Intake Center

State officials have resolved a two-year dispute over unpaid bills for construction of its Central Booking and Intake Center in Baltimore and agreed to pay a $3.7 million settlement.The general contractor, Clark Construction Inc. of Bethesda, and several subcontractors will split the money. They had sought about $9 million in bills they claimed the state failed to pay for their work on the center, which opened in 1995."We are satisfied that the case has been settled, and hopefully Clark feels the same way," said William A. Kahn, an assistant attorney general.

A man arrested for attempted theft was mistakenly released from custody, the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said Monday. Nathan Cockrell, who's charged with attempted theft of less than $100, was set free from the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center about 7 a.m. Friday, officials said. City and state police were notified. "He has not returned to the facility," a statement from authorities said. tricia.bishop@baltimoresun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

State prison officials continued yesterday to debate whether they should add medical staff to evaluate inmates coming into the Central Booking and Intake Center, despite a memorandum from the medical director for the prison system expressing concern about health care policies there.In the memorandum, written July 25 and obtained by The Sun, Dr. Newton Kendig wrote to Dr. Anthony Swetz, director of inmate health services for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, that he was particularly concerned about Central Booking, and about the view of top prison officials that there was a "minimal need" for medical services there.

The man who escaped from a Baltimore jail last week has been captured in western Pennsylvania, a state official said. The U.S. Marshals Service took Maury Figueroa, 29, into custody without incident, said Mark A. Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, in a Friday statement. Figueroa escaped from Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center on Nov. 9. He escaped while working on a sanitation detail and climbed a fence in an employee parking lot, officials said.

State prison officials have given a judge and the city solicitor a heavily redacted consultant's report on problems at the state-run Central Booking and Intake Center in Baltimore, making it impossible to determine what, if any, remedies were recommended. The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which runs the booking center, whited-out five of the 10 pages in the report. Officials said the blanked-out portions deal with their "internal decision-making" process for the center, which has been criticized for being crowded and inefficiently managed.

As they scrub away at the stains of grape Kool-Aid, perhaps the inmate workers of Baltimore's Central Booking and Intake Center hear the unlikely voice of Lady Macbeth in their heads -- lamenting truly damnable spots, wondering, "What, will these floors ne'er be clean?"But no matter how much industrial-strength cleaner is faithfully sloshed onto the unforgiving surface, the floors of the booking center that opened seven months ago won't give up their grime."We cannot remove the spots in the normal course of our cleaning routine and protocols," said LaMont W. Flanagan, who as commissioner of pretrial detention and services oversees the booking center at East Madison Street and Fallsway.

Allen Adkins would not be swayed. The Baltimore police officer looked over his fellow officers glued to computer screens in the bowels of the Central Booking and Intake Center, at his partner swigging chocolate milk and praising technology, and made the following pronouncement:"You ain't getting me to change my mind."I'm very anti-computer. The world is too dependent on them. People don't have enough confidence in what's up here," Adkins said, tapping the side of his head.As he spoke, narcotics Detective Michael Caperoon, who has been on the force 16 years, breezed by. A fan of the booking system, he'd been at Central Booking less than an hour.

CORRECTIONS OFFICIALS and Baltimore City police are taking more than the usual pleasure in the newly opened Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center. This edifice overlooking the Jones Falls Expressway is handsome by correctional standards. More important is the technological capability built into the facility.An automated booking system is expected to free between 100 and 150 city police officers for street patrol. When arresting officers arrive with prisoners, the same system will cut down on the time they spend on paper work and processing of the case.

EVEN AS Baltimore tries to streamline its ponderous criminal justice system, the General Assembly's analysts are urging legislators to withhold $1 million from city judges and correctional services. The reason: Their plan to expedite justice is deemed too sketchy. The legislative policy analysts' particular focus is a courtroom at the Central Booking and Intake Center, which has stood underutilized for years because of bureaucratic haggling. It is finally due to start full operation Sept.

For once, there was a hush in jail. Every lost soul's grandmother had come to call, offering escape in its purest form -- a flight of the mind.Mary Carter Smith has been a teller of tales for most of her 78 years, winging audiences to Africa with her words as Maryland's official griot, or storyteller. She does it to plug a hole in her heart left by the murders years ago of her mother and her son -- a hole so big, she is fond of saying, that it has room for "a whole lot of people."Yesterday, Smith brought her stories to the Central Booking and Intake Center in Baltimore, to about 100 women in a depressingly real place of confinement, to celebrate Black History Month.

