Bodyguard

Pieces of column too short to use: Richard Hunter, the mild-mannered Baltimore school superintendent, has a bodyguard? To guard him from what? Food fights in the Mervo cafeteria? Big kids picking on him on the Ashburton Elementary playground? There doesn't seem to be any clear reason Dr. Bland has a bodyguard following him around while the city schools can probably use every security guard they can get. There haven't been any specific threats by kooks and, let's face it, even Dr. Bland's fans don't exactly mob him for autographs.

A member of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's security detail and a motorist were injured Monday evening in an accident on the Jones Falls Expressway, according to a statement from Det. Jeremy Silbert, a police spokesman. The officer was southbound in an unmarked SUV about 8:30, returning to City Hall, when the vehicle was struck at the Guilford Avenue exit by another vehicle, the statement said. The mayor was not in the SUV. Both drivers were taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center for treatment of injuries police called non-life threatening.

The bodyguard for a supposed drug dealer faces two counts of murder stemming from a bizarre incident Monday night in which he attempted to stop a man from robbing his boss in West Baltimore but ended up shooting both men in the head, police said.Craig Eugene Young, 23, of the 900 block of Marlau Drive was arrested shortly after he checked himself into a hospital with a bullet wound he suffered during the fracas, police said.One of the victims, Joseph Milligan, 28, of the 700 block of Denison St., died at 5:54 p.m. yesterday at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

No one would ever question the toughness of new Ravens fullback Vonta Leach these days. Respect for him soars every time he knocks another NFL linebacker to the ground. Yet brawn is only part of the reason why Leach is the league's highest-paid fullback playing right now. For the Coke Machine, a nickname that comes from his compact shape, his journey has always been about believing. Leach never doubted his ability when he was an undrafted rookie out of East Carolina in 2004.

DON Crutchfield dived into the chicken salad, telling his stories between bites. In his navy blue sports jacket, blue polo shirt, blue jeans and brown loafers, he looked every bit like Joe Average. And you can bet that's the way he wanted it.Crutchfield, you see, has to blend in. He's a private investigator, a job he's had for the past 35 years."I once tailed a woman for six months," Crutchfield said, "and she never knew I was tailing her." In that incident Crutchfield was following the woman to get evidence for her husband of her infidelity.

As a movie, "The Bodyguard" isn't much, but as a ghost story, it's eerie. The ghost that haunts it belongs to Steve McQueen, whose white-jazz coolness turned him into an American icon in such films as "The Magnificent Seven," "Papillon," "The Great Escape" and the great "Bullitt" not so very long ago.The script of "The Bodyguard" was written by a very young Lawrence Kasdan in 1975 expressly for McQueen, who was otherwise occupied, dying of cancer at the...

PORTLAND, Ore. -- It is a resume that even James Bond would envy.Counter-terrorist specialist. Executive security consultant. Certified parachutist. College lecturer.L And "extremely adaptable in a rapidly changing environment."But the life beefy bodyguard Shawn Eric Eckardt portrayed in a resume filled with misspellings and apparent misstatements is vastly different from the facts.He is a 26-year-old, 300-pound college student who works out of his parent's home and drives a 1976 Mercury with a missing hubcap.

THE BODYGUARD(Warner, $99.99, rated R, 1992)Billy Crystal's Fernando character said, "It is better to look good than to feel good." Although it gets a great laugh, one has the sense watching "The Bodyguard" that it is a truism amongHollywood types, at least with the producers of this shallow celluloid sleight-of-hand.There's only the tiniest hint of a story here -- and even less plot. Essentially, the audience is supposed to feel satisfied that they are able to watch two pretty celebrities, Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, wander around in the stylish and glitzy world of stardom, while enjoying a soundtrack featuring new songs by Ms. Houston.

He started out as a patrol officer in West Baltimore. Now, 25 years later, he's coming back as Maryland's top FBI man."I have roots in Baltimore," says Richard M. Mosquera, who was named yesterday as head of the Maryland-Delaware office of the FBI. "When I was a bodyguard for William Donald Schaefer, I saw the transition of the city from the rat-infested pier to the Inner Harbor."Mosquera, 47, is a 21-year FBI veteran who has traveled the world, from his days in an undercover heroin investigation in Hong Kong to his experiences in Moscow helping to combat Russian organized crime.

After she publicly criticized a landfill repair contract and cooperated with federal investigators, Jeanne Robinson testified yesterday, a bodyguard for George G. Balog, Baltimore's public works director at the time, started trailing her. Robinson, a Public Works engineer, said she spotted the man she knew only as Rocky watching her as she left her young children with her mother before work. Robinson said she waved to him, thinking he was admiring her children. She grew concerned, she said, when she noticed him following her at lunch and after work.

