Deputies

The 19-year-old Harford County man with developmental disabilities who is accused of killing his 2-month-old niece was ordered Monday to continue being held without bail. Colin Christopher Wolf, of the 2000 block of Bay Meadows Court in Forest Hill, is facing first degree murder charges after he allegedly struck the child, who had been left in his care, in the face Thursday night and she later died, according to the Harford County Sheriff's Office. After an earlier bail review hearing Friday where Harford County District Court Judge Mimi Cooper questioned Wolf's competency, District Court Judge Victor Butanis ordered Wolf to continue being held without bail Monday and made no mention of any competency concerns.

Anne Arundel County is without an official police chief following Tuesday's formal retirement of Chief Larry Tolliver. This month Tolliver announced he was stepping down effective May 22, and County Executive Laura Neuman has not named a permanent or interim chief to replace him. Deputy Chief Pam Davis is handling day-to-day affairs for the department, said department spokesman Justin Mulcahy. Davis routinely fills in when the chief is traveling or on vacation. Though Tolliver's last official day was Tuesday, he has not been at police headquarters in Millersville since May 10, when a few dozen staffers threw him a farewell party, Mulcahy said.

Harford County sheriff's deputies are investigating a shooting in Edgewood late Wednesday evening. Deputies responded to Edgewater Drive at Fisherman's Lane in Edgewater Village around 10:15 p.m. and found a 22-year-old man lying on the ground, according to a news release from the Harford County Sheriff's Office. Tarez Kwame Williams had been shot in the leg and was taken by ambulance to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, according to the sheriff's office. He has since been released, from the hospital.

Deputy state fire marshals on Sunday arrested a Joppa man who they believe set two small fires in a woman's apartment after getting into an argument with her. The Office of the State Fire Marshal said Ryan Lawrence Spann, 28, argued with a woman living at 209 Foxhall Drive, an apartment complex in Bel Air, before the woman left. Deputies said Spann then set two fires in the apartment with "ordinary household items," which the woman discovered when she returned home about 1 a.m. Sunday to smoke alarms sounding.

Harford County Sheriff's Office deputies have identified a man crushed underneath a Bobcat tractor in Joppa on Thursday. Johnathan David Maxwell, 29, of Watkinsville, Ga., was pronounced dead at the scene after he was caught below the hydraulic lift of his Bobcat skid loader. The man was attempting to make repairs to the equipment. Deputies and emergency workers responded to the call about noon in the 2400 block of Old Mountain Road Central.

The premise of the lead anecdote in Sirine Shebaya's op-ed ("Local police, federal law," Dec. 11) is incorrect. The deputies who questioned the referenced Hispanic woman were not acting, and did not purport to act, pursuant to the Section 287(g) immigration enforcement provisions. The two deputies who were involved in fact knew nothing about Section 287(g). They were simply on routine patrol when they spotted the woman eating a sandwich next to a container storage pod behind a building.

No one was injured Sunday night when a man barricaded himself inside his Edgewood home, resulting in a police SWAT team being dispatched at the height of the Super Bowl. David McCracken, 44, of the 900 block of Cedar Crest Court in Edgewood, was being held Tuesday in lieu of $500,000 bail in the Harford County Detention Center, facing several assault and other charges because of Sunday's incident. Harford County sheriff's deputies were called shortly after 7 p.m. to the 900 block of Cedar Crest Court North, off Swallow Crest Drive, for a report of a man with a gun threatening his girlfriend, according to Eddie Hopkins, spokesman for the sheriff's office.

In the dark VIP parking garage beneath an Annapolis building, a light flickered. A wounded victim cried out for help. The sound of shouting competed with the thunder of gunshots. And people hung around and watched. The drama played out repeatedly Monday afternoon, as the staff of the Anne Arundel County Sheriff's Office spent the day conducting security training in the county courthouse. "Training of this sort can help us fine-tune our tactical response and identify points of weakness and keep our people's skills up," said Sheriff Ronald Bateman.

Anne Arundel County officials say they will appeal an arbitrator's decision that the county must give deputy sheriffs pay raises from 2009 that were negotiated in their contract - but which the county cut, saying it needed help to solve a budget crunch. "We feel that the arbitrator did not get it right," said John Hammond, acting county executive, who added that the county will file for judicial review in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court. Last month, arbitrator Andrew M. Strongin found in favor of the deputies, saying the administration punished the union in a 2009 dispute when it held back the raises.

