Accidentally

A 17-year-old Northwest Baltimore youth was in critical condition last night after being shot in the head by a friend playing with a gun, the police said.Jerrod Sanders of the 3600 block of Belle Avenue had been visiting at a friend's house in the 900 block of McDonogh Street, East Baltimore, about 5:30 p.m. As a third friend played with a handgun, it accidentally discharged.The Sanders youth, struck by a bullet in the head, was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

No dumbo celebs being celebrated here. Just dumbo regular folk. The black comedy The Darwin Awards is a 2006 film with Joseph Fiennes, Winona Ryder and Josh Charles that was inspired by the cult Web site of the same name, which chronicles "the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways." Endless sick humor at darwinawards.com. (9:35 p.m, Showtime) Feeding frenzy:: Tonight the folks at The Office get some good news, but they still find a way to make a mess of things.

The Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the death of a Baltimore teen-ager who died Saturday when he was accidentally pinned beneath several steel carts inside a trailer at a Glen Burnie fast-food restaurant.Dwight Antoine Courts, 15, of the 2100 block of W. Fayette St. was helping his father unload a delivery truck at the Checkers restaurant in the 400 block of Crain Highway about 4 p.m., county police said.The father left the truck, owned by Marriott Trucking of Savage, while his son stayed inside the trailer.

Juan Jesus Posadas Cardinal Ocampo was the third prince of the Catholic Church murdered in this century. The cardinal archbishop of Zaragoza was ambushed by Spanish anarchists in 1923 during conflict between church and state. The cardinal archbishop of Brazzaville was murdered in tribal violence and anarchy in the Congo in 1974. In addition, the archbishop of El Salvador was assassinated by a rightist hit man in 1980.Unlike them, Cardinal Ocampo was not a martyr to his faith. Mexican police believe he was an accidental bystander in a drug turf war, as innocent of the vicious quarrel that killed him as a babe on a Baltimore stoop slain in turf wars between rival corner drug distributors.

The Harford County Sheriff's Office has determined that a shooting in Abingdon on Tuesday that left a 34-year-old woman hospitalized was accidental. Julie Ann Reall sustained a single gunshot wound to her chest when a loaded rifle discharged as she cleaned a closet at her home on Timothy Drive. The rifle is one several firearms owned by Reall's live-in boyfriend that police found at the residence. The boyfriend, whom police declined to identify, told investigators that he did not know the rifle was loaded.

A burning cigarette started a fire that killed an elderly woman in an Annapolis house Monday, city fire officials have determined. Thelma Louise Hunt, 77, was in bed in the first-floor bedroom of her home at 1007 Forest Hills Ave. at 7:35 a.m. Monday when her cigarette fell and ignited the bedding, said Lt. Jeffrey Morgan, a spokesman for the Annapolis Fire Department. Fire officials do not believe Hunt was asleep, he said. Hunt was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy performed by the state medical examiner's office indicated that she died from smoke inhalation and burns, Morgan said.

A fire that destroyed a Clarksville mansion Friday, causing an estimated $6.7 million in damage, started accidentally, according to Howard County fire officials. William E. Mould, a Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue spokesman, confirmed reports that the fire in the home of developer Frederick W. Kunkle Jr. in the 12700 block of Maryvale Court started after several children were burning paper outside the home. Mould would not provide any information about the children. A spark ignited material in the garage about 5 p.m., Mould said, and the fire moved rapidly into the house, particularly into the attic space.

LYNDHURST, Va. -- A 13-year-old Baltimore boy accidentally shot and killed his teen-age companion while working on his grandfather's property in Augusta County, authorities said yesterday.County Sheriff Glenn P. Lloyd said the boys were turning over some logs in a field off Va. 664 when they spotted a snake Monday afternoon.The Sheriff's Department said the youth, unidentified because of his age, shot at the snake with a .22-caliber handgun.Trinity Mullenax, 13, of Lyndhurst, was struck in the chest, authorities said.

I read the article on carjacker and killer Arthur Felton with growing dismay and anger ("Convicted child killer gets 12 years in carjacking," July 19). This is a man who "accidentally" shot and killed a 6-year-old girl but he got off with only 14 years in prison because he was aiming at somebody else. I'm sure this is a big comfort to the grieving family. Now he commits a carjacking, but it was OK because he wasn't planning on it - just trying to get away after stealing from a store in a crowded mall.