Drug Arrests

Maryland State Police troopers in Harford County have posted the results of traffic citations and arrests in conjunction with their enforcement efforts in support of the National Drunk and Drugged Driving initiative between Dec. 12 and Monday, Jan. 2. During the initiative troopers targeted impaired drivers in support of Maryland's highway safety goals, according to a news release from the Bel Air Barrack. According to the release, Bel Air Barrack troopers issued more than 1,000 citations and warnings and conducted more than 700 traffic stops during the first period between Dec. 12 and Dec. 26. During the enforcement period between Dec. 27 and Monday, Bel Air Barrack troopers issued more than 400 citations and warnings and conducted more than 300 traffic stops.

When FBI agents heard on a wiretap that a Baltimore police detective was preparing to make a drug arrest based on false information, according to court documents, they decided not to intervene. The arrest of Brenda Brown went forward, and so did the federal case against Kendell Richburg. Richburg pleaded guilty last month to armed drug conspiracy charges after prosecutors said he protected a drug-peddling informant in exchange for information he needed to make arrests. Four more officers have been suspended in connection with the investigation, sources told The Baltimore Sun last week.

A Southern District patrolman made three drug arrests in 90 minutes Tuesday morning and gave a Davidsonville woman a ticket for speeding, county police said.Officer Richard Hicks was on routine patrol about 12:15 a.m. when he noticed two men sitting in a 1994 Ford Ranger pickup at Carr's Wharf Park in Mayo, which closes at dark.When he saw open cans of beer in the truck, the patrolman arrested both men on charges of being in the park after dark and having alcoholic beverages in a county park.

Last Monday, the United States celebrated the 50th anniversary of the seminal Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright. The next day saw the Maryland Senate vote to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. There is a synchronicity here. The failure of one public policy poses a problem, the other a brilliant solution - if the Maryland House of Delegates will but take up the mantle of common sensibility and fiscal restraint. For decades, Maryland's heavy penalization of marijuana possession has cost the state millions of dollars in incarceration and court costs and contributed to excessive public defender caseloads without improving public safety or meaningfully reducing drug use. The public policy behind Gideon is the constitutional guarantee that everyone charged with a crime, no matter how poor, must have a lawyer.

State police records on traffic-stop interdictions and seizures show that troopers in Harford County are leading Maryland's war on drugs, authorities said last week.Troopers in Harford County have made 20 of the 37 statewide drug arrests during the third-quarter of 1994, the records show.The state police statistics include incidents in which at least 10 pounds of marijuana, 1 pound of pure cocaine, 28 grams of crack cocaine, any amount of heroin, or more than $1,000 is seized.In compiling the statistics, Maryland police officials used criteria from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC)

A county police narcotics report distributed last week to state and county officials has been recalled after it erroneously stated that drug arrests increased 170 percent last year when they actually rose only 72 percent."

Setting new priorities for officers on the street, Baltimore's police commissioner is directing them to concentrate on seizing guns and to de-emphasize arrests for possessing small quantities of drugs.Carefully wording his statements to assure residents that street dealers will still be targeted, Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier said it is not worth an officer's time to look for people carrying a few small bags of cocaine or heroin."We think that guns and gun violence is where we should focus our energy, not drugs and drug arrests," Mr. Frazier said in an interview, elaborating on a five-page letter being sent this week to the department's 3,100 police officers.

The City Council is to vote tonight to approve Frederick H. Bealefeld III as Baltimore's 36th police commissioner since 1850, and the first under the administration of Mayor Sheila Dixon. The 45-year-old began his law enforcement career a quarter-century ago in Baltimore and has worked under 10 commissioners. With Baltimore on the verge of recording 300 homicides in a year for the first time since 1999, Bealefeld faces a daunting challenge. Violent crime, drugs, gangs and witness intimidation threaten to undermine recent improvements in public safety that have sparked a resurgence in many neighborhoods.

Three youths -- including a 10-year-old boy who was playing on a swing set -- have been arrested at an East Baltimore playground by undercover police officers and charged as juveniles with possession of cocaine.Police said the youths had been watched by undercover officers yesterday afternoon on the playground at Holbrook and Hoffman streets for a short period before one officer approached the 10-year-old and found four vials of suspected cocaine and cash stuffed in his socks.The two older boys, both 15, who were suspected of selling vials of cocaine for $10 each, also were arrested, police said.

Last Monday, the United States celebrated the 50th anniversary of the seminal Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright. The next day saw the Maryland Senate vote to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. There is a synchronicity here. The failure of one public policy poses a problem, the other a brilliant solution - if the Maryland House of Delegates will but take up the mantle of common sensibility and fiscal restraint. For decades, Maryland's heavy penalization of marijuana possession has cost the state millions of dollars in incarceration and court costs and contributed to excessive public defender caseloads without improving public safety or meaningfully reducing drug use. The public policy behind Gideon is the constitutional guarantee that everyone charged with a crime, no matter how poor, must have a lawyer.

