Law Enforcement

HERE'S THE SKINNY on racial profiling, the alleged police practice in which members of certain ethnic groups are targeted by law enforcement for no other reason than being a member of that ethnic group.Rank-and-file law enforcers do use racial profiling, the assertions of police chiefs across the country to the contrary notwithstanding. Several officers spoke up in Jeffrey Goldberg's June 20 New York Times Magazine article "What Cops Talk About When They Talk About Race," and their comments were quite revealing.

I am a Baltimore police officer in what is often termed the "hood" in the Eastern District. It is an impoverished, predominantly African-American neighborhood where children often don't have enough to eat or live in apartments where the lights have been turned off. Some are homeless. In communities like ours, tension and distrust often characterize the relationship between law enforcement and residents. It is an unfortunate reality that can contribute to higher crime, unaccountable officers and witnesses afraid to come forward.

Something didn't look right. Maxim Healthcare nurses were showing up at Richard West's house according to one schedule. But Maxim was billing the government according to another. West complained to the state: The company was charging for hundreds of hours of work it never did. Officials blew him off, he said. He alerted Medicaid, the state and federal program that paid for his care. Nothing happened. He told a social worker. She expressed concern, but did nothing. But West, a Vietnam vet with muscular dystrophy, kept pushing and pushing, building a giant, accusatory snowball that landed last week — eight years later — on Maxim's Columbia headquarters.

Maryland's highest court rejected a request to reconsider an April ruling that blocks state law enforcement from collecting DNA samples when a suspect is arrested, court officials said Friday. The decision puts the case on track for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. States and federal courts are split over whether taking a DNA sample before a suspect is convicted violates a person's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Law enforcement agencies announced last month that they would halt the practice for the time being.

Five Maryland police officers died in the line of duty this year, the seventh-highest count among the 50 states, according to a national report released Monday. Nationwide, 160 officers were killed in 2010, as police fatalities jumped 37 percent after two years of declines, according to preliminary figures released Monday by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Four of the Maryland officers died in traffic collisions, which matched a trend: Crashes accounted for almost half of the nationwide increase, according to the memorial fund, which produces an annual survey of police fatalities.

After years of discussion, several changes in public policy course and an election cycle where options were hotly debated — the Carroll County Sheriff's Office officially became the principal provider of law enforcement in Carroll on July 1. The move marks a phasing out of the Resident Trooper Program in Carroll, through which Maryland State Police had been the primary law enforcement agency under a contract with the county. In February of this year, a memorandum of understanding formalizing the move was signed between the Sheriff's Office, the Maryland State Police and the county's Office of Public Safety Support Services.  The agreement increases the responsibilities of the Sheriff's Office, establishes a timetable to increase staffing and provides for a transition of duties.

For 12 years Tyrone Powers worked in law enforcement, a writer trapped in, first, a state trooper's, then a G-man's, body.You have to wonder after reading his autobiography "Eyes To My Soul" if, during all those years, the writer in him was struggling to get out.This is no average autobiography, which is usually heavy on the auto and light on the bio. And Powers is no average writer. When he writes about an FBI agent trying to goad him into a confrontation, Powers puts the reader right in the office.

Retired Maryland State Police Trooper James Emerick was honored recently by Westminster Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution.The group awarded Emerick the Law Enforcement Commendation Medal and Certificate at its annual open house and celebration.Jacob Yingling, chapter vice president, described how Emerick had helped set up a system to help battered spouses and rape victims. Also present for the award were Brig. Gen. John Burk, national trustee of SAR, and William Austin, state president.

The Harford County Sheriff's Office will launch on Sept. 7 its first Citizens' Police Academy, billed as a way to give residents a better understanding of law enforcement practices and to create a base of volunteers for the agency.The free program is patterned after similar academies in Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard counties, and one on the Eastern Shore, said Cpl. Wayne Dougherty, training coordinator for the sheriff."It will help dispel [the public's] misperceptions and myths concerning the roles of law enforcement officers," he said.

Baltimore Police Officer Loretta L. Young has been named officer of the year by the Mid-Atlantic Association of Women in Law Enforcement for her work arresting prostitutes and their customers.Young, a four-year veteran assigned as an undercover officer in the Central District's vice unit, made 120 arrests last year, most of them in prostitution-related offenses, and has a 98 percent conviction rate.Her supervisor, Sgt. Craig Gentile, noted that Young often helps people she has arrested get into drug and counseling programs.

