Apartment Complex

At least six residents of a Northwest Baltimore apartment complex have been provided shelter after a single-alarm fire yesterday ripped through a two-story apartment building, causing heavy damage that extended to adjacent buildings, a Fire Department spokesman said. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries and were treated and released, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, the spokesman. Reported about 7 a.m. at the Garrison Woods Apartments in the 2900 block of Garrison Blvd., the fire destroyed or damaged eight units on the second floor and extended to the roof, said Cartwright.

Two men sought in the New Year's Day pizza-driver shooting and robbery at a Columbia apartment complex were arrested yesterday by FBI agents in North Carolina.Pursuing a tip, the federal agency's Charlotte Fugitive Task Force arrested the two suspects at a residence there at 4: 20 p.m. yesterday, said Special Agent Peter A. Gulotta, an FBI spokesman in Baltimore.Two employees of Papa John's Pizza in the Harper's Choice Village Center were robbed and one was shot after being sent to the Harpers Forest apartment complex Jan. 1 to deliver an $81.05 order that was placed from a pay phone, according to county police.

Swept up in Canton's real estate boom, a Baltimore developer wants to build a four-story, 63-unit apartment complex on an industrial lot littered with old tractor-trailers, cars and other vehicles.P&G Development LLC has asked the City Council to rezone the roughly 1-acre lot in the 1200 block of S. Bouldin St. from industrial to residential so it can begin building the complex with on-site parking. A bill was introduced June 14, but the matter will not be addressed until the council returns to session in late September.

A woman whose son called the fire department died in an early morning fire that destroyed five apartments in a Glen Burnie apartment complex and drove 30 families from their homes, the Anne Arundel County EMS/Fire/Rescue said.At 2: 26 a.m. yesterday, 911 dispatchers received a call from a man in his early 30s. The man lived with his mother in a first-floor unit in Town & Country South Apartments in the 200 block of Woodhill Drive.By the time firefighters arrived -- minutes after the call -- flames had engulfed the two apartments above his in the three-story building, and smoke was billowing from the roof.

The future of Riverdale -- a vacant apartment complex once considered one of Middle River's most blighted areas -- should be decided in the next few months as county officials begin talks about what to build there.County officials said yesterday that they have bought 38 acres of Riverdale so that the county owns the entire complex.They intend to demolish the 600 vacant apartments and develop a park, a residential community or some commercial project on the 64 acres."Soon everything you see behind me will be a memory," County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger said during a news conference at Riverdale about the purchase.

A housing advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit yesterday accusing owners and operators of a Dundalk apartment complex of violating the federal Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent a one-bedroom apartment to a mother and child.C. Christopher Brown, an attorney representing Michelle Wetzel and Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc., said Wetzel tried to lease a one-bedroom apartment in June for herself and her 2-year-old daughter, Brittany, but was told by a rental agent that she would have to rent a two-bedroom unit.

Several members of the Howard Park Community Activity Association opposed a proposal yesterday before the City Council's Land Use Committee to convert a historic elementary school into an 89-unit apartment complex for the elderly.No action was taken on the proposal. Committee chairwoman Lois A. Garey said she wants to learn more about it before her committee makes a recommendation to the full council.Plans call for the old Howard Park Elementary School to be converted into a 24-unit apartment complex and for a connecting building with 65 apartments to be built, said Joshua Murphy, project manager for The Oaks at Liberty, the apartment's proposed name.

For years, the Frankford Improvement Association has fought to protect its Northeast Baltimore neighborhood from urban blight. Yet there's always been at least one seemingly unconquerable foe: Strathdale Manor.The 123-building apartment complex spread over 18 acres has been vacant since April 1997. It has become a shelter for the homeless, a refuge for stray dogs and a dumping ground littered with old furniture, dirty clothes and discarded tires.But relief could come soon to the neighborhood that has endured the complex's decline.

A housing advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit yesterday accusing owners and operators of a Dundalk apartment complex of violating the federal Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent a one-bedroom apartment to a mother and child.C. Christopher Brown, an attorney representing Michelle Wetzel and Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. (BNI), said Wetzel tried to lease a one-bedroom apartment in June for herself and her 2-year-old daughter, Brittany, but was told by a rental agent that she would have to rent a two-bedroom unit.

Howard County police were searching yesterday for a man who kidnapped and raped a 22-year-old woman at knifepoint Friday night in Columbia.The victim told police she was getting out of her car about 10 p.m. in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Kings Contrivance when a man forced her back into the vehicle and drove her to Gorman Road, where he raped her. She said the man drove her back to the apartment complex and ran.Anyone with information should...

