I Was Scared

"I was scared. I just figured I'm too old to wait. ... It was not an impulsive thing. It was the right thing for us to do." Dick Vermeil, Chiefs coach who recently turned 69, on going for the game-winning touchdown with five seconds remaining from the Oakland 1 instead of attempting a game-tying field goal

Baltimore Officer Gahiji Tshamba, on trial for murder, told a packed courtroom Wednesday that he feared for his life when he shot a Marine veteran a dozen times outside a Mount Vernon nightclub. "I was scared, I was in fear," Tshamba, 37, said from the witness stand in response to his lawyer's questions. "This man was chasing me. " It was the first time he has spoken publicly about the incident, which began when Tyrone Brown groped a woman's buttocks after a night of drinking.

Firefighter Charles J. Campbell was on a rescue attempt in the 1300 block of Harlem Ave. in West Baltimore early yesterday when someone leaned out of a smoke-filled third-floor window and handed him something as he stood on an aerial ladder.Thick gray smoke escaped the window and forced tears in Mr. Campbell's eyes. He wasn't sure what the person had handed him at first. When his eyes cleared, he realized that the blur was an infant who had been handed to him by a woman."It was the mother and she handed me her baby who wasn't breathing.

Senior Keirah Hicks started her high school basketball career at Southside but transferred after her sophomore year to Western, looking for stronger academic and athletic challenges. She played in the state finals with Southside as a freshman, but when coach Dafne Lee-Blakney left, Hicks departed too. With the No. 2 Doves, she is one of the better players in a strong backcourt. The 5-foot-6 guard averages 11.1 points as well as 2.7 assists and two steals. Hicks wants to play in college and is considering her options.

A fire on the ninth floor of a high-rise Bolton Hill apartment building was quickly extinguished last night by Baltimore firefighters, who evacuated several floors of the building. Five people were taken to area hospitals for smoke inhalation and minor injuries, firefighters said. The two-alarm fire was in the 12-story Memorial Apartments at 301 McMechen St., which is inhabited mainly by seniors. The fire broke out about 8:30 p.m. and was out in an hour. Dozens of elderly residents were forced to walk down flights of stairs, some using canes and walkers.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- The Army sergeant who risked his life to rescue Bob Dole from a World War II battlefield said yesterday that he only did it because he didn't want his men to "know I was scared."E. Frank Carafa, 75, who Dole brought with him to his debate with President Clinton last night, tearfully recounted his tale of reluctant heroism in an interview aboard Dole's campaign plane."I heard he was hurt, calling for help and calling my name," Carafa said of Lt. Dole, whose squad had come under rifle and mortar fire in Italy in 1945.

After making a stick save on the shot, Joe Kirmser charges out of the goal, bouncing off a few opposing players until releasing a pin-point clearing pass to start a Duke fast break.The crowd roars, the sidelines erupt and Kirmser's parents cringe.Kirmser, a strong candidate for Goalkeeper of the Year, has had an injury-hampered lacrosse career and is currently playing with a large brace on his left knee, since his anterior cruciate ligament is completely torn.Regardless, the goalie, whose No. 3 Duke team will play No. 7 Maryland in the ACC tournament tonight, refuses to play conservatively.

Before dawn, police crept from door to door, rousing people from their sleep and ordering them out of their homes.The decree sent some of the 175 residents police evacuated into the frigid Thursday morning air clad in nightgowns or pajamas.Nearby, police said, a 47-year-old woman held her paraplegic boyfriend hostage and repeatedly fired a .22-caliber rifle. Two of the bullets tore through the wall of an Aberdeen duplex and landed in an adjoining house on Defense Drive.More than eight hours after it began, the standoff ended about 1 p.m., when police stormed the house and captured Mary Ann Garrison, who allegedly had held 59-year-old Edward Sawyers hostage in his home about four hours before releasing him.Ms.

Senior Keirah Hicks started her high school basketball career at Southside but transferred after her sophomore year to Western, looking for stronger academic and athletic challenges. She played in the state finals with Southside as a freshman, but when coach Dafne Lee-Blakney left, Hicks departed too. With the No. 2 Doves, she is one of the better players in a strong backcourt. The 5-foot-6 guard averages 11.1 points as well as 2.7 assists and two steals. Hicks wants to play in college and is considering her options.

In the trial of a Baltimore police officer yesterday on charges of raping a woman while searching her home for a suspect, TC condom wrapper emerged as a key piece of physical evidence -- for both sides.The prosecution suggested that Officer George S. Cannida III's fingerprint on the wrapper supports the woman's claim that he wore a condom and raped her.The defense, on the other hand, suggested the wrapper backs up the officer's claim that he was searching for the woman's boyfriend, who was wanted for auto theft.

