Alston

Trennell Alston was shopping at a Wal-Mart when her companion's pager sounded, summoning them to a house on Elmley Avenue. Lavanna Spearman was already there, spending the weekend with her boyfriend.Both visitors -- one a nurse's aide, the other a city worker -- apparently got caught up in someone else's drug dispute. They were killed with four members of one family Sunday night in one of Baltimore's worst mass killings.What happened inside the Belair-Edison rowhouse -- and events before and after the killings -- has been difficult to ascertain.

If you think you absolutely know who you are and from whence you came, you need to see "Family Name," a film about family, ethnicity and identity airing at 10 tonight on public television.Filmmaker Macky Alston set out on a journey in the early 1990s to explore the Alston family name. Three and half years later and immeasurably wiser, he came to understand how complicated, fluid and fragile identity really is for most Americans. We know who are parents told us we are, but is that the truth?

Officer Ty C. Crane's frantic call for help came at 8: 07 a.m. He had been pushed, then hit, by a disorderly man on North Charles Street. He needed a van to haul away his handcuffed prisoner. Fast.Blocks away and driving separate vehicles, Officers Keith L. Owens and Lavon'de Alston flipped on their lights and sirens and sped to their colleague's aid -- and a tragic collision.The squad car driven by Alston hit the prisoner van driven by Owens at Maryland Avenue and West 20th Street on Friday morning, killing 28-year-old Officer Harold J. Carey, Owens' passenger.

A woman who claims her family was forced from an East Baltimore home by angry drug dealers said yesterday the family was mistaken for informants, and she angrily disputed police who labeled her story a "cruel hoax."Larri Alston, 20, said none of the residents of her home in the 1700 block of N. Bradford St. cooperated with police on a drug sweep Oct. 17 in which 60 people were arrested but neighborhood dealers thought they had given tips to detectives.Alston also said she had filed a police report noting the threats Oct. 17, and was home with a 2-year-old child when gunmen opened fire on the house Saturday.

Clara Anthony Alston raised two daughters and helped her husband run a tailor shop on Baltimore's Gay Street for more than 30 years. But in the 1950s, with one daughter in college and the other in high school, Mrs. Anthony decided to pursue a long-deferred dream and become a nurse.She earned her high school diploma at night at Dunbar High School, then completed the Red Cross licensed practical nursing program. She worked as a private duty nurse for 15 years before retiring in the 1970s.Mrs.

Baltimore police have launched an internal investigation into how a 32-year-old man became critically injured in the back of a police transport van after he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.The incident occurred about 3: 30 a.m. Monday when Northwestern District Officer Arnold McDonald stopped a BMW in the 4800 block of Reisterstown Road and took the man into custody after saying he smelled alcohol on the man's breath.Two other officers in the van -- the driver and a supervisor -- told investigators that the man freed himself from a seat belt and repeatedly rammed his head into a plastic glass window that separates officers from prisoners.

A Maryland Penitentiary inmate who had been convicted of robbery and drug charges was mistakenly released, and prison officials didn't discover their error until yesterday, 11 days after the man was freed.State police have issued an arrest warrant for Rickey F. Alston Sr., 29, of the 2100 block of McCulloh St. and have begun a statewide search for him.Alston was released Oct. 11 because prison records indicated that his time had been served on the drug convictions, said Maxine Eldridge, spokeswoman for the Division of Correction.

BaseballGiants: Purchased contract of P John Johnstone from Triple-A Phoenix.CollegeFresno State: Suspended freshman basketball G Rafer Alston indefinitely for altercation over his ex-girlfriend's refusal to return his personal items.Southern Tech: Fired men's basketball coach and AD George Perides.HockeyBlackhawks: Signed LW James Black.Panthers: Re-signed restricted free-agent C Rob Niedermayer to three-year contract.Sharks: Returned D David Bell and C Mark Smith to AHL Kentucky. Sent RW Adam Colagiacomo and RW Adam Nittel to respective junior teams.

A Baltimore man who was critically injured in the back of a police van after a traffic stop has filed a $20 million lawsuit against the arresting officer and the city Police Department claiming negligence and use of excessive force.Jeffrey Adrian Alston, 32, of the 2500 block of N. Hollins St. has been in Sinai Hospital since the incident Nov. 3. Police had arrested Alston on suspicion of drunken driving.In the lawsuit, filed Friday in Baltimore Circuit Court, Alston alleges that he was beaten and thrown into the back of the police van, causing him to hit his head on an interior wall.