The Harford County State's Attorney's Office held its annual awards ceremony Wednesday for the top law enforcement officers who made outstanding drunk and drugged driving arrests in Harford County during 2011. State's Attorney Joseph Cassilly presented the awards in the ceremonial courtroom in the courthouse. "Our law enforcement officers are the best in their efforts to maintain safety on the roads in our county," Cassilly said. "They are responsible for saving many lives and sparing families the devastation caused by impaired drivers.

The Aberdeen Room always enjoys getting assistance with extensive record keeping by donors who have been very active in civic affairs in the Aberdeen area. At times we receive help from those who have worked for city government and are very knowledgeable about their work. We were very fortunate to have a visit by retired First Sgt. James Testerman from the Aberdeen Police Department. He brought with him, as a donation, a binder containing pictures and information about the Aberdeen Police Department, from which he had retired after 39 years and 28 days.

I applaud Sen. Ben Cardin's efforts to end racial profiling: Nothing is more divisive than to bring an "us against them" mentality into law enforcement ("Candidates make final push before Tuesday," April 2). What could be more demoralizing and dehumanizing than being judged by the color of your skin or the clothes you wear? Racial profiling, by definition, is incompatible with the guarantee of equal protection under the law contained in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Yet, many of the same people who claim to be strict constructionists with regard to the Constitution are in favor of denigrating one of its most basic tenets.

The case before the Maryland Court of Appeals is straightforward. Detectives in Montgomery County got a warrant to intercept cell phone calls of a suspected drug dealer. They caught him in the act and made an arrest, finding marijuana in his suitcase. A jury convicted the man and he was sentenced to five years in prison. But he argued that the cops exceeded their authority. The telephone conversation the cops picked up was placed in Virginia, and was made to another man in another state.

Maryland authorities have stopped collecting DNA samples from suspects arrested on violent crime and burglary charges after the state's highest court ruled the crime-fighting tool that has helped solve dozens of cold cases unconstitutional. On Friday, officials from law enforcement agencies across the state said they were acting on advice from Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler to stop the practice, pending a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gansler has not said whether he intends to appeal the Court of Appeals decision.

Police around Maryland said Wednesday that they would continue to collect DNA samples when suspects are arrested for violent crimes and burglaries, despite a recent ruling by the state's top court limiting the practice. Several law enforcement agencies, including the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, were awaiting a decision on whether the state will appeal before they make changes. Gov. Martin O'Malley, Baltimore's mayor and a chorus of state and local officials called for an appeal of what they see as a crucial tool that has linked suspects to other, unsolved crimes.

It was the mid-1970s and Allan Bakke had filed suit against the University of California's Davis Medical School for admitting a black applicant with lower test scores while rejecting him. The case ignited a controversy and spawned the phrase "reverse discrimination." It also sparked the interest of a young Rodney Stem, who was entering graduate school at Towson State University and wondering what his major should be.His choice was American minority relations. While studying that, he was allowed to take a third of the curriculum at the historically black Morgan State University, where his course work included black and women's studies.

WASHINGTON -- With the doomsday clock rapidly ticking down toward midnight New Year's Eve, the nation's angriest, most fanatic, most rage-filled government haters are primed and ready for action.John Trochmann, the gray-bearded leader of the Militia of Montana, foresees terrorist attacks around the country if computers fail and utilities go dark.Ted Gunderson, former head of the FBI office in Los Angeles and one of the country's leading far-right figures, predicts fire and chaos.Law enforcement wants to know whether they are all bluff and bluster.

The investigation of a Baltimore homicide detective, accused of conducting an unauthorized search at an apartment while looking for his missing teenage daughter, has broadened as authorities seek to determine whether other law enforcement resources were used to aid the search. According to law enforcement sources, city investigators are trying to determine whether officers improperly used phone-tracking technology to help find Detective Daniel T. Nicholson IV's 15-year-old daughter, who ran away from home Friday.

A Baltimore Police Department homicide detective has been suspended amid allegations that he used his badge while off-duty to force his way into homes and search for his daughter who had run away, according to law enforcement authorities and sources. The detective, Daniel Thomas Nicholson IV, had been the lead investigator on the case of Phylicia Barnes, a teenager from North Carolina who went missing in Baltimore. The search for her, which led to her body being found in northern Maryland, became a national story.