Halfway House

NATE GULLIVER was a hero." Manley Cosper's words have been ringing in my ears since last Wednesday, when my brother Michael and I headed over to the scene of the crime. Nate's been called a number of things this past week. For some in the media, he was a "recovering addict" and a "good Samaritan." For the folks who gathered at a candlelight vigil held at the corner of 27th and Sisson streets Monday night, he was a victim. But I knew him best as a first cousin, "Little Nate" we called him, when we were growing up. He was "Little Nate" because he was named for my uncle, Nathaniel Gulliver, who raised him as a son in Coatesville, Pa. "Little Nate" was the biological son of my other uncle, Leon Gulliver, who had 14 other children living with him in Baltimore.

Three men were fatally shot and a fourth was badly wounded last night in a halfway house for alcoholics and drug addicts in the Remington neighborhood, city police said. At least one gunman entered a sitting room in the group home in the 500 block of W. 27th St. and opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun. One of the victims might have been killed over a debt, and the others shot because they were witnesses, police said. "The motive is still up in the air," said Maj. Richard C. Fahl- teich, newly named head of the homicide squad.

Attorneys for the Prince George's County man accused of killing a pregnant woman attempted to cast doubt yesterday on the 2 1/2 -month police investigation that led to his arrest. On the fifth day of Tjane C. Marshall's first-degree murder trial, Assistant Public Defender Janette DeBoissiere questioned several members of the Howard County Police Department, including the lead investigator, Detective Sgt. Dwayne Pierce, about the death of Shameka Fludd in early May last year. Fludd, 23, who worked at a day care center in Laurel, was found fatally shot in bed at her Oakland Mills village apartment in the 5800 block of Stevens Forest Road, Columbia.

Developers hoping plans will lessen Highland congestion Developers of two corners of western Howard County's Highland crossroads are preparing plans that they hope will ease traffic concerns while maintaining the area's rural character. Operators of Boarman's Meat Market and the developers of a property once destined to become a large funeral home want to dedicate the front of their properties to create turn lanes to increase the capacity of the two-lane intersection that experiences frequent backups.

Robert E. Lipscomb, a retired millwright who was a guiding force behind Chip House, a halfway house for recovering alcoholics in Charles Village, died Wednesday of a heart condition at his home in Parkville. He was 73. Mr. Lipscomb was born and raised in Baltimore, joined the merchant marine when he was 16 and served in the Air Force during the Korean War. For many years, he operated his business servicing and repairing large conveyer belts at power plants and manufacturing operations, including Bethlehem Steel Corp.

Howard County officials will mark the opening next week of Howard House, the first halfway house for recovering addicts in the county, which health and drug treatment officials have been seeking for more than a decade. The renovated facility - on the grounds of Sheppard Pratt at Ellicott City - will serve as a home base for a maximum of 15 men who have completed a higher level of substance abuse treatment and want to rebuild their lives. The halfway house will provide recovering addicts with a program that was identified as a needed service more than a decade ago. "It's adding to a continuum of care in a county that really has no residential treatment at all," said Dr. Penny E. Borenstein, Howard County's health officer.

A federal grand jury indicted nine Baltimore residents yesterday in a series of bank robberies authorities say were masterminded by a convict in a halfway house. The robberies occurred between July 23 and Oct. 17 at several banks, including an M&T Bank in Owings Mills and another one in Catonsville, Wachovia Bank branches in Lutherville and Towson, and a First Mariner Bank branch in Glen Burnie. More than $100,000 was taken from several banks, according to an indictment filed yesterday by U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio.

A former Baltimore landfill operator who was ordered in 2001 to serve a year in a halfway house for drastically underreporting his income on federal tax returns was resentenced yesterday to two years in prison after an appeals court ruled his original punishment was too lenient. U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis had agreed at Manus E. Suddreth's first sentencing not to include a prior drunken driving conviction as part of Suddreth's criminal history - one factor in federal sentences.

Just months before he was to be released from a Baltimore halfway house, Gregory Veale is accused of going on two weekend shooting sprees with a friend, killing one man and seriously injuring two others. Veale, 20, of the 3000 block of Presstman St. and lifelong friend George Smith, 27, of the 1200 block of N. Bond St. pleaded not guilty yesterday at their arraignment in Baltimore Circuit Court. The two men are charged with murder, attempted murder and handgun charges. At the time of the shootings, Veale was finishing up a prison sentence for armed robbery at Dismus House, a halfway facility in East Baltimore.

In an unusual meeting marked by technical and legislative delays, the Howard County Council postponed annual action last night on charts that control the pace of development around crowded county schools, approved a lease for a halfway house for drug abusers and killed or tabled several other controversial measures. The meeting began a half-hour late because of last-minute confusion over the school/development charts. Partial failure of the council's sound and cable television system also contributed to the delay.