Shawnette Alston became an orphan just before Christmas last year when an out-of-control Jeep Cherokee plowed into her mother on a sidewalk outside the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.Pearl Brown, Shawnette's mother, was 30. Shawnette, the oldest of five children, will turn 12 Friday.But already she has been awarded a full scholarship to the Coppin State College School of Nursing -- a scholarship Shawnette won't start drawing down until 2003.Coppin officials knew Pearl Brown wanted to be a nurse and that she had passed that dream on to her daughter, a Eutaw-Marshburn Elementary School fifth-grader.

Martha M. Alston, a retired teacher's aide who enjoyed cooking Southern-style dishes for family and friends, died in her sleep Sunday at FutureCare Irvington. The West Baltimore resident was 91. Martha Marcella Patterson was born and raised in Baltimore. She was a 1935 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. During World War II, Mrs. Alston worked as an inspector at Edgewood Arsenal. She was married in 1945 to Marvin N. Alston Sr., a Western Electric Co. machinist, who died in 1982.

Orlando Magic point guard Jameer Nelson said he felt fine Friday after playing his first game in four months Thursday night - Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Lakers. Nelson played 23 minutes, scoring six points and adding four assists. He played all of the second period, and coach Stan Van Gundy said that was too long and will better monitor Nelson's minutes. Nelson did double over in the second quarter after absorbing contact, but he was hit in the groin. "I knew it would be intense," he said.

A convicted murderer now in prison again on drug and weapons smuggling charges was hired by a nonprofit to help de-escalate gang conflicts at a Baltimore alternative school, officials confirm, though the extent of his involvement is unclear. Rainbow Lee Williams, who federal prosecutors say is a top lieutenant in the Black Guerrilla Family gang, was released from prison on a murder charge in September. From October to January, he worked sporadically at Achievement Academy at Harbor City High, a school for students with severe behavioral or academic problems, through nonprofit Partners In Progress.

On March 24, 2009, MICHAEL L. ALSTON. On today friends may call at the VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL

On December 20, 2008, BERNIECE V. ALSTON, wife of the late Art. R. Alston. Survived by three daughters Blanche A. Johnson "Dumpy", Berniece A. Bivens "Cricket", and Bernadette A. Dorsey "Sug, eight grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandson, four sisters, one brother, and a host of other relatives and friends. Friends may call at the William C. Brown Community Funeral Home, P.A., 1206 W. North Ave., Sunday 1-4pm. Family will receive friends Monday at the Morningstar Baptist Church of Christ, 1063 Fayette St. at 11am.

On November 4, 2008, YVONNE CAROL; devoted wife of William Alston. Friends may visit the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME EAST, 1101 E. North Avenue on Wednesday after 8:30 A.M. The family will receive friends at New Antioch Holiness Church of Jesus Christ, 823 W. Lanvale Street on Thursday at 10 A.M. Funeral services will follow at 10:30.

On November 3, 2008, DORCAS E. ALSTON. Friends may visit the family-owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue on Monday after 8:30 AM, where the family will receive friends from 5 to 7 PM. The family will also receive friends on Tuesday at Gillis Memorial C.C. Church, 4016 Park Heights Avenue at 10 AM followed by funeral service at 11.

On October 17, 2008, Sanjaya Will Alston. Friends may call at The CHATMAN- HARRIS FUNERAL HOME EAST, 4210 Belair Road, Friday 1-8 p.m. a.m. a.m.

A 40-year-old man was sentenced yesterday to 23 years in prison for robbing and stabbing an 82-year-old woman outside a Baltimore KFC restaurant. The judge said he would have sent the suspect away for an even longer term if the law allowed it. The suspect, Rozza Alston, addressed the court with his hands cuffed behind him, wearing a red and blue plaid short-sleeve button-down shirt and long shorts. Speaking in a hushed, barely audible voice, he maintained his innocence and said he was not the type of person who could commit such a crime.

A Baltimore Circuit Court jury convicted a man yesterday of robbing an 82-year-old woman of her pocketbook outside a KFC restaurant and stabbing her with a knife when she tried to fight back. Rozza Alston, 40, who lived three blocks from the KFC at North Avenue and St. Paul Street, was found guilty of second-degree assault, robbery with a deadly weapon and openly carrying a dangerous weapon. He faces a maximum of 33 years in prison. The jury acquitted Alston of attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault.