Law Enforcement

Perception and reality often don't match, especially when it comes to crime. It's been the case for many years, but Capt. Keith Warner of the Harford County Sheriff's Office reiterated it last week when he addressed a crowd gathered for the regular meeting of the Jarrettsville/Norrisville Community Council: living in a rural area doesn't mean living away from crime. Sure, people talk about the good old days when no one had to lock doors on houses or cars. Maybe things were better in that regard back during some historic golden age known as the Good Old Days.

When reporters asked Baltimore police and state agencies where the guns used in city crimes came from, no one could provide specific information. "I can tell you that the vast majority, 95 percent plus, are committed with illegal guns," Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. But he didn't use data to support that widely held assumption. Local law enforcement agencies don't have that information because of a federal blockage of gun tracing data. Police also can't reveal what gun tracing data they do have because a federal law passed a decade ago shields most firearm tracking information from the public.

Behind the counter at a convenience store in Princess Anne, Elvira Orellana worked 72 hours a week, making sandwiches, cleaning the kitchen and ordering the ingredients to prepare oxtail, curry chicken and cheese steaks. Her employer paid her $648 a week — $324 less than she was owed under laws that require that workers earn time and a half for clocking more than 40 hours a week. When she complained, Orellana said, her boss threatened to cut her wages and then fired her. Orellana's case, which she won in federal court, illustrates a problem that historically has been more pronounced in the wake of recessions.

Editor: It was with a heavy heart and a terrible sense of sorrow that I, like many of you, watched the tragic events and unfathomable loss of life in Sandy Hook on Dec. 14, 2012, and questioned how such acts of unprovoked violence can be averted. As the father of two daughters who attend Harford County Public Schools and partake in all of the wonderful things Harford County has to offer, I often worry about their safety. As a career law enforcement officer, I, like other current and former members of the law enforcement community, cannot help but to seek data on this event and others in an attempt to arrive at an answer.

Sitting around a broad table in a nondescript office in Reisterstown last week, more than a dozen mental health advocates, medical professionals and law enforcement officials stared tensely at one another. Nearly a month after the state-created task force issued a report outlining its findings on psychiatric patients' access to firearms, several members were questioning a key recommendation - that mental health professionals should be required to report to law enforcement all patients who threaten suicide.

A Baltimore student's tweet raised red flags 3,000 miles away this week, spurring a local investigation into a possible threat to a city high school, city police confirmed Thursday. Anthony Guglielmi, spokesman for the city's police department, said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police alerted the department Wednesday to the Twitter post, which he described as "a threat indicating an individual was threatening to do harm" at Forest Park High School. Officials did not release details about the nature of the threat.

In an attempt to keep one of his signature initiatives alive, Gov. Martin O'Malley wants state lawmakers to reauthorize police to collect DNA samples from crime suspects before the current statute expires later this year. The release of the Democratic governor's legislative agenda comes about a month before the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on whether the state's 2008 law is constitutional or a violation of a suspect's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

It's hard to believe that Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Sunpaper's editorial writers ("O'Malley takes a stand," Jan. 13) are so naive that they really think that another law to banish this or that inanimate object ("assault" rifle) or licensing handgun purchasers/owners is going to keep guns out of the hands of those with intent to use them criminally. Every last one of us knows that the majority of guns used by criminals are purchased out of the trunk of a car, the back room of a bar or in an apartment in a public housing project.

An interesting detail emerged after a gray Chevy Cobalt hit two Baltimore police officers Wednesday and led dozens of patrol cars and a police helicopter on a chase: the state license plates affixed to the car started with "FPD" and carried a law-enforcement style, star-shaped insignia. Baltimore police said the car was driven by Alycia Marie Hoffman, 25, a Bel Air woman with a lengthy arrest record, according to court records. She has no known law enforcement background and did not own the car. Released through the Fraternal Order of Police Maryland State Lodge, the plates were issued to a retired Harford County deputy sheriff who owns the car, Maryland FOP president Rodney Bartlett said.

A state task force studying gun access laws for people with mental illnesses has proposed authorizing police to seize firearms from individuals deemed a credible threat to themselves or others. Such seizures, the panel said Wednesday, would take place after law enforcement "substantiated" reports from mental health providers, social workers and other professionals. The proposal is among nine recommendations by a task force convened months before December's mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school that sparked a nationwide debate on gun control and access to mental health services.