I have received some feedback about my column on the Ravens' top draft pick, Michael Oher, the offensive tackle from Mississippi. I simply wanted to point out in this morning's column that the Ravens finally got a tough, physical bodyguard for quarterback Joe Flacco. If some people thought I was questioning his intelligence and were offended, those were not my intentions. There was never any intention to offend anyone, especially Oher and his family. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ravensblog)

ATLANTA -- Just imagine that Vice President Dick Cheney went on a visit to a foreign country - Great Britain, let's say - and that one of his Secret Service agents was shot several times and killed by a drunken bodyguard hired by the Brits. Let's say the British government quickly hushed up the crime and spirited the bodyguard out of the country, leaving him free to go about his life. Americans would, of course, be outraged - and rightly so. They would demand justice for the slain Secret Service agent.

JERUSALEM -- The head of the Palestinian intelligence service was seriously hurt and a bodyguard was killed yesterday in an explosion in the Gaza Strip that the agency labeled an assassination attempt. The blast, coming amid tensions between rival Palestinian factions, stoked worries of further clashes between the new Hamas-led government and the once-dominant Fatah movement led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Gen. Tareq Abu Rajab, an Abbas ally who commands the Palestinian General Intelligence service, was stepping into an elevator in the agency's heavily guarded compound in Gaza City when the blast occurred, Palestinian security officials said.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A powerful bomb targeted the motorcade of Lebanon's outgoing defense minister in a wealthy Christian suburb yesterday, wounding the official and a dozen others and killing a member of his entourage. It was the first assassination attempt against a top official here since former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed by a car bomb in February. The attack on Elias Murr signified a break in the pattern of bombings that have rattled Beirut in recent months. Until yesterday, those targeted for death have shared a common characteristic: They have been outspoken, even brazen, critics of Syria's longtime domination over Lebanese affairs.

ONE OF THE occupational hazards for good journalists in the former Soviet Union is murder. Just last week, an independent Azerbaijani editor named Elmar Huseinov was gunned down. But an older case is grabbing the headlines right now - a persistent stain of sorts that the years could not wash out. In 2000, the headless body of a reporter named Heorhiy Gongadze was found in a forest outside Kiev, and Ukrainians have believed ever since that the man who was president at the time - Leonid D. Kuchma - was behind the crime.

KIEV, Ukraine - A decade ago Leonid D. Kuchma, the former manager of a rocket factory, ran for president of Ukraine and, in the process of winning, won applause for his pledge to press for political and economic reforms. Now, as Kuchma prepares to leave the presidency after two five-year terms, he seems a lesser figure - a president implicated in widespread corruption, vote-rigging and the murder of one of his critics. The shift in his political standing reflects larger changes in Ukraine, where voters will elect a new president Sunday and have already shown their impatience with pervasive criminality and a quasi-authoritarian government.

LOS ANGELES - The first time he saw a mysterious man with a blond crew cut near the home of Robert Blake, the actor's bodyguard didn't give it much thought. Earle Caldwell said he told police Thursday that a man in his 20s first showed up outside Blake's home about two months ago. Often, the man would sit in a black pickup truck and stare at the property. Blake, who played a police officer in the 1970s TV drama "Baretta," saw him as such a threat that he had the couple's infant daughter stay with relatives about 20 miles away.

JERUSALEM -- The head of the Palestinian intelligence service was seriously hurt and a bodyguard was killed yesterday in an explosion in the Gaza Strip that the agency labeled an assassination attempt. The blast, coming amid tensions between rival Palestinian factions, stoked worries of further clashes between the new Hamas-led government and the once-dominant Fatah movement led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Gen. Tareq Abu Rajab, an Abbas ally who commands the Palestinian General Intelligence service, was stepping into an elevator in the agency's heavily guarded compound in Gaza City when the blast occurred, Palestinian security officials said.

KARBALA, Iraq - Four U.S. soldiers were killed late Thursday night and early yesterday in two incidents - a roadside bombing in Baghdad and a brief, fierce firefight between U.S. paratroopers and gunmen in this Shiite Muslim holy city south of the capital. Their deaths brought to 336 the number of Americans reported killed since the war began March 20. The Karbala clash also marked the deadliest incident for U.S. troops since Sept. 18, when three soldiers were slain near the city of Tikrit.

Two detectives on the security detail of former city Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris testified yesterday before a federal grand jury investigating the actions of their former boss and his use of a little-known, off-the-books expense account. The two officers, Maj. Anthony Barksdale and Sgt. Michael Mancuso, declined to comment after their testimony. Barksdale testified for about an hour; Mancuso was in the grand jury room for about 30 minutes. Mancuso's lawyer, Henry Belsky, said his client is cooperating with investigators.