Assault Rifle

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.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Everyone stayed quiet. The gunmen ordered witnesses to stand aside and remain still as they dragged the shopkeeper known as Abu Ammar away yesterday afternoon. The victim didn't say a word, though he squirmed and tried to break free. "Stay where you are," one of the gunmen, a clean-shaven man in his 20s, wearing a black bulletproof vest and holding an assault rifle, quietly told the frozen passers-by. "Don't move." The eight plainclothes kidnappers didn't even raise their voices when one of them smashed the shopkeeper's bespectacled face with the butt of an assault rifle.

Amid all the bizarre details coming out of Maurice Clarett's arrest in Columbus, Ohio, yesterday morning, one stood out above the others. It's no easy task, mind you, to stand out in a tale in which "assault rifle," "mace," "taser," "bulletproof vest" and "Grey Goose" appear in the same paragraph. But this did stand out: Clarett's face. In photos and video clips of his being brought into custody, he looked a lot older than 22. His face, expression and demeanor looked worn down to the core.

UPPER MARLBORO - Nathaniel Dixon had been thinking for a while about buying an assault rifle, but it was the ban being debated in the General Assembly that cemented the deal. He walked away from yesterday's gun show at the Showplace Arena here $1,100 poorer, but visibly pleased with his Olympic Arms .223-caliber semiautomatic, a formidable-looking weapon of military appearance that is nearly 3 feet long. He said he intends to use it to shoot turkeys. "That bill spurred me on to make my purchase," said Dixon, 52, as he waited for gun dealer Sanford M. Abrams to complete a federal "instant check" for a criminal record.

As momentum builds for a statewide assault weapons ban to replace a federal one that is expiring, all eyes are on Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who voted against the federal law while in Congress. Ehrlich said yesterday that he hasn't taken a position on legislation introduced in the Senate by Montgomery County Sen. Robert J. Garagiola and being prepared in the House by Del. Neil F. Quinter, that would expand the state's 1994 ban on assault pistols to include assault rifles and weapons that share their characteristics.

Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend said yesterday that she would seek legislation to expand Maryland's ballistic fingerprinting program to include regulated legal assault rifles, her first specific pledge to toughen the state's gun-control laws. "We need to do ballistic testing on all assault weapons and automatic weapons," Townsend told a meeting of The Sun's editorial board, saying she was responding to the series of sniper shootings in the Washington suburbs. Also during the meeting, the lieutenant governor said that she would seek reforms to Maryland's $27 billion state pension system, whose board has faced allegations recently about conflicts of interest involving fund managers.

The most detailed and promising lead yet in the serial sniper attacks dissolved yesterday as officials said a potentially critical witness intentionally misled them, leaving detectives with scant clues in their hunt for the shadowy killer terrorizing the Washington suburbs. Police said a citizen's detailed description of a gunman wielding a Soviet-style assault rifle and escaping in a cream-colored van after Monday night's killing of a 47-year-old woman in a suburban Virginia shopping center had proved false, dimming hopes for a quick capture.

A suspect who spent more than a year in jail awaiting trial on a charge of killing a man with an assault rifle was freed this week after authorities failed to locate the sole eyewitness. The case is the latest example of how reluctant or recanting witnesses foil criminal prosecutions in Baltimore. Baltimore Circuit Judge Joseph P. McCurdy had granted the state's attorney's office four trial delays in the case of Damein T. Gentry, 22, of the 2000 block of Kennedy Ave. in East Baltimore.

A 19-year-old Western Maryland College freshman was arrested Monday after a semiautomatic assault rifle was found in his dormitory room, Westminster police said yesterday. He also was suspended from the college pending a hearing by the Honor and Conduct Board. Glenn Wynn Robinson, 19, of Peach Bottom, Pa., was arrested by city police and charged with one count of possession of a regulated firearm by a person under the age of 21, police said. He was later released on personal recognizance, police said.

The widower of one of Joseph C. Palczynski's victims has filed a $10 million suit against the woman who bought Palczynski the rifle he used in a two-day rampage that left four people dead. Thomas N. McDonel of Essex alleges that by purchasing the assault rifle for Palczynski, Constance A. Waugh contributed to the death of his wife, Jennifer L. McDonel. "Knowing it was illegal, improper and negligent for her to purchase the rifle for Mr. Palczynski ... Ms. Waugh nevertheless went ahead and made the purchase," says the suit, filed in Baltimore County Circuit Court.