Gas Station

A studious young man with an aptitude for computers, Majid Shoukat Khan was working as a database administrator in a high-rise office building in Tysons Corner, Va., on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. After American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the western face of the Pentagon, the recent Owings Mill High School graduate watched from his office window as the smoke rose over the capital. Osama bin Laden would claim credit for the attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad would boast of planning them.

Baltimore city police are investigating a shooting early Monday in the Park Heights area of Northwest Baltimore that left an unidentified man seriously wounded. The victim was found at 4:23 a.m. behind a gas station in the 4100 block of W. Garrison Ave., investigators said. He had been shot at least two times and was suffering from wounds to the head and lower back. mary.gail.hare@baltsun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Baltimore police have released a composite sketch of a possible suspect in the November stabbing and attempted robbery of a man at a gas station in Charles Village. Police said the incident occurred about 5 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, in the 2200 block of North Charles St. The 27-year-old victim had been stabbed several times, police said, and has been treated and released from a hospital. Police said the victim and a friend were at the gas station when they were approached by two men who asked for a light.

Mohammad Akram Bhatti, the owner of an Edgewater gas station and convenience store, died of cerebral meningitis Nov. 9 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 68 and lived in Crofton. Born in Nabah, India, he moved with his family to the Punjab province in Pakistan as a child. He earned a degree from Islamia College in Lahore, Pakistan. He worked briefly for Lever Brothers in Karachi, Pakistan. Family members said that in 1969, with only some pocket money, he immigrated to Florida, where he studied at Florida Memorial College.

Within 24 hours of the release of a surveillance photograph, the man wanted in connection with five recent armed robberies in Harford, Cecil and Baltimore counties was arrested in Cecil County. Michael R. Malpass, whose age in court records is 26, was arrested without incident after a 2008 Chevrolet Impala he was driving was stopped by state police on Route 40 in Perryville around 7 p.m. Thursday, according to a news release from the Maryland State Police JFK Barrack in Perryville.

America is a product of the Age of Reason. Our founders used their rational powers to free us from the ignorance and superstition that shackled less enlightened societies. For over two centuries, we have assumed that the Age of Reason was here to stay, a permanent flowering of our intellectual growth. Alas, the anti-planning hysteria in parts of Maryland reveals that the Age of Reason may have been just a phase, one that is ending as we regress to the magical thinking of centuries past.

There's no good reason for Bill 11-48 (Gas Station Reforms) that is before the Harford County Council. Procedures already exist (Harford Code 2671-21) that can allow expansion of gas stations near private drinking water wells. Although no gas stations have applied, Bill 11-48 throws away this procedure and lets stations expand without consideration of possible harm to neighboring properties and wells. Currently, gas stations in areas served by private wells must ask the County Council's permission to expand and must participate in a public hearing.

Friends of Harford strongly opposes Bill 11-48 Gas Station Reforms pending before the Harford County Council. The "reforms" it proposes requires the council to surrender its authority and responsibility to protect Harford's private drinking water wells from gasoline contamination. Harford's zoning code already provides a process for "nonconforming" rural gas stations to expand. The process includes a public hearing so citizens whose homes and businesses will be affected can be heard.

A Baltimore County man was found guilty Wednesday of shooting a Towson gas station owner to death in the first case to test Maryland's revised capital punishment law. Walter P. Bishop Jr., 29, was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder in the killing-for-hire of William "Ray" Porter and faces the penalty portion of the trial Thursday n Harford County Circuit Court. Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty. Wearing a dark suit and a lavender shirt open at the collar, Bishop showed no reaction when the foreman of the five-man, seven-woman jury announced the guilty verdicts.