Handcuffs

A former Baltimore police officer was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday -- considerably less than he could have been given -- for conspiring with drug lord Anthony Ayeni Jones to abduct and kill a narcotics dealer.Erick McCrary, who took more than $5,000 in bribes from Jones, received concurrent five-year sentences in Baltimore Circuit Court and U.S. District Court in Baltimore. He will not be eligible for parole.McCrary faced up to 30 years in prison on a state charge of conspiracy to kidnap and a federal charge of conspiracy to murder in aid of racketeering.

Amy Watts is off for a birthday dinner tonight, at a joint too classy to have a TV above the bar (two Manhattans and she gets all CAPSLOCK!, three and she loves spats). Reality sets in! Week two begins. Grand entrance: No eliminations last week, so all the stars are still with us: Kellie Pickler and Derek Hough, Victor Ortiz and Lindsay Arnold, Ingo Rademacher and Kym Johnson, Lisa Vanderpump and Gleb Savchenko, D. L. Hughley and Cheryl Burke, Zendaya and Val Chmerkovskiy, Sean Lowe and Peta Murgatroyd, Alexandra Reitsman and Mark Ballas, Dorothy Hamill and Tristan MacManus, Wynonna Judd and Tony Jovolani, Andy Dick and Sharna Burgess, and Jacoby Jones and Karina Smirnoff.

The 16-year-old mother of Lamont Davis' two children was returned to his trial in handcuffs - and in tears - late Wednesday after storming out of the courthouse during a break in the middle of her testimony. Dynashaya Hall took the stand about 3 p.m. as a reluctant witness for the prosecution in Davis' trial on charges of attempted murder. He is accused of shooting Raven Wyatt, now 6, in the head last summer while firing at a teenager. Hall testified early on that a different boy she knew had confessed to being the gunman.

A Baltimore man has been charged with impersonating a police officer after he allegedly placed a victim in handcuffs and robbed him of $75, claiming the money smelled like cocaine. Baltimore police said the victim, 21, was walking down the 1000 block of Poplar Grove Street in West Baltimore on Wednesday at about 2:45 p.m. when Jermaul Dean, 23, approached him with a badge and handcuffs. Dean said he was a police officer and ordered the victim to put his hands on his head and started patting him down, according to the police report.

I understand the fears about inner-city crime and violence that led the City Council to seek to reimpose a youth curfew last week. But we are adopting a short-term solution that will aggravate a long-standing problem.Too many of our children -- even those who will never commit a crime -- already view themselves as outlaws and the police as the enemy.The proposed curfew, which orders police to arrest, handcuff and incarcerate young people, will simply confirm that belief. There has got to be a better way to protect children than to treat them as criminals.

The escape of a Harford County inmate last month could have been prevented with a device that costs $20, county authorities said. The county sheriff's office has purchased two dozen "blue boxes" - plastic-and-metal devices placed over handcuff chains to restrict wrist movement - in response to the Jan. 24 escape of Terrence Kasses Washington. "It's so simple; it's also so ingenious," said Lt. James Eyler, a sheriff's spokesman. "There should be no way that you would be able to mechanically defeat the locking mechanisms on the handcuffs."

MILWAUKEE -- After a series of violent incidents on school campuses, public school officials here are considering the use of flexible plastic handcuffs on out-of-control students - from kindergarteners on up. The Milwaukee School Board voted yesterday to begin training security staff members to use the plastic handcuffs, but the issue has provoked a heated debate between parents and administrators over how to provide a safe learning environment....

A Baltimore man has been charged in Anne Arundel County with sexual assault in Linthicum last week, police said. Tamango Johnson, 38, of the 1800 block of Bolton St., has been charged with rape, assault, false imprisonment, impersonating a police officer and other sex offense charges, according to a statement Tuesday from the Anne Arundel County Police Department. On the evening of Dec. 27, a woman reported being sexually assaulted at the Microtel Inn and Suites, in the 1100 block of Winterson Road, by a man she arranged to meet in her hotel room, police said.

Keith Ray has been in jail since July, after city police detectives arrested and charged him with a string of brazen carjackings across Central and North Baltimore. But yesterday, Ray dashed out of the downtown courthouse a free man -- albeit for a few moments. After his case was postponed, Ray was being escorted by corrections officers when he somehow slipped out of his leg irons and one of his handcuffs, breaking free, officials said. With a pair of handcuffs dangling from his right wrist, the detainee barreled down several flights of stairs from the fourth floor and fled onto St. Paul Street about 11:30 a.m., officials said.

