more throughout the state, as well as in neighboring Pennsylvania and in the nation’s capital.
He faces up to nine years in prison and more than $200,000 in fines, not to mention possible civil action.
“That doesn’t take back the poisoning of these kids, right? It doesn’t help them have a better future,” said Norton.
And for someone who has lived with the impacts of such poisoning, knowingly putting people at risk is inexcusable.
“To me, that’s insane, and it’s not very safe and some people deserve certain things,” said Burrell, “Me, having children, people like than deserve to be behind bars. Definitely.”
