Commander

The Baltimore Police Department formalized a key command appointments yesterday, a week after Mayor Sheila Dixon named Frederick H. Bealefeld III the city's new commissioner. Anthony E. Barksdale, the acting deputy commissioner of operations, will be placed permanently in that position. Deborah A. Owens, the acting deputy commissioner of the department's administrative bureau, was also placed in her position permanently. "When he was asked to take over as acting commissioner, [Bealefeld]

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- John Batiste has traveled a long way in the past four years, from commanding the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq to quitting the Army after three decades in uniform, and now, from his new life overseeing a steel factory here, to openly challenging President Bush on his management of the war. "Mr. President, you did not listen," Batiste says in new television advertisements being broadcast in Republican congressional districts as part...

SEVILLA, Spain -- The new American commander of NATO presented yesterday a new list of military requirements for Afghanistan that included a request for more combat troops for the country's restive southern provinces. U.S. officials said Army Gen. John Craddock, who took over as the alliance's supreme commander in December, drew up the revised requirements last week amid growing concerns that current forces are not sufficient to counter an expected spring offensive by the Taliban. He presented the list at a meeting of alliance defense ministers here.

A Baltimore fire commander has been suspended for 30 days for failing to document medical certificates for at least 22 members, including a deputy chief, three top commanders and a top union leader. In another lapse at the fire academy, 397 firefighters and paramedics - out of 1,700 - do not have licenses to drive fire trucks and other large vehicles, which union officials say forces certified drivers to shuffle from firehouse to firehouse to ensure there is adequate coverage. These new developments have heightened tensions and insecurities in a department under criticism since a February training exercise that violated safety standards, killed a recruit and led to the ouster of the training academy chief and the suspension of two other members.

The Naval Academy's commandant, Rear Adm. Gary Roughead, is leaving in two weeks to take command of a group of Navy cruisers and destroyers in Norfolk, Va. He will be replaced by Capt. Sam Locklear, a Navy official at the Pentagon, the academy announced Friday.Roughead came to the officers' training school in August 1997 as the No. 2 officer under then-Superintendent Adm. Charles R. Larson. Larson, who retired last year, had hand-picked Roughead to help him refocus and strengthen the school after a series of scandals had battered its image.

TIRANA, Albania -- Top U.S. military officers flew here yesterday in an apparent effort to lay the basis for deploying more U.S. forces -- possibly including ground troops -- in NATO's effort to stop Serbs from driving ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the NATO commander, arrived at midafternoon and immediately drove from the once decrepit airport, now swarming with helicopters and relief supplies, to meetings with Albanian government officials.His trip was arranged so suddenly that U.S. Air Force press officers at the airport had no inkling of it until queried by journalists in the late morning.

In Baltimore County Board rejects proposal for bungee-jumping operation in TimoniumTOWSON -- The county Board of Appeals has denied a businessman's request to alter a one-story office and warehouse building in Timonium to open a bungee-jumping operation.The board rejected James Riffin's bid to open a business at 1941 Greenspring Drive that would hoist jumpers 100 feet into the air, hook them up to two or three bungee cords and allow them to jump off a platform.The board noted traffic, parking congestion and safety concerns in a Dec. 31 decision rejecting Riffin's request for the special exception and variance he would have needed to operate in a neighborhood zoned for warehouses and office buildings.

In Baltimore County Board rejects proposal for bungee-jumping operation in TimoniumTOWSON -- The county Board of Appeals has denied a businessman's request to alter a one-story office and warehouse building in Timonium to open a bungee-jumping operation.The board rejected James Riffin's bid to open a business at 1941 Greenspring Drive that would hoist jumpers 100 feet into the air, hook them up to two or three bungee cords and allow them to jump off a platform.The board noted traffic, parking congestion and safety concerns in a Dec. 31 decision rejecting Riffin's request for the special exception and variance he would have needed to operate in a neighborhood zoned for warehouses and office buildings.

Maryland State Police Lt. Terry L. Katz will replace Lt. Leonard Armstrong as commander of the Westminster barracks tomorrow, county sources said yesterday.News of the command change at the state's largest barracks will become official tomorrow morning, when Katz is introduced to the county commissioners.The announcement is a courtesy to the commissioners, who have a law enforcement agreement with the state police. The county pays $3.8 million in salary and benefits for more than 50 resident troopers assigned to the Westminster Barracks as the county's primary police agency.

The Baltimore Police Department is poised to shake up its homicide unit for the first time in 50 years and assign detectives to geographic beats, hoping to reduce the murder toll in the nation's fourth-deadliest city.Under the plan, which significantly alters the way the homicide unit has worked since it was formed after World War II, detectives will answer to a new commander who will also oversee nonfatal shooting investigations and a task force that targets youth violence.The changes are part of a departmentwide overhaul that makes district lieutenants responsible for groups of neighborhoods on a 24-hour basis, turning the lieutenants into mini-chiefs with discretion over officer deployment and money.

