Crime Briefs

Teen switched to home detention in firebombing

A teenager who was ordered last week to spend the rest of his summer in a juvenile detention facility for his role in the firebombing of a Piney Orchard town house, in retaliation for the homicide of a Crofton youth, was switched Tuesday to home detention. Anne Arundel County Juvenile Court Master Cynthia Ferris changed her earlier decision, putting the 16-year-old's punishment in line with the other two juveniles in the case, who have been released from a detention facility. No trial date has been set for 22-year-old Jonathan R. Myers, the only adult among those charged. Investigators said the June 3 arson, which charred the front of the townhouse in Odenton but injured no one, was supposed to be retribution against a teenager who they believed - wrongly, police said - took part in the homicide of Christopher David Jones, 14, who was beaten May 30 near his Crofton home.

- Andrea F. Siegel

City man gets 6 years in hostage incident

A 30-year-old Baltimore man was sentenced Tuesday to six years in jail by Howard County Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure for armed robbery and use of a handgun in commission of a crime. Amin Andre Pitt of the 1200 block of N. Potomac St. broke into a home in the 5200 block of Brook Way in Columbia on March 12. After two teenage children who lived in the home jumped out of a second-story window and called police, Pitt held Traci Land and her younger child hostage at gunpoint. Pitt asked Land for money and took two rings from her hand before police arrived and arrested him. Police recovered the gun from a drain on the roof. Because of the handgun charge, Pitt will serve a minimum of five years in jail.

- Don Markus