Assault Rifle

Baltimore County police released more details Tuesday about an incident last week in which a man broke into a house in Glen Arm, exchanged gunfire with a resident and later committed suicide. The intruder, identified as Robert Floyd Buss, a 36-year-old Middle River resident with a long criminal record, knew the couple whose house it was, according to Lt. Robert McCullough, a police spokesman. Buss met the couple, Luigi and Aubrey Alvano, at a hair salon they own in Essex. "It appears that his intent was to rob them," McCullough said.

After a woman in northern Baltimore County shot an intruder at her Glen Arm home, the man left and fatally shot himself Friday morning, police said. The incident occurred about 9 a.m. in the 11500 block of Glen Arm Road, where officers were summoned in response to a burglary. The homeowner, whose name and age were not made available, told officers that she surprised a man breaking into her house and that he had fired several shots at her with an AK-47 assault rifle, according to Lt. Robert McCullough, a spokesman for the county police.

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A man who brandished an assault rifle at Baltimore police officers early Sunday did not obey a command to drop it and was shot numerous times, a spokesman for the department said. James Montez Lucas, 30, was on life support at Maryland Shock Trauma Center after surgery, Anthony Guglielmi said. The officer who shot Lucas is a three-year veteran of the force. As is customary in such cases, the officer's name is being temporarily withheld, and he has been placed on administrative leave during an investigation into the incident.

A police stop of a gold Corvette in Northeast Baltimore this month led authorities to a house on Holder Avenue over the weekend that had a cache of unregistered weapons including a World War II-era grenade, a Baltimore police spokesman said Monday. Michael Hudlicka, 59, was released on $35,000 bail stemming from his arrest after the traffic stop March 16 when police said he had a holstered .45-caliber handgun loaded with 10 hollow-point bullets. He could now face new charges besides possession of an unregistered handgun, according to police.

A man was shot last night after pointing a large-caliber Chinese assault rifle at a city police officer during a foot chase in the Better Waverly neighborhood in East Baltimore, a police spokesman said. The gunman underwent surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where his condition was not available late last night. The officer, whose name was not made public, is a even-year member of the police force and is assigned to the Northern District's gang unit. He was not hurt. Agent Donny Moses, the spokesman, said that about 9:20 p.m., police received a call of illegal activity in the 2700 block of Greenmount Ave. and approached a man holding a large duffel bag. Moses said that as officers neared, the man ran down nearby streets and alleys with police in pursuit.

A Baltimore County judge handed down a sentence without jail time yesterday for a former gun dealer charged with illegally providing a weapon to a man who died in a firefight with police last year. Sanford M. Abrams, an outspoken firearms advocate in Maryland who once served on the board of the National Rifle Association, entered an Alford plea to a single charge of illegally selling a restricted weapon. The plea approved by Circuit Judge John Grason Turnbull II allowed Abrams to maintain his innocence but forced him to concede that the state had enough evidence to convict him. In turn, Abrams, 58, of Owings Mills, received a five-year suspended prison sentence and one year of probation.

A crime is committed with an assault rifle in Maryland at least every 48 hours, according to a report issued last fall by the group CeaseFire Maryland. A federal ban on assault weapons was approved in 1994 with the support of former presidents Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald R. Ford and Richard M. Nixon, and others including former Sen. Barry Goldwater. This law was allowed to expire in September 2004. Gun manufacturers who sought to evade the law designed "copycat" weapons like those used by the D.C. snipers to terrorize residents a little more than four years ago. Now, Maryland has the opportunity to help protect its citizens and set an example for other state and federal officials by enacting the Maryland Assault Weapons Ban of 2007.

A Columbia man was sentenced to 35 years in prison yesterday for firing an assault rifle at Howard County SWAT officers serving a search warrant at his brother's apartment in Columbia last year. Delcarlos Johnnie Jacobs, 22, was convicted by a jury in October of attempted second-degree murder and five counts of first-degree assault. Yesterday, Howard County Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney sentenced Jacobs to 20 years in prison on the charge of attempted second-degree murder, plus 15 years to be served consecutively, for the first-degree assault counts, said a spokesman for the Howard County state's attorney's office.

A 22-year-old Columbia man faces the possibility of 30 years in prison after being convicted of attempted second-degree murder for firing an assault rifle at Howard County SWAT officers during an investigation of his home this year. Sentencing for Delcarlos Johnnie Jacobs is scheduled for Nov. 30. After more than eight hours of deliberations Wednesday and Thursday, a jury found Jacobs guilty of attempted second-degree murder against one SWAT officer, and guilty of assault and reckless endangerment against 14 other members of the team.