The increasing number of part-time sheriff's deputies hired to patrol Anne Arundel County's courthouse has full-timers worried about job security and the newcomers' ability to do the work.Their concern is aimed at the part-time deputies hired in recent weeks by Patrick Ogle, Sheriff Robert Pepersack's second-in-command.The deputies say the 26 part-timers lack the training and experience needed to escort prisoners in the courthouse."A lot of the full-time deputies have expressed concerns about the adequacies of their training," said 2nd Lt. Jerry Palazola, training officer for the sheriff's office and president of the 26-member Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 106. The group represents full-time deputies.

The deputy superintendent for the Baltimore County school system will step down next month, officials confirmed Thursday. Kevin Hobbs, who was brought on by Superintendent Dallas Dance last year, will return to his family in North Carolina, said schools spokesman Mychael Dickerson. Dance informed the county school board of Hobbs' planned departure, saying that he "vigorously recruited [Hobbs]," who was a top administrator in the Wake County, N.C., public schools, to help him during his transition.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office said a deputy was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma on Tuesday after his patrol car collided with another vehicle on Route 140 west of Westminster. Master Deputy Matthew Wilson, a five-year veteran of the Sheriff's Office, was traveling west on Route 140 near Mayberry Road at about 3:12 p.m. when his car collided with a Dodge RAM 1500 operated by Darian Barron, of Westminster, officials said. The sheriff's office said its initial investigation suggested Barron was making a left turn from Mayberry Road on to eastbound Route 140 when the crash occurred.

Members of Baltimore's fire and police pension board are questioning whether one of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's top aides should remain part of the lucrative pension system that covers sworn public safety officers. Administration officials say Robert M. Maloney — a career firefighter — has worn multiple hats within city government since becoming a deputy to the mayor in August. He is a sworn paramedic who responds to emergency calls, they say, while as a mayoral aide, he monitors agencies including the Health Department and the Mayor's Office of Information Technology.

National advocacy groups for people with Down syndrome are seeking an independent investigation into the January death of a Frederick County man after off-duty sheriff's deputies tried to remove him from a movie theater. Robert Ethan Saylor, 25, suffocated on Jan. 12 after three Frederick County sheriff's deputies attempted to remove him from the Theater 9 Westview Cinemas in Frederick. He died later at a local hospital. "We want to just find out more information to see if Ethan's rights as an individual with a disability were violated.

The 19-year-old Harford County man with developmental disabilities who is accused of killing his 2-month-old niece was ordered Monday to continue being held without bail. Colin Christopher Wolf, of the 2000 block of Bay Meadows Court in Forest Hill, is facing first degree murder charges after he allegedly struck the child, who had been left in his care, in the face Thursday night and she later died, according to the Harford County Sheriff's Office. After an earlier bail review hearing Friday where Harford County District Court Judge Mimi Cooper questioned Wolf's competency, District Court Judge Victor Butanis ordered Wolf to continue being held without bail Monday and made no mention of any competency concerns.

Harford County Sheriff's deputies say they made a grisly discovery early Sunday morning after receiving a call at 9:30 a.m. asking them to check on the well-being of an Edgewood resident. Deputies arriving at the house in the 1700 block of Fountain Rock Way, found the home locked but could hear a TV playing inside, according to Harford County Sheriff's Office spokesman Edward Hopkins. No one came to the door, and as they continued their search, deputies observed blood and a body on the floor, officials said.

By Ruben Castaneda A Forest Heights woman disputed the official account of the incident in which her dog was shot to death Friday by Prince George's County sheriff's deputies who had gone to her home to serve an eviction notice. In a statement, the sheriff's department said that deputies knocked on the front and back doors of the home and made a commotion, but they received no response indicating that a dog was present. But Donya Williams, 38, said Monday that her 2 1/2-year-old Rottweiler, Kato, barked whenever anyone knocked on the door or walked by outside.

Four young men, including a Kent Island firefighter, were killed in a head-on car crash on Kent Island Wednesday afternoon, the Queen Anne's County sheriff's office said. Firefighter medics who rushed to the scene recognized the fireman who was killed, officials said. Eli Dabich, 73, a chemistry professor at the Naval Academy, was injured and flown to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where a spokeswoman said he was in serious condition as of Thursday afternoon. All of the teenagers killed were from Kent Island.

An off-duty Harford County sheriff's deputy fired his service weapon at a man who he said became combative and then fled after the man rear-ended the deputy's vehicle, the Sheriff's Office said Monday night. The altercation led to a chase that ended with the man crashing his vehicle and then being arrested after a foot chase. A little before 5 p.m., an off-duty deputy assigned to the sheriff's office Violent Crimes Task Force, had just ended his shift and was headed home, according to Eddie Hopkins, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.