Howard County Sheriff

Twenty-seven years to the day after a Howard County sheriff accepted the first set of keys to the first official sheriff's car, Howard Sheriff Charles M. Cave sat in a near-exact replica yesterday and turned the key. "Let's fire this thing up," Cave said, as the car, a powder blue 1974 Dodge Coronet purred and its owners, sheriff's employees Deputy Terry Chaney and security officer William Gamber Sr., watched. It took less than five minutes yesterday to unveil what took the two men nearly two years to conceive and create - a copy of the first car assigned to a county sheriff.

The Howard County Sheriff's Office will take extra security measures for the capital murder trial this week of Brandon T. Morris, who attempted to flee a Howard County courtroom in May during jury-selection proceedings. His trial is scheduled to begin tomorrow in Howard County Circuit Court. Morris, 22, of Baltimore is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of corrections officer Jeffery A. Wroten in January 2006 during an attempted escape from Washington County Hospital in Hagerstown, where Morris had been taken for treatment of self-inflicted wounds.

Howard County Deputy Sheriff Rodney Eugene Stem is great with kids, sympathetic to people in trouble, and can take care of himself in dangerous situations.Now he's Maryland Deputy Sheriff of the Year.A 17-year veteran of the Howard County Sheriff's Office, Sergeant Stem will be honored at the Maryland Sheriffs' Association Conference in Ocean City Sept. 11.He and Officer Bruce Lohr of the Howard County Police department made headlines last October when they rescued one of the most decorated troopers in the state police force from a pair of drug suspects on Interstate 95 near Havre de Grace.

A 10-year search for a Maryland fugitive ended in Arizona after a Howard County sheriff's investigator checking computer databases noticed that the man had recently obtained a driver's license there. Gilbert Blackman, 57, was arrested by Phoenix police Thursday, bringing to a close the longest-running fugitive search being conducted by the Howard County Sheriff's Office, Sgt. Charles Gable said yesterday. Blackman, formerly of the 6900 block of Knighthood Lane in Columbia, had been wanted in Maryland since 1996, when he disappeared after being charged with violating the terms of his probation.

A 34-year-old Baltimore man is accused of breaking into an Ellicott City home Thursday and then leading a Howard County sheriff's deputy on a chase.About 1 p.m. Thursday, police said, someone spotted a suspicious car in the driveway of the home, called authorities and scared off the man, who had entered the home through a back window.The man drove away and was chased by the sheriff's deputy, police said. He was arrested near Chatham Mall on Baltimore National Pike.Charged with first-degree burglary, destruction of property and several traffic violations is Roy Edward Young of the 100 block of Solar Circle.

A police lieutenant serving on the Howard County sheriff's transition team is calling for an investigation to determine if training records for deputies were falsified in the past and then destroyed as part of a cover-up.In a report to Sheriff Michael A. Chiuchiolo, Lt. Angus J. Park said he had heard allegations that deputies might have been given credit for training they had not received and scores for tests they had not taken.Lieutenant Park also noted that all training records before 1987 were missing and that those kept between 1987 and 1989 were in "poor" shape, which he said would hamper any investigation.

A Howard County Sheriff's Office sergeant who heads the department's criminal section has been stripped of his police powers and reassigned to administrative duties in the wake of a Baltimore County indictment charging him with insurance fraud. A Baltimore County grand jury returned the indictment, which includes two felony charges - theft over $500 and insurance fraud - against Sgt. Bryan K. Waser, 28, of Mount Airy, on Jan. 30. Waser, who also serves as Howard's sheriff's office spokesman, turned himself in at the North Point Precinct on Friday and was released on his own recognizance.

Two Howard County sheriff's deputies received nearly $54,000 in combined salary during their nine-month suspension for mimicry of Nazi behavior.A trial board on Monday recommended that Maj. Donald L. Pruitt and his 39-year-old twin, Sgt. Dennis L. Pruitt, be demoted one rank, fined $200 apiece and ordered to receive counseling.But they were suspended with pay last April and have continued to receive their salaries. Donald Pruitt has collected paychecks for $30,587 since the suspension while Dennis Pruitt has been paid $23,290.

Two top Howard County sheriff's deputies who were fired because they engaged in Nazi mimicry on the job for years are challenging their dismissal on grounds that their First Amendment right to free speech was violated.Maj. Donald Pruitt and Sgt. Dennis Pruitt Jr., 40-year-old twins, also argue in a lawsuit challenging their Feb. 6 firing that they were denied equal protection of the law guaranteed under the 14th Amendment.The brothers maintain that "many other members of the Howard County Sheriff's Department who engaged in the same actions as the Pruitts were not charged or punished for their actions."

