Central Booking

A 20-year-old Curtis Bay man charged with murder in the death of a man who was pushed into the Inner Harbor in 2008 was ordered held without bail Thursday morning. The decision means Wayne Black will spend the foreseeable future at Central Booking and Intake Center, and comes after his initial bail review hearing had to be postponed when he appeared to go into shock. At that hearing, Black, who police say confessed Tuesday to shoving 22-year-old Ankush Gupta into the water, was slumped over on a bench in Central Booking, then leaned forward out of view as District Judge Nancy Shuger asked him to stand up. "Do you understand me?"

Gahiji A. Tshamba, the Baltimore police officer wanted on first-degree murder charges, turned himself in early Sunday after a vigorous effort to locate him, according to messages sent over Twitter by the Baltimore Police Department and the Fraternal Order of Police. Tshamba was in Central Booking following an intensified effort by Baltimore Police to mobilize dozens of officers to comb city streets and distribute fliers to locate one of their own. He had been missing for more than 24 hours since a warrant was issued for his arrest.

A Baltimore police officer spent Monday night at the Central Booking and Intake Center after a Circuit Court judge issued a "material witness" warrant against the woman -- at the request of the city's State's Attorney's Office -- when she didn't appear for a gun trial that afternoon. "This is an important prosecution, this is a necessary prosecution, and this particular police officer was a necessary witness," said Margaret T. Burns, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office.

Prosecutors have dropped charges against a community leader who was arrested and given a citation for impeding a police investigation. Chris Taylor, 33, president of the Union Square community association, was arrested Dec. 3 after police said he interfered with an investigation into an alleged sex crime involving a teenage girl, who ran down the street and asked Taylor to call 911. Critics said the case was a clear incident of overly aggressive...

Prosecutors have dropped charges against a community leader who was arrested and given a citation for impeding a police investigation. Chris Taylor, 33, president of the Union Square community association, was arrested Dec. 3 after police said he interfered with an investigation into an alleged sex crime involving a teenage girl, who ran down the street and asked Taylor to call 911. Critics said the case was a clear incident of overly aggressive...

A man and a teenager were arrested Sunday afternoon and charged with multiple drug violations after police stopped a 1994 Lexus that the man was driving with a fraudulent temporary tag in the 1600 block of E. Monument St. When the driver fled the vehicle, he was chased by Sgt. Dennis W. Workley and arrested near the scene. The teen, who attempted to flee with raw heroin valued at $2,000, was arrested by an off-duty city police officer working security at nearby Johns Hopkins Hospital, Workley said.

A year ago, members of the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation gathered to remember the children lost to murder in Baltimore. On Saturday, they had to gather again. "Let us hear the weeping," the church put on its Facebook page. The end of 2009 brought more killings, 238, than did last year, 234. 2008 was a 20-year low, so you could argue the city maintained a satisfactory status quo. You could also argue the status quo is not good enough. The vigils marking the end of another grim year continue.