Ammunition

Stanley Plummer Earp, a retired Aberdeen Proving Ground ammunition expert, died of pneumonia Jan. 11 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The longtime Towson resident was 84. Mr. Earp was born in Baltimore and raised on Dixie Drive in Towson. He was a 1941 graduate of Towson High School and joined the Navy in 1943. He served in the Pacific theater as a gunner on a PBY Catalina flying boat. After the war, he briefly attended the College of Wooster in Ohio, then went to sea after joining the U.S. merchant marine.

WASHINGTON -- Nearly a dozen members of the police force that guards the top-secret National Security Agency are suspected of stealing ammunition from the Fort Meade-based agency, sources and federal officials said yesterday.The thefts, which included up to 50,000 rounds of ammunition, represent an embarrassing incident for the NSA, an intelligence agency that eavesdrops on foreign communications and makes and breaks codes. Besides NSA officials, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating the thefts.

NO ONE IN MARYLAND was happier to see the official start of fall than Gov. Parris N. Glendening. His was a dreadful summer, filled with embarrassing stories, controversies and missteps. More than a few powerful Democrats worry that the governor now has sunk so low in public esteem that a Republican romp is likely in 1998.What has Parris done wrong? Why do so many people say such mean things about him?Most of the complaints concern integrity. Is he applying too much pressure in personally squeezing big campaign donations from business leaders who deal with the state?

Baltimore County police seized a cache of guns and 7,000 rounds of ammunition, and arrested the owner -- who had been ordered by a judge not to possess firearms, officials said yesterday.Richard M. Segel, 40, was arrested Monday after police recovered 18 rifles and semiautomatic weapons, a handgun and ammunition. He was charged with violating the order prohibiting him from possessing firearms.Mr. Segel, who does not have a permanent address, was ordered held on $100,000 bail and sent to Spring Grove Hospital Center after a psychiatric evaluation showed he may be a danger to himself or others, court records show.

Workers scouring the 310 acres of Tipton Army Airfield for unexploded military ordnance are finding more small rockets, grenades, fuses and scrap metal than they expected, pushing back the completion date of the cleanup to as late as February.A severe winter and unusually heavy rain also have slowed work on the cleanup that began in November 1995, said Ted Hartman, coordinator of base realignment and closure at Fort Meade. Then, officials predicted that the cleanup by Human Factors Applications Inc. (HFA)

State police closed Interstate 97 through Millersville for 25 minutes Wednesday when motorists ran over small-caliber ammunition scattered on the road and caused the live rounds to explode.The closure occurred about 4 p.m. in the two southbound lanes of the highway that runs from from Interstate 695 to Annapolis. Two state troopers, an Anne Arundel County police officer, a State Highway Administration employee, a worker for the state Department of the Environment and a representative from the state fire marshal's office picked up the bullets, police said.

Firearms, ammunition and a color television set were stolen Sunday from a Harmans home, county police said.Charles Merton Laios, 34, told Western District officers that the theft occurred between 1 p.m. and 8:43 p.m. The thieves broke a back basement window and pried out half of the window frame to get into the house, police said.The thieves took the television, a Colt .45 automatic and a 12-gauge Remington 1200 shotgun from the bedroom. Two loaded magazines for the handgun, 1 1/2 boxes of Colt .45 ammunition and eight boxes of shotgun shells also were taken.

CONCORD, Calif. -- Just six weeks after the Normandy invasion and three days before U.S. forces landed on Guam to retake the island from the Japanese, World War II brought its deadly havoc home to an ammunition base here with a huge explosion that killed 320 people and wounded 390 others.The explosion at the U.S. Naval Magazine at Port Chicago, 25 miles northeast of San Francisco, had the force of 5,000 tons of TNT, enough to be felt as far away as Nevada and to vaporize the bodies of those closest to the blast.

Handgun, ammunition stolen from homeSomeone stole a semiautomatic handgun and five rounds of hollow-point ammunition from a house in the 300 block of Cresswell Road, but the owner told county police Sunday that he doesn't know when the weapon was taken.Stephen Louis Hawkins Sr., 35, the owner, told police he noticed Sunday morning that the gun was missing but that he had not looked for it since May.The gun, a .380 Mavkro with a black finish, is valued at $200. Police said a holster and two magazines also are missing.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Serbian nationalist fighters poured through breaches in the Bosnian army defense lines around the United Nations-declared "safe area" of Gorazde Monday night and yesterday, setting fire to a dozen villages and forcing more than a thousand Muslims to flee, U.N. officials said."

