Kidnapping

Three members of the Black Guerilla Family gang were sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for the 2009 robbery, kidnapping and murder of Qonta Waddell, a convicted drug dealer who was hogtied and removed, screaming, from his mother's home in Southwest Baltimore as she watched. Peter "Petey" Miller, Derrell "Snags" Johnson and William "Jim Dog" Rhodes were each convicted of conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, robbery and weapons crimes. Miller, 20, was sentenced to life plus 60 years.

A teenage girl was kidnapped by four men in Woodlawn, driven to an unfamiliar location and sexually assaulted on Nov. 1, police said. At about 3 p.m. that day, the 15-year-old was walking in the 1800 block of Woodlawn Drive when men in a teal, four-door sedan approached, according to a statement Wednesday from the Baltimore County Police Department. Two of the men were wearing ski masks, police said. One of the unmasked men began talking to the victim, displayed a handgun and then forced her into the car, according to police.

Federal authorities announced Thursday a racketeering indictment charging 35 alleged Bloods gang members with murder, kidnapping and other crimes from Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore — a move they said had "dismantled" the gang. Authorities say cells of the South Side Brims coordinated gang activity across the state and region, and court documents offer a tutorial on how modern criminal organizations operate, including posting photos and messages on Facebook, and uploading initiation videos on YouTube.

In my parallel universe - the one that still sustains me in hope, the one where fear is rarely a thought - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over and done, and the young man from Missouri who sat next to me on a plane would be more charitable about his parents, whom he called "hippies," because they oppose America's two current wars. He enlisted in the army while he was in college, and now he's on his way to Afghanistan, as soon as he finishes 10 days of training at Fort Meade.

A 25-year-old man charged in North Carolina with kidnapping and attempted rape who escaped Thursday afternoon from a cell in Annapolis District Court was arrested shortly before midnight, county police said. Officers with the Anne Arundel County police, Annapolis police, Maryland State police, and the county sheriff's office were involved in the search for Bonrick Lee Barksdale since his escape about noon, said Anne Arundel police Lt. Francis Tewey. Barksdale was apprehended before midnight near the intersection of Dewey Drive and Sumner Road in the Admiral Heights community, Tewey said in an email.

Yipe -- here's a disturbing story. Dog-nappings are up in a big way in 2011... more than 30 percent! According to this report in the Chicago Sun-Times, the American Kennel Club, which tracks dog kidnappings, is saying the crime has surged 32 percent this year. The organization says 224 animals have been nabbed already in 2011, compared with just 150 last year, the paper reports. Money -- not surprisingly -- seems to be the motivation. (No kidnappers apparently did it out of a deep-rooted desire to scoop poop in the park, pick up drool-soaked balls or to get help polishing off a box of Milk Bones.

A doctor's appointment brought Helen Jones out of her Allendale house earlier than usual Tuesday morning. While she waited on the porch for her ride, a man came out of a house across the street, got into a green car and drove away. "Then a little boy came out and looked around," Jones said. "I said, 'Wait a minute. I wonder if it was that little boy,' " she said, referring to 8-year-old Darrick Charles Brown, who was abducted Monday night, just a few blocks from Jones' house. A man in the distance scared the little boy back into the house, Jones said, but he came back out a short time later, just after 7 a.m., and began walking toward her. "When I saw the little boy, and I saw the green car, I said 'Wait a minute,'" said Jones, who realized that the little boy approaching was the one who had been kidnapped.

A Harford County judge sentenced a 22-year-old Edgewood man to 55 years in prison Tuesday for kidnapping and carjacking. Joshua Prince Freeman was convicted by a jury in the October 2009 kidnapping of Kara Smithson, 21, of Pylesville. Freeman and three accomplices, including a female juvenile who was known to the victim, lured Smithson to a location in the southern end of the county, according to Joseph I. Cassilly, Harford County State's Attorney. When Smithson met the group, she was carjacked, kidnapped and repeatedly struck and assaulted, while being driven around the Joppa area.

While decrying their actions Tuesday as "cowboy tactics," a Baltimore circuit judge acquitted the last of three city police officers who had been charged with kidnapping and misconduct for picking up two West Baltimore teens and stranding them far from their homes. Officer Gregory Hellen, 31, whose name was rarely mentioned during two weeks of testimony, was spared a misconduct conviction only because the case had essentially been mischarged, Judge Timothy J. Doory told him. "You should be ashamed of your participation in what was done that night," Doory said in handing down his decision.

A city jury found two city police officers guilty of misconduct Monday but cleared them of kidnapping charges in the first case tried by Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein. After nearly two weeks of testimony, jurors took about three hours to reach the verdict. Detectives Tyrone S. Francis and Milton Smith III were convicted of two counts each of misconduct — a misdemeanor — for picking up two 15-year-olds from West Baltimore in May 2009 and leaving them stranded far from their homes.