In what they called "an abundance of caution," the owners of a Northeast Baltimore apartment building in which nine people were sickened by a carbon monoxide leak said Monday that they would replace water heaters in four of the complex's 803 units. Sawyer Realty Holdings LLC issued a statement saying the Sunday leak at the Dutch Village Townhomes appeared to have come from a faulty water heater in a vacant unit. The carbon-monoxide detector in that unit went off and alerted tenants in a neighboring apartment.

In the past year, Caryle Sybert has suffered a stroke, a broken bone in her neck and a bad fall. Getting shot was the last straw. "I think I'm finished with bad luck," Sybert, a 76-year-old resident of an apartment complex for seniors in Overlea, said yesterday - quite cheerfully - after returning from a hospital, where she had been treated for shotgun wounds to her back. The shooting occurred Wednesday evening in the parking lot of the complex, the Park View at Taylor, when a man wearing a ski mask approached the 2002 Mercury Sable that Sybert was driving, her 83-year-old husband, Ralph, at her side.

When the bedbugs moved in, Goucher College decided it was time to move out. This week, dozens of students are leaving their temporary housing in an off-campus apartment complex because of the tiny critters that parents warn their children about each night. The three confirmed incidents of bedbugs at Towson's Dulaney Valley Apartments - one in mid-July, the other two in September - led Goucher to seek alternative housing, said Kristen Keener, the college's director of media relations. "The thought that you could have bedbugs is frightening," said junior Marissa Kluger.

A man was shot by city police yesterday morning after he reached for an officer's handgun during a drug stop, police said. Sterling Clifford, a police spokesman, said three officers on dirt bikes were in the 700 block of Lennox St. in the Reservoir Hill area about 10:45 a.m. when they approached an apartment complex and stopped to interview a man who they believed was involved in drug activity. Police said the man began to fight with the officers, and the altercation moved into an apartment stairwell.

Police say they know of no motive for the shooting death of a property manager at a Woodlawn apartment complex, but friends and family say they think the crime might be related to his job. Milton John Barnes III had taken steps to make the complex safer for its residents. "We know he was sent there to deal with some rogue elements in the neighborhood," said Carl Barnes, his brother. "That was part of his assignment - to get things straight." Matthew Greene, a close friend of Milton Barnes, said a Barnes family member told him that "some young guys in the neighborhood thought he was the police."

Shooting victim dies of wounds A Woodlawn apartment complex property manager who was shot last week died of his injuries yesterday, police said. Milton John Barnes III, 36, of Clinton was found in the office of the Hunters Crossing apartment complex in the 6300 block of Monika Place by an employee Thursday morning, according to police. Investigators believe he had been shot shortly before he was found. Barnes remained in critical condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center until his death, according to police.

Robert Gray and his fiancee returned yesterday to survey the damage from the fire that tore through their apartment complex near Woodlawn, a four-alarm blaze that left them without a place to live and that officials said was started by accident. Looking up at his apartment, Gray recounted all the things he lost: a fluffy cat named Jasmine; a collection of five guitars; sails for his 19-foot boat, which had been in the parking lot of the Queens Ridge Apartments on Giard Drive. "It's just so unbelievable," said Gray, 48, a welder-fabricator.

A city police officer shot and killed a knife-wielding man yesterday morning after the man had chased a woman through a Northwest Baltimore apartment complex and fatally stabbed her, according to city police. The woman, Shenera Norris, 31, had two children, including a 1-year-old toddler with the man who stabbed her, police said. Police have not identified the man they said stabbed the woman. "We're still trying to notify his family members," said Sterling Clifford, a police spokesman.

Howard County police are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the fatal shooting Friday night of a 21-year-old man in Ellicott City, Pfc. Jennifer Reidy, a police spokeswoman, said yesterday. Witnesses said they saw two men running from the scene, police said. Moeen Sadiq Raja was shot once while sitting in the driver's seat of a Honda Accord on the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 3100 block of West Springs Drive, off of Town and Country Boulevard.

Seven people were injured, five of them children, in a drive-by shooting in western Prince George's County about 5 p.m. yesterday, authorities said. Witnesses told police they saw two to four men shoot out of a red or burgundy car as they sped through an apartment complex in the 6800 block of Atwood St. in District Heights. Seven males, ranging in age from 12 to 21 years old, were shot in the arms and legs. Cpl. Diane Richardson, spokeswoman for the Prince George's County Police Department, said they were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment of injuries that were not considered life-threatening.