Attention, Maryland felons: Here's some news you can use - it's against federal law for you to possess bullets. You can't have a gun, of course, but you knew that already. Did you also know that, under federal law, you can go to prison for up to 15 years if you're found to be packing ammo? I mentioned it because it's highly likely no one at the Division of Correction took the time to go over this with you before your release. Or maybe you weren't paying attention during the warden's lecture on how to avoid returning to the good ole DOC. So consider this a public service message, courtesy of Baltimore Circuit Judge Gale Rasin.

Stanley Plummer Earp, a retired Aberdeen Proving Ground ammunition expert, died of pneumonia Jan. 11 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The longtime Towson resident was 84. Mr. Earp was born in Baltimore and raised on Dixie Drive in Towson. He was a 1941 graduate of Towson High School and joined the Navy in 1943. He served in the Pacific theater as a gunner on a PBY Catalina flying boat. After the war, he briefly attended the College of Wooster in Ohio, then went to sea after joining the U.S. merchant marine.

A 34-year-old Baltimore man received a 15-year prison sentence in federal court yesterday for being a felon in possession of a Bersa .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Chief U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg enhanced the sentence for Jermaine Powell after finding that Powell was an armed career criminal, based on his previous convictions for narcotics distribution and robbery. After police discovered the weapon and ammunition in Powell's home, he said that the firearm belonged to him and that he had purchased the ammunition from a store in South Baltimore, according to court papers.

Baltimore police said yesterday they raided an East Baltimore clothing store allegedly used as a front for the illegal sale of high-powered weapons and accessories, including assault rifles, shotguns, handguns, ammunition and body armor. Organized-crime detectives raided the store, Moon Wear in the 2400 block of Greenmount Ave. on Thursday, about 15 hours after its owner, Andre Mills, 33, was pulled over on a traffic stop, police said. During the stop, officers said they discovered ammunition for high-powered rifles.

Police seized more than 2 kilograms of cocaine, a handgun and ammunition yesterday from an Edmondson Village couple, both of whom have convictions on felony drug charges. During a routine scan last month of the ammunition sales log at Wal-Mart in Catonsville, detectives from the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force found that the woman had bought ammunition for a .45 caliber handgun and that she was a felon, said Baltimore Police Lt. John Hess. It is illegal for a convicted felon to possess guns or ammunition.

YORK, Pa. - Two men testified in Mayor Charlie Robertson's defense yesterday, saying that he couldn't have given white gang members the ammunition they allegedly used during fatal 1969 race riots because he didn't have that type of bullets. John H. Blokzeyl, Robertson's former next-door neighbor, and retired York police officer James P. Brown took the stand yesterday morning just before both sides wrapped up testimony in the preliminary hearings for Robertson and eight others charged in the shooting death of Lillie Belle Allen.

WASHINGTON -- Nearly a dozen members of the police force that guards the top-secret National Security Agency are suspected of stealing ammunition from the Fort Meade-based agency, sources and federal officials said yesterday.The thefts, which included up to 50,000 rounds of ammunition, represent an embarrassing incident for the NSA, an intelligence agency that eavesdrops on foreign communications and makes and breaks codes. Besides NSA officials, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating the thefts.

NO ONE IN MARYLAND was happier to see the official start of fall than Gov. Parris N. Glendening. His was a dreadful summer, filled with embarrassing stories, controversies and missteps. More than a few powerful Democrats worry that the governor now has sunk so low in public esteem that a Republican romp is likely in 1998.What has Parris done wrong? Why do so many people say such mean things about him?Most of the complaints concern integrity. Is he applying too much pressure in personally squeezing big campaign donations from business leaders who deal with the state?

Workers scouring the 310 acres of Tipton Army Airfield for unexploded military ordnance are finding more small rockets, grenades, fuses and scrap metal than they expected, pushing back the completion date of the cleanup to as late as February.A severe winter and unusually heavy rain also have slowed work on the cleanup that began in November 1995, said Ted Hartman, coordinator of base realignment and closure at Fort Meade. Then, officials predicted that the cleanup by Human Factors Applications Inc. (HFA)

Baltimore County police seized a cache of guns and 7,000 rounds of ammunition, and arrested the owner -- who had been ordered by a judge not to possess firearms, officials said yesterday.Richard M. Segel, 40, was arrested Monday after police recovered 18 rifles and semiautomatic weapons, a handgun and ammunition. He was charged with violating the order prohibiting him from possessing firearms.Mr. Segel, who does not have a permanent address, was ordered held on $100,000 bail and sent to Spring Grove Hospital Center after a psychiatric evaluation showed he may be a danger to himself or others, court records show.