Gunshot Residue

After discovering possible contamination of tests to determine whether a suspect could have fired a gun, the Baltimore Police Department has changed its test policy and warned prosecutors that some of their cases could contain faulty evidence. The city state's attorney's office said this week that it has known of the problem with gunshot residue tests since late July but has not alerted all defense attorneys - notification the city public defender's office says should have come long ago. Neither the police, prosecutors nor defense attorneys know how many criminal cases have been affected by potential contamination, although they say the number is probably small.

The 3-year-old East Baltimore boy who was shot at his home Sunday night with his father's gun died Tuesday night of a head wound at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.Police said Jordan Garris -- who had been in critical condition since suffering a single gunshot to the right side of his head in the basement of his North Ellwood Avenue rowhouse -- was pronounced dead at 8 p.m. Tuesday.The father, Cliff Garris, 23, also of the first block of N. Ellwood Ave., told detectives he was on the first floor of the house about 4 p.m. Sunday when he heard a gunshot in the basement.

The defense case of Baltimore police Officer Edward T. Gorwell II was further bolstered yesterday with test results from a Pennsylvania laboratory, which confirmed the presence of gunshot residue on the hand of the teen-ager Gorwell shot and killed April 17, 1993.The results, which verified a police lab test last week, appeared to reinforce Gorwell's long-standing contention that he was returning fire when he shot 14-year-old Simmont "Sam" Thomas, though no gun was found at the scene."We have to look at how this would be viewed by a trier of fact," Deputy State's Attorney Sharon May said yesterday.

The piece of new evidence that suddenly wiped away a manslaughter indictment against Baltimore City police Officer Edward Gorwell II on Thursday has turned the six-year-old case into a mystery that might never be solved.The evidence -- a new gunshot residue test indicating that the supposedly unarmed 14-year-old boy killed by Gorwell's bullet might have fired at the officer after all -- caused prosecutors to drop charges minutes before the start of a second trial. But many questions remain.