Carl M. Pickett, a Pearl Harbor survivor who later became vice president of Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co., died Monday of pneumonia at Anne Arundel Medical Center. The Annapolis resident was 87. On Dec. 7, 1941, Mr. Pickett was aboard the destroyer USS Ralph S. Talbot moored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. "When the attack started, I opened the hatch and saw a [Japanese] Zero coming right toward me," Mr. Pickett wrote in response to a Midwestern high school student who had asked him about his memories of the attack.

"I was scared. I just figured I'm too old to wait. ... It was not an impulsive thing. It was the right thing for us to do." Dick Vermeil, Chiefs coach who recently turned 69, on going for the game-winning touchdown with five seconds remaining from the Oakland 1 instead of attempting a game-tying field goal

A fire on the ninth floor of a high-rise Bolton Hill apartment building was quickly extinguished last night by Baltimore firefighters, who evacuated several floors of the building. Five people were taken to area hospitals for smoke inhalation and minor injuries, firefighters said. The two-alarm fire was in the 12-story Memorial Apartments at 301 McMechen St., which is inhabited mainly by seniors. The fire broke out about 8:30 p.m. and was out in an hour. Dozens of elderly residents were forced to walk down flights of stairs, some using canes and walkers.

In a surprising courtroom turn, a woman who lived with Rodney Maurice Stanley testified yesterday that Stanley forced her to tell police that he acted in self-defense in a fight that ended with the death of Thomas Jefferson Harding. Stanley is on trial in Howard County Circuit Court, charged in Harding's death. A jury was considering his fate last night. The woman, Marcia Minor, was living with Stanley in Columbia at the time of Harding's death in August 2000. In testimony yesterday, Stanley vehemently denied that he had threatened Minor and reiterated his assertion that he fought Harding only in self-defense.

A former Baltimore police officer testified yesterday that he feared he was going to be killed during a struggle in 1998 with Derek Robert McIntosh that resulted in McIntosh's fatal shooting. Shane C. Stufft, 29, said yesterday during a civil trial sought by McIntosh's family that he thought McIntosh was reaching for his service gun in the incident Jan. 13, 1998. Stufft was attempting to arrest McIntosh for an alleged narcotics violation. At the time of the shooting, Stufft was working undercover in a special police squad that focused on street-level drug sales.

Hair cut high and tight along with a noticeably looser demeanor, Rocky Coppinger looks like a guy who has had a weight lifted from his shoulders.And his hips.And his gut.And just about any other place that sagged under the poundage of a ruinous 1997 season.Rocky Coppinger, the Orioles' 10-game rookie winner in 1996, missed the Baltimore Express last season. Actually, he threw himself off the train as a jumble of raw rotator cuff, painful right elbow and a fractured personal life. One season after living large as the Orioles' out-of-nowhere No. 4 starter, Coppinger became too large.

An interracial group of about 350 people shouted down a vastly outnumbered bus load of Ku Klux Klan members at a rally outside the State House in Annapolis yesterday while 500 more anti-Klan protesters staged a counterdemonstration at a church a few blocks away.A cascade of boos and jeers rained on Klan speakers, drowning out most of them during the tense, hourlong event. At the end, police whisked the Klansmen, some in white robes and hoods, others in fatigues, to their bus as protesters threw eggs and other objects.

It was all a blur -- a thick, gray blur.Firefighter Charles J. Campbell was on a rescue attempt in the 1300 block of Harlem Avenue in West Baltimore early yesterday when someone leaned out of a smoke-filled third-floor window and handed him something as he stood on an aerial ladder.Thick gray smoke escaped the window and forced tears in Mr. Campbell's eyes. He wasn't sure what the person had handed him at first. When his eyes cleared, he realized that the blur was an infant who had been handed to him by a woman.

They are different now, their lives forever changed, yet they remain very much the same. Scott Hamilton is still the playful imp, Ekaterina Gordeeva the shy princess. They were once part of the same world. Now, they are members of the same extended family.When they appear tomorrow at Baltimore Arena in the first of a 57-city Discover Stars On Ice tour, Hamilton and Gordeeva will be part of a cast that also includes fellow Olympic gold medalists Kristi Yamaguchi and Katarina Witt.That they are performing at all is a testimony to their strength, drawn from each other, from within as well as from those around them, including their fans.

After making a stick save on the shot, Joe Kirmser charges out of the goal, bouncing off a few opposing players until releasing a pin-point clearing pass to start a Duke fast break.The crowd roars, the sidelines erupt and Kirmser's parents cringe.Kirmser, a strong candidate for Goalkeeper of the Year, has had an injury-hampered lacrosse career and is currently playing with a large brace on his left knee, since his anterior cruciate ligament is completely torn.Regardless, the goalie, whose No. 3 Duke team will play No. 7 Maryland in the ACC tournament tonight, refuses to play conservatively.