Homicide Unit

The Baltimore Police Department announced a reshuffling of its ranks Friday night, including the selection of a new commander of its homicide unit and a new assignment of the supervisor who helped implement reforms in the sex offense unit. Lt. Col. Garnell Green, a 22-year veteran who has most recently overseen Westside patrol operations, will take control of the homicide unit. The unit has struggled with a sagging clearance rate hovering over 40 percent, and officials undertook a nationwide search to fill the spot.

A man was shot shortly before 3 p.m. in the Brooklyn Homes, police said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. The incident was in a building off in the 900 block of Herndon Court, police said. The man was shot in the chest and is in "grave condition," said Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman. The homicide unit is on standby, he said. Police have detained two people for questioning who were on the scene, he said, and appeared to be trying to leave the house. The victim's age is not yet know, Guglielmi said.

Anne Arundel County police are investigating the domestic slaying of a woman at a Pasadena home Wednesday morning, police said. Police said they arrived at a home in the 7700 block of Jones Drive around 5 a.m. and found 38-year-old Jill Ann Salb suffering from cuts to her upper body. She was later pronounced dead at the Baltimore Washington Medical Center. Police said the victim's daughter was also cut, and was being treated at the same hospital. Charges have been filed against the victim's husband, Stephen Richard Salb, 56, who was taken into custody at the house, police said.

Baltimore County police made back-to-back announcements on Friday: detectives made arrests in a killing in Essex and in a fatal shooting of a man whose body was found along a highway on-ramp in Gaithersburg. It's news you'd expect to hear from your police department. But these announcements were "news" only because you might have been hearing about the shootings for the very first time. The shooting in Essex occurred Jan. 8, and police arrested a suspect Feb. 25. The shooting of the man found in Gaithersburg occurred on York Road Feb. 5, 2009, and police charged a suspect on Feb. 4 of this year.

The commander of the Baltimore Police Department's homicide unit will not face criminal charges or be ticketed for abandoning his unmarked cruiser on the side of Interstate 95 after he slid off a rain-slicked road Sunday, according to the Maryland State Police. Maj. Terrence P. McLarney had been suspended after the March 6 incident. A city police spokesman said the commander is now back on partial duty — allowed to run the administrative functions of his 70-detective office, but without his police powers.

From the Baltimore Crime Beat blog: The Baltimore police commander who heads the homicide unit was suspended today after he abandoned his unmarked cruiser on the side of I-95 near Route 32 in Howard County, city police confirmed. Maj. Terrence P. McLarney apparently ran off an exit ramp in Sunday night's rain storm. State Police said his car went into a ditch and there was minor damage to the front bumper. Another motorists called police to report seeing the vehicle off the road.

Police on Tuesday released the identities of two young men shot to death over the weekend in Baltimore County. Brandon N. Jackson, 18, a senior at Parkville High School, was found shortly after 12:30 a.m. Sunday in the parking lot of an Exxon gas station at 7301 McLean Blvd. in Parkville, just north of the city line. Jackson, who lived on the 3100 block of Sixth Avenue in Parkville, was pronounced dead at the scene. A police statement said people were seen fleeing the scene toward Dutch Village, a residential community, but gave no other details.

They did all the things that siblings do when siblings get together after having been months and miles apart. They went shopping for slippers and chatted about hairdos. They visited their grandmother for Christmas. They sat up late watching movies and eating cookies. "You know, being sisters. " Deena Barnes stresses that point in interviews, including her most recent on an Internet radio program, trying to dispel stories about strange men and alcohol in her Northwest Baltimore apartment in the days before her younger half sister, Phylicia, disappeared on the afternoon of Dec. 28. More than a month after the 16-year-old from North Carolina went missing wearing her new white slipper-boots, Baltimore police say they have no idea what happened to the track star and honors student who had planned to graduate early from high school and attend Towson University.

A 40-year-old man was found stabbed to death early Saturday in an apartment in Westminster, according to police. Greg Shipley, a Maryland State Police spokesman, identified the victim as Steven R. Hobson. A cause of death will not be known until an autopsy is performed at the medical examiner's office in Baltimore. Shipley said that shortly before 2:30 a.m., Westminster police officers were summoned by a 911 call to a residential and commercial building in the first block of E. Main St. When they arrived, the officers found Hobson in his apartment, his shirt and pants spattered with blood.

A man who appeared to have suffered trauma to his upper body was found dead Friday morning on the side of a road in Laurel, and Anne Arundel County police said they were investigating the case as a potential homicide. Officers responding to a call about 5:30 a.m. found the body of Roy Jackson, 41, lying in the 3300 block of Cranberry South. Jackson's last known address was the 3300 block of Sudlersville South, near where his body was found, according to police. An autopsy was being performed, police said.