Assault

Last week we learned that adult children of divorce will almost always revert to childish behaviors. Case in point, Briana, the daughter previously known as The Most Reasonable Person in Orange County, dissolved into a impertinent, recalcitrant, petulant brat upon meeting her mother's boyfriend. This week Briana grows up and fights like a big girl … but we'll get there soon enough. Elsewhere in the O.C., there are tiaras to be worn and bling to be bought as Alexis goes all out for her little princesses, and Slade decides to declare Gretchen his queen.

The prospect of spending years behind bars in a tiny cell is sufficiently chilling to deter most people from ever committing a crime. Those who willfully break the law anyway and get caught have no one to blame but themselves when a judge sentences them to prison. But even convicted felons shouldn't have to suffer the extralegal indignity and physical trauma of being raped by fellow inmates and prison staff while they're serving their time. Sexual assaults in the nation's prisons are alarmingly common.

I am amazed that you call into question the use of pepper spray by a law enforcement officer at Chesapeake High School ("How much force is too much?" Dec. 16). You state that "school officials should reconsider whether the same rules that apply to criminals on the street should apply to students in the school hallway. " I would argue that a student who refuses to obey a direct police verbal command and then proceeds to physically assault the officer is no different from any criminal on the street.

Annapolis police are looking for a man who pulled a 21-year-old woman into an alley in downtown Annapolis and sexually assaulted her early Saturday morning. About 1:30 a.m., the woman was walking alone in the 100 block of Duke of Gloucester St. near the heart of the downtown area when a man walking behind her grabbed her and dragged her into a nearby alley, according to police. The man threw the woman to the ground and sexually assaulted her, police said. The woman, who had been walking home from West Street, was eventually able to fight off the man, who then fled, police said.

The following is compiled from police reports from the Cockeysville Precinct. Our policy is to include descriptions only when there is enough information to make identification possible. White Hall Ensor Road , 19600 block, at 8:42 a.m. Jan. 29. Woman accepted ride from man inWashington, D.C. He drove to Ensor Road, pulled a knife and attempted to sexually assault the woman but she fled, ran to a nearby house and called 911. Phoenix Sweet Air Road , 4400 block, between 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Feb. 2. Riding mower removed from garage but not taken.

A Springfield man, 28, reported that he was hit in the head with a skateboard and robbed July 10 as he was getting out of his car in the 9100 block of Elaine Court. According to Laurel Police, the man said four males and a female approached him as he exited his car. One person struck the man on the head with a skateboard and took his wallet and flowers. According to police, the person smashed windows on four vehicles before leaving in the direction of Bowie Road and Lafayette Avenue.

Baltimore Police released video footage of a man they say sexually assaulted a transgendered teenager in the Barclay neighborhood. The attack occurred in mid-November. Police said the 16-year-old victim was walking in the 2300 block of Hunter St. just before 3:30 a.m. and was forced aginst a fence and assaulted. Police say they recently obtained video footage of the suspect and released it in hopes it might generate tips. Anyone with information was urged to call the Baltimore Police Special Investigations Section at 410-396-2076.

A 7-year-old girl who told police that she was sexually assaulted while walking home from a playground in Columbia has recanted her story. Howard County police said the girl told child-abuse investigators on Thursday that there had been no assault. The girl first told police that she was approached by four young men as she walked home from a playground Oct. 12 at about 7 p.m. She said the attack occurred in a large grassy area in the 9600 block of Basket Ring Road. She had described her attackers as four men with dreadlock hairstyles Three had motor scooters, she said, and the fourth rode a bicycle.

Anne Arundel County Police have made an arrest in an April 15 rape case Friday afternoon. Police arrested and charged Stephen Phillip Utendahl, 29, of 3500 block of Sharonwood Road in connection with first-degree rape and assault that occurred April 14 on Sharonwood Road in Laurel, according to a news release. Officers spoke with the female victim, who identified Utendahl on April 15, police said. Utendahl knew and targeted the victim, police said. Utendahl was arrested Friday at an apartment complex in the 2400 block of Corning Avenue in Fort Washington in Prince George's County, police said.

A third person has been arrested in connection with the mid-March videotaped beating of a man in downtown Baltimore, police said. Deangelo Carter, 18, of Baltimore, was taken into custody Tuesday in Northeast Baltimore, said Detective Jeremy Silbert, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department. Carter has been charged with first-degree assault, he said. Police are still looking for a fourth person — Shatia Baldwin, 21, of Baltimore — who they say took part in the assault on a man from Alexandria, Va. Baldwin is named in a warrant that charges her with assault and robbery.

