Fire And Police

Baltimore police are investigating a possible arson at the home of a South Baltimore community activist who has been embroiled in a bitter neighborhood dispute over bars.Theresa Hynes, an officer of the South Baltimore Improvement Committee, the peninsula's largest community organization, was asleep in a second-story bedroom at about 9 p.m. Monday when someone set fire to the rear of her rowhouse at 1509 S. Charles St. Hynes was not injured. The home sustained at least $5,000 in damage.Yesterday, residents expressed concern that the fire might indicate a dispute over local bar expansion is out of control.

An intense probe into what caused a January fire that killed five people is nearing a close, but city fire and police investigators have yet to agree on where and how the blaze started and whether the deaths can be classified as homicides.The Baltimore Fire Department has declared the Jan. 14 fire in Northwest Baltimore incendiary, meaning it believes it was set. The state medical examiner's office has ruled the deaths homicides.The morning fire burned out a small, one-story house in the 5200 block of Norwood Ave. and killed Juanita Roy, 20, Francine Roy, 37, and her three children, Antonie, 4, Anthony, 3, and Antonia, 23 months.

Kimberli Carroll, 21, of the 4900 block of Edgemere Ave. in Northwest Baltimore was charged last night with first-degree murder in the death yesterday of her 2-month-old daughter, police said.Homicide Detective Carolyn Gillespie said Ms. Carroll initially told police that she awoke about 4 a.m. yesterday and found her daughter, Kamill Jones, lying in a wash basin with her face under water. The infant was rushed to Sinai Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.Detective Gillespie said an autopsy showed that Kamill died of injuries she suffered after being violently shaken and that the child's neck, head and brain showed signs of trauma and bleeding.

Fire and police investigators are seeking information in Tuesday's arson fire in an abandoned house in Hampstead.Firefighters from Hampstead, Manchester, Lineboro and Arcadia were dispatched to the house, in the 1600 block of N. Main St., about 4 p.m. They discovered a fire in the living room.The fire, which was confined to that area, caused about $1,000 damage.Investigators said they are searching land records to determine the former owner of the house.No one was injured in the one alarm blaze.

Two roaring blazes lighted up the sky above downtown Westminster in 1991 -- one ending in death and a murder trial, the other gutting twowell-known city businesses.A four-alarm fire that ripped throughan apartment building at 88 W. Main St. April 24 killed 49-year-old Carvin "Big Joe" Hanna and left 12 people homeless.While the blaze was contained after two hours, it sparked a investigation county fire and police officials called one of the "most unusual" in Carroll history.Hours after the fire broke out, a homeless man who often slept on the building's couch was charged with setting the blaze and with Hanna's murder.

Carroll State's Attorney Thomas E. Hickman and volunteer firefighterFred Hooper urged the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday to pass a bill that would permit county fire and police officers to equip theirpersonal vehicles with portable red and white lights.The bill issponsored by the Carroll delegation.The flashing lights, which would be turned on only while the vehicle is stationary and at an emergency scene, are needed to alert approaching motorists, protect the safety of the fire and police officersand other respondents, and free police for other duties at the site.

Chanting "These Cuts Won't Heal" and "Where's Roger?" a boisterous crowd of about 1,000 Baltimore County workers, parents and children rallied in Towson late yesterday to protest the latest round of local budget cuts.Most of the demonstrators who gathered in the plaza between the old and new county courthouses were teachers and PTA members, although a large contingent of firefighters and smaller groups of police and other county workers also attended.County Executive Roger B. Hayden was in Annapolis for the day and not within earshot of the taunts aimed at him, but other top county administration officials watched the rally from office windows overlooking the plaza.

Although Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden is not proposing any pay increases for county employees this coming fiscal year, he has agreed to a lucrative pension change for the 37 Fire Department chiefs whose association was the first organized employee group to endorse him during last year's election campaign.According to Battalion Chief Carroll W. Huffines, 49, president of the Baltimore County Fire Department Fire Officer's Association, Hayden has agreed to allow fire chiefs to retire after 20 years of service, regardless of age, with a full 50 percent pension -- the same plan accorded Police Department supervisors.

About three-quarters of the 100 prospective jurors stood yesterday when Circuit Judge Francis M. Arnold asked if they knew about the apartment arson fire that killed a city man last April.One by one thejurors trooped before the judge to explain whether their knowledge would impede their ability to render a fair verdict.The question, which was the first asked of the jurors, got jury selection off to a slow start as Arnold spent more than an hour and a quarter quizzing them about the case.More than five hours later, the prosecutors and defense attorney settled on the jury of seven women and five men.The 12 county residents -- plus two alternates --will decide the fate of 35-year-old John M. Woodward.