For the second time, a Maryland court has seen through the flimsy arguments of two Howard County sheriff's deputies -- formerly the second- and third-ranking officers in their department -- who claimed their First Amendment rights were denied when they were fired for repeatedly making Nazi gestures on the job.Two years ago in Anne Arundel Circuit Court, Howard County Sheriff Michael Chiuchiolo was found not to have overstepped his bounds in dismissing twin...

After speaking with voters in his effort to unseat incumbent Howard County Sheriff Chuck Cave, county police union President Jim Fitzgerald is convinced that about the only people who know what sheriff's deputies do in this county are the prisoners whom deputies ferry to court from the county jail. Fitzgerald's message is that residents need a more aggressive sheriff, one who will secure more personnel, resources and media attention for the 69-person agency and "get red in face" if there's resistance.

Twenty-seven years to the day after a Howard County sheriff accepted the first set of keys to the first official sheriff's car, Howard Sheriff Charles M. Cave sat in a near-exact replica yesterday and turned the key. "Let's fire this thing up," Cave said, as the car, a powder blue 1974 Dodge Coronet purred and its owners, sheriff's employees Deputy Terry Chaney and security officer William Gamber Sr., watched. It took less than five minutes yesterday to unveil what took the two men nearly two years to conceive and create - a copy of the first car assigned to a county sheriff.

A Howard County Sheriff's Office sergeant who heads the department's criminal section has been stripped of his police powers and reassigned to administrative duties in the wake of a Baltimore County indictment charging him with insurance fraud. A Baltimore County grand jury returned the indictment, which includes two felony charges -- theft over $500 and insurance fraud -- against Sgt. Bryan K. Waser, 28, of Mount Airy, on Jan. 30. Waser, who also serves as Howard's sheriff's office spokesman, turned himself in at the North Point precinct Friday and was released on his own recognizance.

A Howard County Sheriff's Office sergeant who heads the department's criminal section has been stripped of his police powers and reassigned to administrative duties in the wake of a Baltimore County indictment charging him with insurance fraud. A Baltimore County grand jury returned the indictment, which includes two felony charges - theft over $500 and insurance fraud - against Sgt. Bryan K. Waser, 28, of Mount Airy, on Jan. 30. Waser, who also serves as Howard's sheriff's office spokesman, turned himself in at the North Point Precinct on Friday and was released on his own recognizance.

As Maryland tries to keep handguns from people accused of domestic violence, the major obstacle is poor recordkeeping by sheriffs' offices, whose workers are ill-equipped to handle the staggering volume of files.Sheriffs place a low priority on logging domestic violence restraining orders -- often entering them incorrectly or not at all -- into the state police database that blocks the sale of a handgun to a person accused of domestic abuse, according to court documents and interviews with law enforcement officials.

A 34-year-old Baltimore man is accused of breaking into an Ellicott City home Thursday and then leading a Howard County sheriff's deputy on a chase.About 1 p.m. Thursday, police said, someone spotted a suspicious car in the driveway of the home, called authorities and scared off the man, who had entered the home through a back window.The man drove away and was chased by the sheriff's deputy, police said. He was arrested near Chatham Mall on Baltimore National Pike.Charged with first-degree burglary, destruction of property and several traffic violations is Roy Edward Young of the 100 block of Solar Circle.

A 10-year search for a Maryland fugitive ended in Arizona after a Howard County sheriff's investigator checking computer databases noticed that the man had recently obtained a driver's license there. Gilbert Blackman, 57, was arrested by Phoenix police Thursday, bringing to a close the longest-running fugitive search being conducted by the Howard County Sheriff's Office, Sgt. Charles Gable said yesterday. Blackman, formerly of the 6900 block of Knighthood Lane in Columbia, had been wanted in Maryland since 1996, when he disappeared after being charged with violating the terms of his probation.

At Smith Farm, our oft-maligned system workedCarping at our elected officials is always good sport. Sometimes, it may even become a podium-thumping exercise where the rules of engagement are foggy and private agendas veer wildly off the topic, but mostly it is hung on the sincere complaint of a single gored ox or the perceived slight.The seasoned administrator deftly handles this stuff in a manner that seeks to calm and placate the speaker showing respect for the opinion and discomfort of the aggrieved and moving the laborious proceedings along after taking notes for further study.

One effect of the rise in youth crime in Howard County? More teen-agers are in trouble than local juvenile authorities feel they can effectively handle.So today, the Howard County Sheriff's Office begins to take over management of many teen-agers sentenced to perform community service after being charged with crimes. Overseeing these sentences had been the responsibility of Howard's Department of Juvenile Justice.Though the overall crime rate in this suburban county remains relatively low, the number of teen-agers referred to juvenile authorities has almost doubled in the past four years.