Emergency Lights

Flipping through photographs of her smiling mother, Angel Casale tearfully recalled this week the horror she had witnessed 48 hours earlier: a Baltimore County police cruiser smashing into the side of her mother's car as she attempted to drive across a major highway. "The cop just came out of nowhere. No lights, no siren, no nothing on, and he just plowed into my mom's car," said Casale, 19, who was driving behind her mother when the accident happened Sunday night on Pulaski Highway in Rosedale.

Baltimore County police are investigating a collision involving a police cruiser that killed a 45-year-old motorist several blocks from her Rosedale home Sunday night. The victim was identified as Bonnie Pappas, 45, of the 1200 block of Primrose Ave. She was turning onto Pulaski Highway at about 9:55 p.m. when a police cruiser traveling west struck the passenger side of her 1997 Mercury, said Cpl. Michael Hill, a county police spokesman. The officer was responding to a domestic dispute, Hill said.

Hospitals in Cleveland switched to emergency generators, used fans to cool laboring mothers and served patients cold meals. Police dispatchers in Erie, Pa., went back in time and scribbled emergency calls on scraps of paper as they struggled to reboot their computers. Traffic lights darkened at busy intersections at the start of rush hour in Mansfield, Ohio, and office workers in Cleveland lucky enough not to be stuck in elevators hiked down hundreds of steps on their way home. The power blackout in U.S. and Canadian cities extended beyond the East Coast to portions of the Midwest, closing nuclear power plants in Ohio and New York state and shutting down businesses in blistering heat.

It was halftime at Tuesday night's high school basketball game between the Southwestern Sabres and Poly, and the Engineers, to the surprise of even their supporters, were holding onto a rare lead. "They usually beat us up every year," Poly athletic director Mark Schlenoff said yesterday. The cheers were loud. Emotions ran high. The score was 26-20. And then ... boom! With a bang, the lights at Poly went out, and the emergency lights, which are supposed to kick in when power fails, didn't come on. "We were all in the dark," said Schlenoff, who couldn't see his assistant standing 3 feet away.

An Anne Arundel County police officer was injured in a crash late Monday as he sped north on Crain Highway to assist another officer, county police said. Cpl. Edward Kuentzel, a 17-year veteran, injured his chest and rib cage in the accident. He was released from the Maryland Shock Trauma Center yesterday, a hospital spokeswoman said. The officer's 1999 Ford Crown Victoria collided with a 1996 Honda Accord and then careened into a signal pole at Fifth Avenue and Crain Highway in Glen Burnie just before midnight, police said.

A Baltimore County police officer responding to a burglary call was injured yesterday when his cruiser collided with a car at Belair Road and Blakely Avenue in Perry Hall. Officer Marvin Tinsley Hall, 34, was traveling north on Belair Road when the driver of a car ahead of him made an abrupt U-turn, said Bill Toohey, a police spokesman. Toohey said the police car - which was not using emergency lights - collided with the other vehicle and flipped onto its roof. "The officer was in the left-hand lane and [the other driver]

For most of the 134 years since the last slaves were freed, the history of human bondage has been pushed to the margins of American memory.But now, as if the dam built by white guilt and black pain has begun to give way, this terrible chapter in the nation's past has become the focus of widespread fascination. Slavery suddenly seems to be under scrutiny everywhere -- in the blossoming of black genealogy on the World Wide Web; in an unprecedented outpouring of books, films and CD-ROMs; in the popularity of slavery memorabilia; in celebrations of emancipation and new pride in slave ancestry.

A Northwest Baltimore man struck by a city firetruck Friday night near Lexington Market was listed in critical condition yesterday at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, authorities said.The victim was identified yesterday as Leon Collins, 43, of the 4100 block of Reisterstown Road.Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres, a fire department spokesman, said Collins was trying to cross the street when he stepped between two firetrucks en route, with sirens and emergency lights on, to the scene of a house fire.

A Baltimore City police car struck and killed a 7-year-old boy in Northwest Baltimore late yesterday afternoon, but police said accounts differed over whether the car's emergency lights and siren were on.Witnesses said the boy, Melvin Bettis, of the 2800 block of Waldorf Avenue, had just left a corner grocery store in the 4600 block of Reisterstown Road in Pimlico about 4: 40 p.m. and had started to cross the street.The police car was one of three going north on Reisterstown Road to help an officer who needed assistance with a burglary in progress on Belvedere Avenue.

It's 8:30 in the morning, and the Intrepid One is cruising on St. Paul Street. All four lanes are thick with traffic, but we've got synchronized green traffic lights on our side. Life is good, and we're running on time when -- suddenly -- a backup sprouts in the left lane. It stretches from Eager Street to Chase Street.And you know what it is?A parked car, with its emergency lights flashing. We're stuck behind it, blowing our horns (that's the proper protocol, right?) and trying to wedge into the next lane of traffic.