Abuse

I applaud the efforts of the University of Maryland in obtaining the funding needed to increase their mental health services ("UM adds funding for mental health," April 3). While money is important, it isn't everything. National statistics tell us there is a very high prevalence (50-to-75 percent) of co-occurring substance use and mental disorders, otherwise known as co-occurring disorders. It is the expectation, not the exception. So designing their treatment system to accommodate these individuals will assure better outcomes.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month and throughout the month CASA of Harford County is putting a focus making children's healthy development a community priority. "When parents have the knowledge, skills, and resources to provide children with safe, stable, nurturing, and healthy environments, we can prevent abuse and neglect before they occur," CASA noted in a press release. CASA is short for Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children. As part of the highlighting effort, CASA is planning a candlelight vigil outside of the Harford County Circuit Courthouse, facing Main Street, on Wednesday, April 17th at 7:30 p.m. On display will be a pinwheel garden "planted" by CASA of Harford County staff and volunteers.

A former volunteer firefighter who worked with youths at the Lansdowne department pleaded guilty Monday to sexually abusing a teenage boy he mentored in a training program at the station. Anthony Maurice Cottle, 23, who appeared Monday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, also faces federal charges. Cottle, a resident of Owings Mills, was also a paid firefighter with the Baltimore County Fire Department. He has been suspended without pay from that department since being charged in October.

A former Columbia school worker whose love letters to an 8-year-old student led to a precedent-setting conviction for sexual abuse asked the state's highest court Friday to overturn the finding. Karl Marshall Walker Jr., 41, was convicted in 2011 of sexual abuse and attempted sexual abuse of a minor based on his letters to the girl. His lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Katherine Rasin, told the Court of Appeals on Friday that Walker, a former teacher's aide at Bryant Woods Elementary School, neither molested nor sexually exploited the girl, nor had he tried to. "There has to be something sexual for it to be sexual child abuse," Rasin told the seven judges.

When Nancy Aiken talks to students in Baltimore's Orthodox Jewish community about domestic violence and sexual assaults, she asks the boys a simple question: How many of you want to grow up to be a perpetrator of violence? Aiken knows the students mean it when they say, 'No, not me.' But she also knows, statistically, that some will, indeed, become wife beaters or sexual predators. "There is only so much we can do to train our young women how not to be victims," said Aiken, executive director of the Counseling, Helpline and Aid Network for Abused Women, or CHANA.

A Jarrettsville man was sentenced to 80 years in prison last week for his role in the sexual abuse of a child. Jeremy Shane Cochran, 32, of the 4100 block of Federal Hill Road, was found guilty in December by a Harford County Circuit Court jury of three counts involving the sexual abuse of a minor girl, according to court records. The jury found Cochran guilty of sexual abuse of a minor - continuing course of conduct, sexual abuse of a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual abuse of a minor, according to the case file.

Marianna Inga Burt, an attorney who represented children, died of cardiovascular disease March 12 at Union Memorial Hospital. She was 80 and lived in the Tuscany-Canterbury section of North Baltimore. Born Marianna Koenig in Hoganas, Sweden, she was the daughter of a chemist, Walter Koenig, and his wife, Elisabeth. She and her family moved to Germany in 1944 and lived in Stendal. She graduated from high school in what became East Germany during the Soviet occupation. Her family eventually left East Germany and relocated to West Germany.

As someone who has worked in the Maryland criminal justice field for over 25 years and has witnessed how "simple" possession and use of marijuana often leads to the abuse of other drugs, I find it disheartening to read that our elected officials are trying to make Maryland part of the minority of states that allow this ("Advocates for legal marijuana take first steps," March 20). The proponents' reasoning is ridiculous, as we all know that most users are getting away with it and that our state courts are not being "strained" by prosecution of these crimes.

- As Cal Ripken Jr. watched the news unfold of the sexual abuse committed by Jerry Sandusky at Penn State University, he decided to take on the chief question before the sporting community: "What can we do to make kids safer?" The Orioles Hall of Famer enlisted his foundation and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to draft guidelines using the research and input of leading sports scientists, pediatricians and advocates for screening coaches and volunteers.

He was a bearded, Bunyanesque defensive tackle whose rugged play helped the Baltimore Colts to three straight division championships in the 1970s. But Tuesday, when Joe Ehrmann addresses a national gathering convened to deal with the problem of child sexual abuse in sports, he'll take part in one of the most meaningful huddles of his life. His words will weigh heavily on the audience at the two-day Safe to Compete summit in Alexandria, Va., because Ehrmann - minister, motivational speaker and onetime Gilman coach - is himself a survivor of child sexual abuse.