A 36-year-old man was ordered held without bail Tuesday after being arrested and charged with killing his grandmother inside her Northwest Baltimore home, according to city police and court records. Demond Tyler was charged with first- and second-degree murder and assault in the death of Shirley Tyler, 67, who was found by a family member Saturday morning unconscious inside her home in the 3200 block of Spaulding Ave. in Central Park Heights. Her death had not been previously reported because at the time it was listed as a suspicious death.

An East Baltimore resident died Friday night while being held at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, a state corrections spokesman said. Keith Johnson, 50, was being held on $10,000 bail for drug charges, said the spokesman, Mark Vernarelli. He had seen by medical staff and had returned to a holding cell when he requested to see medical staff again, the spokesman said. Johnson then collapsed when he stepped into the hallway, according to Vernarelli. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital where he was pronounced dead before 8 p.m., the spokesman said.

City police have charged a 42-year-old man in the killing of a woman in East Baltimore last month. Daryl Cloude, of the 1200 block of Ashland Ave., was taken into custody Monday and charged in the killing of Patsy Person, 43, who was found dead July 10 inside her home in the 200 block of N. Belnord Ave. Police said she was suffering from trauma to her head and was pronounced dead on the scene. The relationship between Cloude and Person, if any, was unclear, though Person pressed assault and theft charges against Cloude in May. Court records show Cloude was on probation for an assault conviction in 2008.

Defendant after shackled defendant rises before the judge, who in the space of mere minutes determines that this one will remain in jail to await trial, or that one will get sprung on bail. Despite the variety of charges that landed them here — assault with hot soup or a shard of glass, stalking by Facebook, the garden-variety disorderly conducts and destructions of property — they soon become a nearly undistinguishable line of sleepy, mostly silent men and women whose cases are not so much heard as processed.

A Baltimore police officer suspended without pay since his arrest last year during an alcohol-infused altercation in a police parking lot was arrested again Sunday after police said he punched a woman outside a bar, according to court documents. At least three police officers, including the commander of the Southwestern District, witnessed the latest incident in a lot behind Club Reality on Washington Boulevard. The officer arrested is assigned to that district and was charged with assault and disorderly conduct.

Baltimore authorities were searching for a man who was arrested for attempted murder but escaped from a downtown police building after wriggling free of his plastic handcuffs. Police said Paul Bryan Palmer, 32, was taken into custody on a warrant charging him with attacking a man last month near City Hall. About 1 p.m. Friday, Palmer was to be transported to Central Booking and Intake Center when he complained of a hand injury and was taken back into the lobby of the department's Central District building on Baltimore Street, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

Central Booking and Intake Center in Baltimore is holding about 300 more inmates than it is designed for, officials said yesterday, raising concerns about possible violence. The facility, which has a capacity of 895 inmates, was housing 1,209 yesterday. Most of the extra prisoners are sleeping on the floor in "boats," plastic shells that can hold bedding. Jail officials and prison advocates worry that the extra inmates could lead to logistical problems and violence among inmates. At this time last year, the jail had extra space.

Maryland Public Safety Secretary Mary Ann Saar yesterday named Howard Ray Jr. acting commissioner for the Division of Pretrial Detention and Services. Ray, the former deputy of the division, succeeds William J. Smith, who resigned in August. He will oversee daily operations at the Baltimore City Detention Center and Central Booking and Intake Center.

A 20-year-old Curtis Bay man charged with murder in the death of a man who was pushed into the Inner Harbor in 2008 was ordered held without bail Thursday morning. The decision means Wayne Black will spend the foreseeable future at Central Booking and Intake Center, and comes after his initial bail review hearing had to be postponed when he appeared to go into shock. At that hearing, Black, who police say confessed Tuesday to shoving 22-year-old Ankush Gupta into the water, was slumped over on a bench in Central Booking, then leaned forward out of view as District Judge Nancy Shuger asked him to stand up. "Do you understand me?"

Police reports in Baltimore city and county: Western Baltimore Shooting/arrest: An 18-year-old male was arrested Saturday and charged with the attempted murder of a man, 22, in the 2200 block of N. Fulton Ave. near Liberty Heights Avenue hours earlier. The victim was standing in the block about 9:40 p.m. when he was shot in the right buttock. Police said the victim ran two blocks to a house, where he was found by police and was taken by a city Fire Department ambulance to Sinai Hospital.