Incident

Residents in a racially diverse North Laurel neighborhood woke up yesterday morning to find that tires on at least two cars had been slashed and a slightly burned 3-foot-tall wooden cross planted in front of one vehicle. Howard County police said they were investigating the crime as a hate-bias incident and were trying to determine if any individual or family was targeted. "We're taking this very seriously," said Pfc. David Proulx, a police spokesman. "Our officers have knocked on almost every door in the community.

Will Iberg had been running in the same part of Columbia for most of the two years since he moved there from a small town in Wisconsin. His typical route is a combination of streets and trails off Columbia Road. The 24-year-old financial analyst never gave much thought to safety - until he was attacked in the 5700 block of Columbia Road the night of March 19. "The reason I run there is that it's typically thought of as a safer area in Columbia," Iberg, who now lives in Elkridge, said last week.

What started as a basketball game between neighborhood rivals last night ended in chaos at Woodlawn High, as a fight among fans spilled onto the court during halftime of the contest between Randallstown and Woodlawn.The incident began at about 8: 20 p.m., when a fight between fans broke out in the bleachers. The fight moved onto the court, where more members of the crowd of about 1,200 joined in.Cpl. Owen Watson of the Baltimore County police department, on routine patrol at the game, was the first to intervene, spraying pepper mace into the crowd near center court, causing fans to flee out of the two exits.

A man was stabbed, a female security officer was struck in the head and another woman was arrested last night during an incident at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Cpl. Greg Prioleau, spokesman for the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, said the violence grew out of an argument shortly before 9 p.m. at the car rental turn-around facility behind the light rail station, where rental cars are cleaned after being returned to BWI. Names of the injured people and details of the incident were not immediately available.

Western Maryland College students received fliers this week asking them to be alert after two recent incidents in which a BB or pellet gun was fired in a parking area near a dormitory on the Westminster campus. At least two students received minor injuries in the first shooting, when someone fired at them about 1:15 a.m. Aug. 31 while they were walking behind the Blanche Ward Hall dormitory, according to Westminster police and a college spokesman. "The students had been shot with what we believed to have been a BB gun," said Capt.

Three men were shot and killed in separate incidents in Baltimore yesterday, police reported. A 19-year-old man died of gunshot wounds after a confrontation that started at a downtown dance club turned deadly, police said. Homicide Detective John G. Thanner identified the victim as Jawan A. Jackson and said he was living with his grandmother in Baltimore County. The detective would not further identify the address, saying the investigation was continuing. "He [Jackson] or his friends were involved in an argument at a club at Eutaw and Mulberry streets called the Tunnel," Thanner said.

Towson State University's field hockey team will forfeit its last two games because of a weekend incident that led to a freshman player being taken to a hospital with alcohol poisoning, sources at the school confirmed yesterday.Athletic director Wayne Edwards issued a statement yesterday saying that the team's playing privileges had been suspended for the duration of the season because of a violation of institutional policy.Edwards said he would not specify what the violation was, but that, "It had nothing to do with an NCAA problem," and it did not include head coach Michelle Frates.

A group of parents has petitioned the school superintendent to remove Odenton Elementary School principal Barbara San Gabino, saying she failed to discipline three boys who "mock raped" a girl on the playground.The 350-signature petition to Dr. Larry L. Lorton was triggered by a June 6 incident that was investigated by a school departmentofficial and, because the school is on Fort Meade, by military police. Their report concluded that the students were involved in a game of tag that got out of hand.

Six people were injured -- one critically -- in an early morning burst of gunfire in Southwest Baltimore yesterday. Police said they know of no motive for the attack, which took place on Wilkens Avenue, close to the scene of a shooting incident that led to the death of Officer Kevon M. Gavin last month. In an unrelated incident early yesterday, Maurice Nelson, 23, of the 1900 block of W. Saratoga St., died of multiple wounds after being shot at North Payson and West Preston streets in West Baltimore.

An inmate at the Baltimore City Detention Center was hospitalized yesterday after he was stabbed by other prisoners during a fight -- the latest of several violent incidents at the jail and two of the state's prisons.Inmate Durell Barry was taken to University of Maryland Medical Center with wounds to his chest and lower back, said Barbara Cooper, spokeswoman for the detention center. His condition was not released.Barry was injured during a fight about 9 a.m. in the detention center's courtyard, Cooper said.