Hamm

ATHENS - The tug of war over Paul Hamm's gold medal continued yesterday, with the U.S. Olympic Committee angrily refusing a request from the international gymnastics federation to return the medal. In a hastily arranged news conference, top USOC officials denounced a letter from the federation, known as FIG, to Hamm asking him to return the medal "in the ultimate demonstration of fair play." "We have received the letter from FIG, and we find it deplorable," said USOC president Peter Ueberroth.

Pecola Hamm, 70, West Baltimore homemakerPecola Hamm, a West Baltimore homemaker, died of cancer Sunday at Maryland General Hospital. She was 70.She was born Pecola Watson in Georgia and moved to Baltimore in 1938. In 1944, she married Ernest Hamm.A funeral will be held at 11: 30 a.m. tomorrow at White Stone Baptist Church, 3005 Baker St.In addition to her husband, she is survived by three daughters, Berlette Adesalu, Joann Hamm and Glenda Hamm, all of Baltimore; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

The Board of Estimates approved yesterday a 5.9 percent pay raise for Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm, increasing his salary to $162,000 a year. Hamm was named acting police commissioner in November 2004, after Mayor Martin O'Malley fired Kevin P. Clark. Hamm's salary was set at $153,000 a year and had remained unchanged until now. "Mayor Dixon has faith and confidence in Commissioner Hamm," said Anthony McCarthy, a spokesman for the mayor. "She demands a lot from him; he's responsive to her."

A former city police major, who is chief of Morgan State University's force, will take over next month as the No. 2 commander of the Baltimore Police Department. Leonard Hamm said he met yesterday with Commissioner Kevin P. Clark and agreed to accept the job of deputy commissioner of operations. The 55-year-old said he hopes to help stop the rumored decline in morale within the department. The Baltimore native said he has seen too many experienced officers depart. "Everybody can't leave," Hamm said.

LEONARD HAMM, City College Class of 1967, now sits in an office in the basement of a building that once housed students at his alma mater's archrival: Polytechnic Institute.In 1966 and 1967, Hamm played for a City basketball squad that won 40 straight games and is ranked as one of this town's best ever. Sitting in a chair in that office, he's older, heavier, grayer now. But he's the chief of police for Baltimore's public schools. It's a job he took after spending 22 years on the city's police force.

A 53-year-old Westminster man was labeled a "sexual predator" yesterday in Carroll Circuit Court and sentenced to 20 years in prison for a sexual attack upon a homeless woman last year. Joseph A. Hamm was convicted in July by a Carroll County jury of second-degree assault and a third-degree sex offense upon the 37--year-old woman, whom the prosecutor described as psychologically vulnerable. The two met at a Westminster homeless shelter and Hamm took the victim to his sister's house, then sexually assaulted her during the night, said Deputy State's Attorney Tracy A. Gilmore, who called Hamm a predator who singles out women with mental or physical disabilities.

Baltimore's mayor fired Leonard D. Hamm, the city's eighth police commissioner in as many years. Dixon, facing a plague of murders that could top 300 by year's end and a pivotal mayorial primary in September, decided to dump Hamm after a poll conducted by The Sun indicated a lack of public confidence in the commissioner's leadership. ?I don't do things for form and fashion, I don't do things because it's politically correct.? Sheila Dixon

A 16-year-old sophomore at Walbrook High School was released Monday after being arrested and charged with hitting a teacher over the head with a ceramic vase, school police said. The student, whose name is not being released because he is a juvenile, and his mother were meeting with Assistant Principal Ben Wilder and teacher Alexander Brunson about 12:30 p.m. to discuss reinstating the boy after he was suspended last week, school police Chief Leonard Hamm said. The discussion became heated, Wilder called off the conference and Brunson and the student left the room, Hamm said.

Nearly four dozen Baltimore police officers were promoted last night during an event that included pomp, circumstance and little children pinning new badges on their fathers and mothers. Acting police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm told the crowd of more than 400 that the city expects the new sergeants and lieutenants to follow their conscience. "Doing the right thing is a lot more than not doing the wrong thing," Hamm said. During the 45-minute ceremony at the police headquarters auditorium, 28 officers were promoted to sergeant and 16 sergeants were promoted to lieutenant.