Handcuffs

Howard County police warned residents yesterday to be wary of suspicious behavior during traffic stops after they arrested a second person in less than a month on charges of impersonating an officer. Both arrests occurred little more than a mile apart in Laurel, though police said the two are unrelated. In the latest case, Brian Franklin Rogers, 25, was arrested Friday on U.S. 1 near Davis Avenue in Laurel. The Baltimorean was charged with impersonating an officer and concealing a deadly weapon, police said.

AS A POLITICAL novice, Andrey Bundley has been having a rough time garnering publicity for his uphill challenge to Mayor Martin O'Malley. Thus, the 42-year-old high school principal is making the most of his brief handcuffing over the weekend. He's hoping to extend his 15 minutes of fame all the way to the Sept. 9 primary. Campaign theatrics aside, though, this does seem to be a case of a well-meaning but silly ordinance overzealously enforced. The incident took place Sunday night as Mr. Bundley was leafleting cars parked near a downtown nightclub.

Defensive mistakes tend to make a young team like Mount de Sales look shaky. As the Sailors discovered yesterday, the top-ranked softball team, with Lindsay Ettinger on the mound, can make the situation downright unbearable. Ettinger, who had great location and changed speeds with an assortment of breaking pitches and a wicked riser, fashioned a three-hitter with 11 strikeouts as host Chesapeake of Anne Arundel County downed the Sailors, 6-2, yesterday. "Lindsay moved the ball around with the strike zone a little small today, but she knows how to work with the umpires," said coach Don Ellenberger.

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.

Baltimore officials approved yesterday a pair of $100,000 "golden handcuffs" to encourage Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris to remain at least until 2004 and ignore any employment offers from other cities. Norris, whom Mayor Martin O'Malley hired two years ago to spearhead his crime-reduction strategy, would receive the money in increments every year as a supplement to his pension. "We amended his [Norris'] contract today to give him an incentive to stay," said O'Malley. "I hope it's good enough to keep him here.

A Baltimore woman was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday for neglecting her 6-month-old son - who died dehydrated and weighing only 7 pounds. Shaunte C. Bomar, 19, of the 800 block of Evesham Ave. in North Baltimore had pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for leaving her infant son alone for about 36 hours in November while she went to a party with her other two children. A medical report describes the baby, Carlos Leroy Brown Jr., as having protruding ribs and undersized organs from lack of nourishment.

A state judicial ethics panel has decided that the family ties of new Baltimore District Judge Catherine Curran O'Malley, wife of Mayor Martin O'Malley, make it improper for her to hear at least two-thirds of the entire docket. O'Malley, who's also the daughter of Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., said she is "perplexed" and upset by the opinion, which concludes that cases calling for police witnesses, among others, should be off-limits to her because of an appearance of partiality.

Capt. Melvin Joseph Say, a Maryland state trooper who once was saved from an assailant's bullet when it bounced off of the handcuffs on his belt, died of a heart attack in his Baltimore home on Christmas Day. He was 75. Captain Say grew up in the Baltimore area and studied at the Rosedale School in Baltimore County before joining the Navy in 1945 during the final stage of World War II. When he returned to the United States from his stint in the Navy,...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - It seems morbid, celebrating a death day. Commemorating the anniversary of a person's death is such a downer. "Happy Death Day To You" just doesn't have the same ring, does it? But it seems appropriate, somehow, to celebrate Harry Houdini's death day. The man who captivated audiences by taunting Death - who was buried alive several times, and escaped - died 75 years ago, on Oct. 31, 1926. Halloween. Somehow, that seems appropriate, too. Houdini was the best. Before David Copperfield, before David Blaine, there he was: climbing into a milk can filled with water, its lid riveted on after Houdini had squeezed inside; slipping out of a straitjacket while hanging from his ankles, upside-down, above city streets; escaping from his glass-walled Chinese Water Torture Cell.

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.