A city police officer's service weapon, which was left inside his stolen personal car, was recovered yesterday in a Northeast Baltimore house. His handcuffs were found in a sewer nearby. Officer Brian M. Pedrick's 1999 Dodge Neon was stolen about 11 p.m. Monday in front of his home in Dundalk, police said. Inside the car was Pedrick's official 9 mm Glock handgun and handcuffs. The car was recovered early Tuesday in the 3300 block of Noble St. in Southeast Baltimore, said Kevin Enright, a police spokesman.

A Baltimore man has been charged in Anne Arundel County with sexual assault in Linthicum last week, police said. Tamango Johnson, 38, of the 1800 block of Bolton St., has been charged with rape, assault, false imprisonment, impersonating a police officer and other sex offense charges, according to a statement Tuesday from the Anne Arundel County Police Department. On the evening of Dec. 27, a woman reported being sexually assaulted at the Microtel Inn and Suites, in the 1100 block of Winterson Road, by a man she arranged to meet in her hotel room, police said.

Baltimore authorities were searching for a man who was arrested for attempted murder but escaped from a downtown police building after wriggling free of his plastic handcuffs. Police said Paul Bryan Palmer, 32, was taken into custody on a warrant charging him with attacking a man last month near City Hall. About 1 p.m. Friday, Palmer was to be transported to Central Booking and Intake Center when he complained of a hand injury and was taken back into the lobby of the department's Central District building on Baltimore Street, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

Baltimore authorities were searching for a man who was arrested for attempted murder but escaped from a downtown police building after wriggling free of his plastic handcuffs. Police said Paul Bryan Palmer, 32, was taken into custody on a warrant charging him with attacking a man last month near City Hall. About 1 p.m. Friday, Palmer was to be transported to Central Booking and Intake Center when he complained of a hand injury and was taken back into the lobby of the department's Central District building on Baltimore Street, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

The 16-year-old mother of Lamont Davis' two children was returned to his trial in handcuffs - and in tears - late Wednesday after storming out of the courthouse during a break in the middle of her testimony. Dynashaya Hall took the stand about 3 p.m. as a reluctant witness for the prosecution in Davis' trial on charges of attempted murder. He is accused of shooting Raven Wyatt, now 6, in the head last summer while firing at a teenager. Hall testified early on that a different boy she knew had confessed to being the gunman.

Police were searching yesterday for a man who fatally shot an 18-year-old Friday night in Northeast Baltimore. David Henderson was walking with a friend on the 2800 block of Hillen Road when a third man approached on a bicycle and opened fire with a handgun, hitting Henderson in the chest, police said. He was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was declared dead at 10:20 p.m., less than an hour after the shooting. The gunman rode off in the direction of Hugo Avenue and Harford Road, said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman.

Tennis Australian Open 3:30 a.m., 3 p.m. [ESPN2] With the 16-hour time difference, one might assume the Oz Open telecast would be watched, live anyway, only by stoners and insomniacs back in the United States. But sometimes the fun is just beginning right when Law & Order reruns are ending. Can Serena Williams win break points despite the fact that she's trying to get over a bad breakup? Will a player from an Eastern European country watch her father/coach as he's dragged away from Rod Laver Arena in handcuffs?

The man flashing a badge and driving what appeared to be a police cruiser had pulled the driver over, slammed him against the car and slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. But a few minutes later, the person who made the "arrest" was the one in handcuffs, after a skeptical driver passing the scene on Old Solomons Island Road in Annapolis on Thursday called police. Officers - real ones - soon caught up with Richard Louis Williams, 20, of First Street in Annapolis, who was driving a blue Ford Crown Victoria outfitted with police lights.

Tennis Australian Open 3:30 a.m., 3 p.m. [ESPN2] With the 16-hour time difference, one might assume the Oz Open telecast would be watched, live anyway, only by stoners and insomniacs back in the United States. But sometimes the fun is just beginning right when Law & Order reruns are ending. Can Serena Williams win break points despite the fact that she's trying to get over a bad breakup? Will a player from an Eastern European country watch her father/coach as he's dragged away from Rod Laver Arena in handcuffs?

Baltimore police have released the identity of a suspect who died after he was incapacitated with a Taser during an incident in West Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood early Saturday morning. Police said Thomas Campbell, 50, of the 1000 block of McAleer Court was pronounced dead at Bon Secours Hospital shortly after he was subdued with a Taser, a device that delivers a 50,000-volt shock. Officers apprehended Campbell after receiving a report that a man was running amok in the 1000 block of N. Payson St. Police say they have used Tasers 14 times this year, and Campbell is the third fatality.

MILWAUKEE -- After a series of violent incidents on school campuses, public school officials here are considering the use of flexible plastic handcuffs on out-of-control students - from kindergarteners on up. The Milwaukee School Board voted yesterday to begin training security staff members to use the plastic handcuffs, but the issue has provoked a heated debate between parents and administrators over how to provide a safe learning environment....