[This data has been updated] Each year, the Baltimore Police homicide section compiles statistics on city killings. Here's how some of the data break down: Murders: 217 Clearance rate (cases closed by arrest or administratively): 47.4 percent Victims injured in prior years who died this year:  7 Cases from prior years closed this year (which counts toward this year's clearance rate, per FBI guidelines):  28  Cause: Arson: 1 Blunt force: 7 (3.6%) Handgun: 181 (83.4%)

Activists gathered in front of a downtown Baltimore courthouse Monday, calling for State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein to bring charges against officers being investigated in the death of an East Baltimore man during an arrest. It has been more than a month since prosecutors were handed the police investigation into the death of 46-year-old Anthony Anderson, who was thrown to the ground during a drug arrest on Sept. 21. Police initially said it was believed Anderson died after ingesting or choking on drugs, but an autopsy ruled that the death was a homicide caused by blunt force trauma.

In an effort to reverse an "overwhelming increase" in heroin abuse in Ocean City this year, police in Maryland's largest beach resort launched a broad, weeks-long investigation into the local drug trade — resulting last week in the indictments of more than 20 people on felony drug charges. The large bust — which has netted more than 100 bags of heroin — comes at a time when law enforcement agencies across the state have focused on prescription drug fraud and abuse, resulting in prescription addicts unable to obtain the drugs they are dependent on turning to the streets for their fix, said Officer Michael Levy, an Ocean City police spokesman.

Last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its accounting of all arrests made by law enforcement agencies across the fruited plain. Cops and federal agents made 12,408,899 arrests in the USA in 2011. No wonder we're known around the world as Incarceration Nation. Let's walk through the breakdown of that big number: •Of the total, 534,704 arrests were for violent crimes, and that number was down about 5 percent from 2010. •Driving under the influence accounted for 1.21 million arrests.

Two Baltimore police officers have been charged with assaulting a man last year after he fled a drug arrest and tried to hide in one of the officers' girlfriend's home. Sgt. Marinos N. Gialamas and Officer Anthony Williams, who was off duty at the time, are charged with the second-degree assault of a 32-year-old man inside the East Baltimore home of Williams' girlfriend. Gialamas, 40, an 18-year veteran, is also accused of three counts of misconduct, while Williams, 37, a five-year veteran, was charged with obstructing and hindering an investigation.

A decorated officer who was shot in the line of duty and testified before lawmakers about tightening gun laws is one of three officers being investigated in the death of an East Baltimore man during a drug arrest. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed that Todd A. Strohman and two other officers - Gregg Boyd, a 16-year veteran, and Michael Vodarick, a seven-year veteran - were involved in the arrest. Strohman, a three-year veteran, had been lauded by the mayor and others for his police work.

[This data has been updated] Each year, the Baltimore Police homicide section compiles statistics on city killings. Here's how some of the data break down: Murders: 217 Clearance rate (cases closed by arrest or administratively): 47.4 percent Victims injured in prior years who died this year:  7 Cases from prior years closed this year (which counts toward this year's clearance rate, per FBI guidelines):  28  Cause: Arson: 1 Blunt force: 7 (3.6%) Handgun: 181 (83.4%)

In an effort to reverse an "overwhelming increase" in heroin abuse in Ocean City this year, police in Maryland's largest beach resort launched a broad, weeks-long investigation into the local drug trade — resulting last week in the indictments of more than 20 people on felony drug charges. The large bust — which has netted more than 100 bags of heroin — comes at a time when law enforcement agencies across the state have focused on prescription drug fraud and abuse, resulting in prescription addicts unable to obtain the drugs they are dependent on turning to the streets for their fix, said Officer Michael Levy, an Ocean City police spokesman.

A local minister vowed Saturday to investigate the death of a man who police said ingested narcotics during an arrest attempt in Baltimore and later died at a nearby hospital. "There are some sharp differences between the accounts of the eyewitnesses and what we're hearing from the police," said the Rev. C.D. Witherspoon, local leader of the Southern Leadership Christian Conference. At about 7:20 p.m. Friday, officers were attempting to arrest a 46-year-old man for a narcotics offense near the intersection of East Biddle Street and North Montford Avenue, when the man consumed drugs, said Detective Donny Moses, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department.

A man and woman were arrested Thursday night after fleeing a Laurel motel room that police were about to raid as part of a drug investigation and leading officers on a pursuit through multiple jurisdictions, according to Howard County Police. Police had arrived about 5 p.m. at the Turf Motel in the 9800 block of Washington Boulevard to serve a search and seizure warrant at one of the motel's rooms when they saw the pair drive off in a 2003 Ford Taurus, police said. Police pursued the vehicle and attempted to make a traffic stop, but the man driving the Taurus refused to stop, police said.