WESTMINSTER -- About three-quarters of the 100 prospective jurors stood yesterday when Circuit Judge Francis M. Arnold asked if they knew about the apartment arson fire that killed a city manlast April.One by one the jurors trooped before the judge to explain whethertheir knowledge would impede their ability to render a fair verdict.The question, which was the first asked of the jurors, got jury selection off to a slow start as Arnold spent more than an hour and a quarter quizzing them about the case.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon sent a clear message Wednesday to fire and police unions who have resisted her cost-saving furlough plan: We will go after your pay if talks on other concessions collapse. Led by Dixon, the city Board of Estimates authorized a reduction in police and fire salaries to save $8 million this year. The money is the final piece necessary to complete Dixon's $60.2 million midyear budget reduction plan, needed to close a hole left by state cuts and lower-than-expected revenue projections.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has withdrawn a pension reform bill that would have stripped a lucrative post-retirement benefit from the financially troubled fire and police pension plan and was opposed by the city's public safety unions. "We're looking for a bigger fix for the system," Dixon's spokesman, Scott Peterson, said. The Administration plans to make more comprehensive changes to the $1.677 billion pension system. The bill's withdrawal was applauded by the city's police union chief, who said that the unions now can also "look at the bigger picture" and suggest broader reforms to the pension system.

Baltimore City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake wants to tap a prominent business-group leader to head a commission examining the city's troubled fire and police pension system. Donald C. Fry, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee, has accepted an invitation from Rawlings-Blake and City Councilman William H. Cole IV to lead an effort to review a retirement program whose ballooning costs have created what both call a "fiscal crisis." "You want to make sure that these funds are sustainable and you do have enough money to support them," said Fry, a former Harford County state senator who is also heading a panel to award slot-machine licenses in Maryland.

Baltimore City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake called Thursday for the city's fire and police pension board to sue to recover funds lost in the Bernard L. Madoff financial scandal. The pension fund lost about $3.1 million after a hedge fund in which it was invested, Union Bancaire Privee Asset Management, placed money in another fund that invested with Madoff. During a council meeting she called to discuss the matter, Rawlings-Blake pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal article that alleges UBP researchers warned its money managers not to do business with Madoff.

Union leaders and Baltimore officials have begun discussing major changes intended to restore viability to police and firefighter retirement funds weakened by huge losses. While both sides agree that the situation is dire, no agreement emerged at a City Council hearing yesterday on the best course of action. None of the proposed fixes under consideration would fill the growing hole that pension costs are boring into the city's budget. Taxpayers are projected to pay $110 million to the retirement fund in the budget year that begins July 2010, up from $82 million next year.

Arundel motorcyclist dies in collision with SUV A Gambrills motorcyclist died after a collision with a sport utility vehicle near Crofton on Saturday night, Anne Arundel County police said yesterday. Kenneth H. Meadows, 49, of the 1700 block of Thistle Court was driving a 2005 Harley-Davidson motorcycle east on Defense Highway when he crested the hill near Jolie Place about 6:20 p.m. and found that traffic was stopped for a left-turning vehicle, police said. Meadows attempted to brake for the stopped traffic and locked the rear wheel, causing him to skid about 145 feet before losing control and being thrown from the motorcycle, police said.

Baltimore County police are asking for the public's help in identifying the body of a man found early Saturday after he was shot and burned. Police released an artist's sketch of the victim, whose body was found along southbound Interstate 83 near Parkton in northern Baltimore County, police said. About 1:30 a.m. Dec. 24, county fire and police responded to the roadside of I-83 between Middletown Road and Mount Carmel Road for what was believed to be a brush fire, according to police.

A Mount Airy junkyard fire burned 150 vehicles yesterday and sent smoke billowing for miles from southwest Carroll County, fire officials said. Firefighters were dispatched to the 3900 block of Twin Arch Road at 6:46 p.m. A fire dispatcher said several surrounding fire and police departments assisted in putting out the blaze, which was under control by 11 p.m. Officials could not say if the fire caused any injuries and were assessing damages and trying...

BALTIMORE Body found in warehouse gutted by four-alarm fire Baltimore firefighters combing through the remains of a Southwest Baltimore warehouse early yesterday after a raging fire found the body of a man in one of two basements in the nearly 300-foot-long building, authorities said. Firefighters had received reports that someone was trapped in the long-vacant Lasting Paints warehouse in the 200 block of S. Franklintown Road but could not undertake a search sooner because of the intensity of the four-alarm fire, which was reported about 7:20 p.m. Saturday, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, the city Fire Department spokesman.

For the second time in less than a week, a suspicious fire broke out yesterday in an Upper Park Heights building used by an Orthodox Jewish congregation. Investigators from the city fire and police departments and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have not ruled on the cause of a fire early Saturday at the Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Studies in the 3700 block of Fords Lane. But the second fire, which started shortly before 7 a.m. yesterday at Machzikei Torah Congregation in the 6200 block of Biltmore Ave., about a block from Etz Chaim, has been ruled an arson, fire and police spokesmen said.