Disciplinary Action

An organization representing 700 African-American Baltimore police officers called yesterday for the federal government to review city police trial board decisions dating to 1990 after a federal commission determined a pattern of department bias in punishing black officers.In addition, Vanguard Justice Society wants Baltimore Police Department to suspend all further police trial boards -- which administer discipline to officers found to have violated department policy -- until the findings by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are addressed, and a review of decisions is completed.

WASHINGTON -- A retired Army general has been charged with having sex with the wives of four subordinate officers, lying about it and obstructing justice by telling one of the women he would testify against her in a child custody suit if she revealed their affair, Army officials said yesterday.Maj. Gen. David R. E. Hale, 53, who retired amid the allegations in February as the Army's deputy inspector general, now faces the military's equivalent of a grand jury. He could become the first senior military officer in more than 40 years to be called back from retirement for a court-martial.

The NBA warns its players that if they leave the bench to join an on-court fight, they will be suspended and fined. NHL players incur automatic suspensions for leaving the bench for an on-ice altercation. The NFL tells its players to "stay away" if a fight breaks out among other players or face the imposition of fines.Major League Baseball, on the other hand, has no rules stipulating automatic disciplinary action for players who run onto the field from their dugouts or their bullpens to join a fight in progress.

Western Maryland College officials will wait until after final exams to determine whether to take disciplinary action against two students arrested in a campus melee Saturday."

Del. Gerald J. Curran submitted his resignation from the Maryland House of Delegates yesterday, ending a 32-year legislative career under the cloud of an ethics probe into his business dealings.In a poignant letter to House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr., Curran denied that he had violated any ethics laws and said he was leaving to protect his health and to spare his family further stress."For my entire career as a legislator I have never used the influence of my office for personal gain," Curran wrote.

The legislature's ethics committee will begin investigating the business affairs of Sen. Larry Young today, with the veteran lawmaker's reputation and potentially his State House power on the line.The 12-member panel is expected to outline the areas it wants to investigate, drawing from an article last week in The Sun that reported possible ethical violations by Young.The committee inquiry could clear Young of violating state ethics laws or, if it finds improprieties, lead to disciplinary action by the 47-member Senate, including expulsion.

An Annapolis city fire captain, cleared this week of charges that he blocked lifesaving medical attention to a black man during a mid-July rescue call, was reprimanded for using racist language a month earlier.Capt. Gene Kirchner, who is white and has been with the department for 30 years, was counseled by supervisors in June for calling a co-worker "darkie" and for other "inappropriate" and "bigoted" comments about blacks, according to internal investigative documents obtained by The Sun. The captain denied to his bosses that he was racially insensitive.

WASHINGTON -- Several midlevel officers at an Aberdeen Proving Ground school, where reports of sexual misconduct last fall spurred an Armywide investigation, are expected to face disciplinary action, Army officials said yesterday.The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command has recommended to top Army officials that the officers face administrative action, a move that would likely end their careers, said the officials, who would neither release the names nor the ranks of the officers."There are less than a handful of people involved," said one Army official, who requested anonymity.

FMC Corp. workers voted yesterday to end an 11-day walkout and accept a three-year contract, without resolving differences concerning overtime that force some to work 75 hours a week.The Chicago-based chemical company and the United Steelworkers of America Local 12517 agreed to form a joint committee to solve their overtime differences by Sept. 1."People were out on the street," said Bob Falk, the local's president. "We could have gotten bogged down for weeks on this."Falk added that some workers used the strike to grab a precious commodity: a few days off with their families.

Almost 900 Maryland doctors have been disciplined since 1990 for everything from fraud to assault to errors in prescribing drugs. But few patients may know this because they have not been able to get speedy access to this kind of information.That's about to change. Next spring Maryland expects to become the first state in the nation to make disciplinary and malpractice records of physicians instantly available to the public, to the chagrin of more than a few doctors.The records, compiled by the state Board of Physician Quality Assurance on every doctor in Maryland, will be available to anyone equipped with a personal computer and a modem.