Sexual assault in the military threatens our national security. This has been a hard lesson for military leaders to learn, but thanks to significant pressure from Congress and victims' advocates, they're starting to get the picture. Last month, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that sexual assault cases will now be handled by higher-ranking, more experienced officers and supervised by new Special Victims Units. These changes indicate that the Pentagon is finally interested in treating sexual assault as a serious crime rather than as lapse in professionalism or leadership.

A man was attacked last week in Towson by two men who assaulted him with a handgun, according to Baltimore County Police reports. The was walking home from work at Hillsway Avenue and Halstead Road, at 11:30 p.m. April 30. He was confronted by two men with handgun, according to the police report. The victim tried to flee but was assaulted by a suspect with the gun. According to the report, the assailants stole a bag containing a hat, two pairs of eyeglasses, a pocket knife and cell phone.

Baltimore prosecutors have dropped half of the charges filed against four young people accused in a St. Patrick's Day attack on a tourist, whose brutal beating and robbery was videotaped and widely viewed online. Aaron Jacob Parsons, 20; Shayona Mikia Davis, 20; Shatia Baldwin, 21; and Deangelo Carter, 19, were each charged in with first-degree assault in the incident, in which an Alexandria, Va. man was battered, stripped of his clothes and left unconscious in front of the Baltimore circuit courthouse on North Calvert Street.

Eliyahu Werdesheim, one of two brothers accused of assaulting a teenager in Northwest Baltimore, was convicted Thursday of false imprisonment and second-degree assault, in a case that has sparked neighborhood tensions and raised questions about a community patrol group. The second brother, Avi Werdesheim, was cleared of all charges. Eliyahu, 24, and Avi, 22, each had been charged with second-degree assault, false imprisonment and carrying a deadly weapon — a walkie-talkie issued by the neighborhood watch group Shomrim — with the intent to injure Corey Ausby, who was 15 at the time.

The judge presiding over the trial of two brothers accused of assaulting a teen in Northwest Baltimore plans to give her ruling in the case Thursday afternoon. Baltimore Circuit Judge Pamela J. White has heard a week of arguments in the bench trial of Eliyahu Werdesheim, 24, and his brother, Avi Werdesheim, 22. After the prosecutor and defense attorneys completed their closing statements Wednesday afternoon, White told them that she expects to issue her verdict at 3 p.m. Thursday.

Three children - an 8-year-old boy and two 9-year-old girls - who police took out of their elementary school in handcuffs earlier this year had hearings before a juvenile judge on Tuesday. They had been charged with aggravated assault, accused of vicious playground attacks in Southwest Baltimore. But while the allegations were well published, driven by the ages of the children and where they were arrested, at a school in Southwest Baltimore's Morrell Park, what is happening to them now is shrouded in the secrecy of the juvenile justice system.

A 22-year-old man was given a life sentence Wednesday for trying to sexually assault a boy in a Dundalk middle school bathroom. Sean T. Schleigh had all but 20 years of his sentence suspended by Baltimore County Circuit Judge John G. Turnbull II, Assistant State's Attorney Stephanie Porter said after the hearing. He will get credit for the time he has served in the Baltimore County House of Detention since he was arrested Dec. 16, 2010 at Holabird Middle School, Porter said.

Prince George's County police have charged seven University of Maryland, College Park sorority sisters with assaulting and hazing a pledge during initiation in October. The student told police that she was assaulted by current or former members of Zeta Phi Beta sorority on at least three occasions, according to charging documents. Those charged are: Bridget Blount, 24; Monika Young, 23; Zakiya Shivers, 26; Tymesha Pendleton, 26; Kandyce Jackson, 20; Amber Bijou, 22; and Montressa Hammond, 24. Most of the women are scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning.

Media references to the Baltimore trial of Avi and Eliyahu Werdesheim now come with a made-for-Google-Trends phrase: "A case with similarities to the Trayvon Martin shooting. " Here are some of them: Avi and Eliyahu Werdesheim are white and 21 and 24 years old, respectively; the Park Heights teenager they are accused of assaulting, 16-year-old Corey Ausby, is black. In the Florida case, Trayvon Martin was 17 and black; the man accused of shooting him, George Zimmerman, is 28, and he's been described elsewhere in the press as a "white Hispanic.

Baltimore police just announced the arrest of the fourth and final suspect charged in the videotaped beating and stripping of a tourist that was videotaped and watched across the country on the Internet. Shatia Baldwin, 21, of Baltimore, is now in custody, though details of how and where she was picked up have not yet been released. On Tuesday, police arrested the third suspect, Deangelo Carter, 18, also of Baltimore. Those two suspects,along with 20-year-old Aaron Parsons, a party promoter from Rosedale accused of throwing a punch that decked the victim, are charged with various counts of assault and robbery.