Howard County Police

Howard County police are offering a $500 reward for information about a detention center inmate who escaped while at Howard County General Hospital early Friday. The inmate, Jejuan Deon Griffin, escaped from the emergency room about 7 a.m. while under guard by correctional officers, police said. He had been taken to the hospital with an asthma problem. Griffin, 20, was imprisoned on drug distribution and other charges, police said. He last resided at an unspecified address on Montrose Road in Laurel.

Howard County police Sgt. Lawrence Freer, a 21-year veteran who used humor to get suspects to confess and to bridge the divide between officers and juveniles, died Sunday of a heart attack. The North Laurel resident was 47.Freer also was head coach of the Bowie State University baseball team, whose season-opening game at home tomorrow against Shenandoah University of Winchester, Va., has been postponed indefinitely.Yesterday, friends and family remembered a man dedicated to police work, who fulfilled his dream of helping others.

Paul H. Rappaport, a lawyer and former Howard County police chief who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Maryland attorney general, and U.S. Senate, died of cancer Sunday at Mercy Medical Center. The Ellicott City resident was 72. "He was such a loyal friend," said Ellen R. Sauerbrey, who chose Mr. Rappaport as her running mate in her 1994 gubernatorial campaign. "When I think of Paul Rappaport, I think of a man of few words but strong principles. He had a strong backbone.

Howard County police are asking the public for help solving a series of residential burglaries that have plagued three areas of the county in the last two months.Since Dec. 5, at least 15 residential burglaries have occurred in West Columbia, many in the Longfellow and Faulkner Ridge neighborhoods in the Village of Wilde Lake, police say.On Jan. 14, two teens were charged in connection with two break-ins in the area, and police are investigating to learn if the pair is responsible for more.

Edgar Russell Moxley, whose more than 40-year career in law enforcement ranged from foot patrols as Ellicott City's night policeman to serving as first chief of the Howard County Police Department, died of cancer Saturday at his Ellicott City home. He was 98. Mr. Moxley was born and raised in Ellicott City, the son of a farmer. "I was born on June 30, 1906, in my father's house off of Jonestown Road, and I grew up as an ordinary country boy wearing knickers and overalls," Mr. Moxley wrote in an unpublished autobiographical sketch.

Howard County police are investigating a rape that occurred about 5:30 a.m. Monday in the 8500 block of Falls Run Road in Ellicott City. The woman had completed a jog and was walking back to her apartment when she was grabbed from behind and threatened with physical violence. The assailant took her behind a nearby building and raped her. The man fled on foot, and the woman called police from her home. Police described the assailant as a light-skinned African-American male in his late 20s, 5-feet-6 to 5-feet-7, about 150 pounds, with a shaved head and no facial hair.

SLAVERY NEVER has been a joking matter in America. For good reason, the topic does not surface in the monologues of Letterman or Leno. Painful histories make it difficult, if not impossible, to reduce topics such as slavery and the Holocaust to humor without stirring deep emotions of pain or rage, especially among people whose heritage connects them with the suffering.Howard County Police Capt. Stephen Drummond, who is white, found humor in a cartoon about a slave ship, but black county police officers are not laughing.

Howard County Police are searching for anyone who recognizes a child who was discovered in a North Laurel elementary school parking lot Monday afternoon. The boy, estimated to be about 2 or 3 years old, was found by a school administrator in the parking lot of Laurel Woods Elementary School in the 9200 block of North Laurel Road around 2:20 p.m., according to police. The boy is black and has a small scar in the center of his forehead. When he was found, the boy was wearing brown corduroy pants, a gray long-sleeved shirt with red and blue stripes on the sleeves and the number 36 in the center, blue and white ankle socks and black and red sneakers.

Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker today appointed police Maj. James N. Robey to head the county's 295-member Police Department.Robey, 50, has been acting police chief since Frederick W. Chaney left earlier this month after Ecker asked for his resignation.Robey joined the department in 1966 and moved up the ranks. He was promoted to police officer first class in 1970, corporal in 1972, sergeant in 1973, lieutenant in 1977, captain in 1980 and major in 1981.Robey, chosen from 30 applicants, lives in Ellicott City, is married and has two children.