The commander of the Baltimore Police Department's Southeastern District, who was suspended last month as internal investigators examined his office computer, has been demoted and will return to patrol, police said. Maj. Roger Bergeron, an 18-year veteran who oversaw the district for nearly three years, accepted a demotion to the rank of lieutenant and will return to a yet-to-be-determined patrol district effective Sunday, according to Anthony Guglielmi, the department's chief spokesman.

The commander of the Baltimore Police Department's Southeastern District was suspended Wednesday, pending a review into a personnel matter, according to chief police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Maj. Roger Bergeron was stripped of his police powers and ordered home without pay, the spokesman said. He has commanded the district since Feb. 1, 2007, and has been a member of the police force since March 1991. The Southeastern District includes Fells Point, Little Italy, Patterson Park and Canton.

Shuttle named Charm City Circulator The free downtown shuttle bus system that debuts this summer is to be called the "Charm City Circulator," Mayor Sheila Dixon announced Wednesday. The name was submitted by 24-year-old Cherry Hill resident Michelle C. Brand and selected from about 2,700 entries by a committee that included the Downtown Partnership, neighborhood representatives and city employees. Brand will receive about $1,000 in prizes. Paid for by a recent increase in parking taxes, the circulator will include 21 clean-energy buses and three routes.

WASHINGTON -The Obama administration's new emphasis on the war in Afghanistan, including a long-term influx of extra forces, has exposed weaknesses in U.S. military planning and development efforts in that country that top officers are scrambling to address. The U.S. military command structure in Afghanistan was designed for a much smaller force. But with the increase ordered by President Barack Obama, the number of U.S. troops will reach 60,000 by the end of summer and is expected to eventually reach 68,000.

The 48 fresh-faced recruits training to be Baltimore County police officers put their lessons on pause yesterday to recall another era - a time of call box keys and trench coats, of twirling batons and whistles, when the neighborhood beat cop ruled the block, doled out candy to kids and dragged bad guys away by the shirt collar. It's an America we like to remember and wish still existed, if it ever did. At the Community College of Baltimore County in Dundalk, members of the 128th academy class shoved their books under their desks, swept lint from their uniforms and stood at ramrod attention to greet the icon of this idyllic image of policing - Richard "Dick" Clemens.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton * Age: 61 * Experience: U.S. senator for New York, 2001-present; first lady of the United States, 1993-2001; partner, Rose Law Firm, Little Rock, Ark. 1979-1992; associate, Rose Law Firm, 1976-1979; faculty, University of Arkansas Law School, Fayetteville, Ark., 1975; staff attorney, presidential impeachment inquiry, U.S. House Judiciary Committee, 1974; staff attorney, Children's Defense Fund, 1973. * Education: B.A., political science, Wellesley College, 1969; J.D., Yale Law School, 1973.

Reconsider value of CEOs' earnings Jay Hancock's column on the failure of CEO pay disclosure rules is very informative and helpful ("CEO-pay disclosure rules are a failure," April 16). And the bottom line here is that in too many cases, executive compensation bears little relationship to the success of the company. For example, a recent report (February) from the Economic Research Institute showed, based on a study over the previous year of 45 companies, that executive compensation had increased 20.5 percent while earnings grew just 2.8 percent.

WASHINGTON -- The weeklong cavalcade that will accompany Army Gen. David Petraeus' return to Washington today will look much like his pivotal visit in September: formal testimony, talk show appearances, and lots of charts and graphs. But this time, the U.S. commander's presentation to Congress on Iraq collides head-on with a raging presidential campaign and two Democratic candidates demanding almost the opposite of his advice. The change could prove jarring. For more than a year, Petraeus had the benefit of a commander in chief who was invested heavily in the same manpower-intensive strategy that he has advocated.

Baltimore police officials have moved a homicide commander accused of forcing his black sergeant to watch on-line Ku Klux Klan videos out of his position. The move occurred Wednesday, two days after The Examiner reported that the black sergeant had filed a federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against the commander, Lt. James W. Hagin Jr. The complaint was filed by Sgt. Kelvin Sewell on March 5. The 20-year veteran officer alleged, among other issues, that he was ordered to watch videos of various KKK rallies for about an hour, according to The Examiner.

Sgt. Robert Smith believed the elite unit he commanded was doing good work. It was early 2005 and crime in the distressed Southwest District was down, he said. Arrests were up. "They were giving us awards from the commissioner's office," Smith said in an interview last week. "We were constantly getting certificates of achievement. ... They were commending us at Comstat on a weekly basis. We were rolling." But within a year, top police officials disbanded the "flex squad" and labeled it a rogue operation.