Drug Charges

A Forestville man faces drug possession and indecent exposure charges, after police found him running naked on Crain Highway early Tuesday. It took a taser and several officers to arrest James Frederick Brown, 36, of the 7000 block Nimitz Drive. After he was treated at Baltimore Washington Medical Center, he was taken into custody. He also faces numerous CDS-related charges, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Officers found the suspect shortly after 2 a.m. at the intersection of Crain Highway and Hiddenbrook Drive in Glen Burnie.

ON THE SITE... Md. employers cut 7,500 jobs in May :  Maryland's unemployment rate increased to 6.8 percent, from 6.7 percent in April. That remains below the nation's rate of 8.2 percent in May, but the job losses were among the largest in the nation. Death of 1-year-old in West Baltimore ruled a homicide : A 22-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder after police found the infant girl shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday in a home in the 800 block of N. Stricker St. in Harlem Park.  Seven arrested at Starscape Festival on drug charges :  The attendees of the June 9-10 music festival at Fort Armistead Park were charged with possession of drugs including LSD, MDMA and marijuana.

At least seven people were arrested at the annual Starscape Festival at Fort Armistead Park last week on drug charges, Anne Arundel police announced Thursday. The June 9-10 event, in Baltimore near the Arundel line, consisted of an outdoor music festival and laser light show and attracted thousands of young revelers and dancers. The following seven people were arrested in the vicinity of the park by Anne Arundel police or Maryland Transportation Authority Police, who were working together on drug enforcement: Two men, James Donald Ruffin, 26, of Sandy Spring, Ga., and Jacob Asa Windeagle Ridgeway, 20, of Silver Spring, were each arrested and charged with possession, possession with intent to distribute and distributing LSD, police said.

A plainclothes city police officer shot and killed a pitbull while chasing a man suspected of being involved in drug activity in Southwest Baltimore on Sunday evening, police said. During the chase about 7 p.m., the suspect ran into a home in the 5100 block of Stafford Street in the Beechfield neighborhood, police said. As he did, an "aggressive pit bull" ran out of the house and "charged" at the male officer, said Sgt. Anthony Smith, a police spokesman. The officer shot the dog, killing it, said Smith, who declined to identify the officer.

An Edgewood man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to dragging a Harford County Sheriff's Deputy with a vehicle following a traffic stop last December. William Scott Fetzer, 33, of Spring Meadow Court in Edgewood, also pleaded guilty to multiple drug offenses and vehicle theft during an appearance in Harford County Circuit Court Thursday before Judge Emory A. Plitt Sr., Harford County State's Attorney's Joseph Cassilly said. According to a news release announcing the sentence, Fetzer was a passenger in a car that was to be searched by a K-9, when he commandeered the car and fought with Deputy Tyler Vass for control of the vehicle.

Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein will hold a news conference Friday morning to announce the results of a six-month investigation into an alleged murder and drug conspiracy, which sources say was touched off by the home invasion killing of a former high school wrestling standout. The case stems from the death of Darian Kess, 27, who was stabbed in the neck in late April 2011 during a home invasion in the 1200 block of Linworth and died a few days later. Police said at the time that the primary suspect in Kess' killing, Alex Venable, was killed in a triple shooting 12 hours later in the 1900 block of N. Collington Ave. In addition to the triple shooting, the fallout from Kess' killing led to more retaliatory violence, according to sources familiar with the investigation, and authorities recovered a significant amount of drugs in raids connected to the case.

Two unidentified operators of a prescription drug clinic in Lutherville that was raided by Baltimore County narcotics officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents Tuesday have been arrested, according to county police. One was arrested at the Healthy Life Medical Group clinic in the 1100 block of York Road, the other at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, police said. Both have been charged with conspiracy to distribute Schedule II narcotics, which include amphetamines, methamphetamines and other drugs that can be used in a medical setting but have "a high potential for abuse which may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence," according to the DEA website.

Maryland's highest court has upheld a law allowing police to listen in on cell phone calls that suspects make outside the state, a tool that authorities say is key to fighting the drug trade. The 5-2 Court of Appeals ruling is a victory for law enforcement, said Brian Kleinbord, chief of criminal appeals division for the Maryland Attorney General's Office. "It means that drug dealers can't evade a wiretap by driving their cars across the state line. " But dissenters argued that multi-state wiretaps are the latest example of police using advances in technology to chip away at privacy rights.

Carl O. Snowden, the civil rights chief for the Maryland attorney general's office who was arrested on a drug charge last week, was in a car with a convicted felon in Druid Hill Park when city police officers smelled marijuana, according to court documents released Monday. Two officers said in a charging document that they pulled up in an unmarked car Thursday afternoon, approached a 2010 Honda Pilot with all four windows rolled down, and smelled "a strong odor" of marijuana coming from inside.

Three people have been arrested in a May 2011 quadruple shooting in East Baltimore that killed a 12-year-old who was sitting on a porch, watching a basketball game on television. Police said Danyae Robinson, 29; Antwan Mosley, 21; and Derrick E. Brown, 17, have each been charged with murder and three counts of attempted murder after being arrested by the warrant apprehension task force. Charging documents shed little insight into the motive for the shooting or how police solved the case, saying only that phone records were used to corroborate statements from multiple witnesses.