Local Police

MONTEREY, CALIF. -- At first glance, recent developments in Northern Ireland offer signs of hope for mending Iraq. But the deepening peace in Belfast has taken four decades to craft, a sobering thought for those who want to see analogs with Baghdad. The lessons that can be drawn from Britain's longest-ever military occupation are many, but the element of time is the most brutal. The warring parties were all Christians, spoke the same language, were racially indistinguishable, and were all part of the same great Western "civilization."

WASHINGTON -- For five years, the National Rifle Association and its allies have successfully lobbied Congress to limit the ability of local police to access federal gun trace data. Now, by moving to remove those limits and increase the ability of local officers to track so-called crime guns, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is venturing into what is rapidly emerging as the latest battlefield in the war over gun rights. A provision first approved in 2003, when Republicans controlled Congress, sets tight controls on how the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives may share its gun data with local police departments.

TIJUANA, Mexico -- Disarmed municipal police patrolled alongside armed state police Friday, a sight that brought some comfort to many in this border city, where municipal police are often equated with corruption and drug-fueled violence. Municipal officers, their holsters empty, directed traffic and made the rounds a day after stopping work in response to being stripped of their weapons by the Mexican military. The army operation in Tijuana and a similar incursion in the southern state of Michoacan, some analysts say, have been a political boon to President Felipe Calderon, who recently took office, enabling him to project an image of strength and decisiveness.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Shiite militia fighters clashed with police yesterday in Samawa, a provincial capital in southern Iraq, transforming it into a lawless battleground and exposing rifts that increasingly divide Iraq's Shiite majority. Nine people, including four police officers, have died in the violence gripping parts of Samawa since Friday, police said. Yesterday, police, backed by Shiite tribal leaders, called in Iraqi army soldiers from nearby Diwaniya to help battle the militia. They closed entrances to the city, which is about 120 miles south of Baghdad, imposed a curfew and closed the schools as they traded fire.

ISSUE: Last week, Anne Arundel County police took in 103 boxes of cold and allergy pills from three Indiana young people who told police they bought them here with the intention of reselling them at a profit to dealers in their home state who cook methamphetamine, or meth. Police released the three after consulting with the state's attorney's office and learning that no Maryland laws had been broken. A new federal law preventing bulk purchases of cold medications goes into effect this week, but local police and prosecutors said they want a state law so cases like this can be pursued without involving federal agents.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. commanders are assigning more than 2,000 Army military police advisers to work side by side with Iraq police officers in one of the most extensive efforts yet to team Americans with uniformed Iraqis. The effort, a mission that entails significant new security risks for U.S. forces, is just starting in Baghdad. It will expand to local stations and provincial and district headquarters in all 18 provinces by the end of the month. It greatly increases the size and scope of the current field training by 500 international civilian police advisers and some military police units, U.S. military officials say. About 80,000 local police officers across Iraq are certified as trained and equipped, more than halfway toward the goal of 135,000 by early 2007.

MOSCOW -- Authorities in southern Russia were warned of a possible attack on a school a day before 1,128 hostages were seized at a school in Beslan but took no preventive measures even though the attackers were camped near a road and made no attempt to hide, a parliament commission reported yesterday. The panel accused local police of "neglect and carelessness" in failing to prevent the attack, but the findings drew immediate criticism from survivors of the siege because they absolved senior federal officials and agencies from responsibility for the worst terrorist attack in Russian history.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes from state and local police and sheriff's reports in Carroll County. Eldersburg Vandalism -- A Howard County school bus contractor reported that three school buses had been driven into a concrete wall between Sept. 30 and Oct. 3, causing several thousand dollars in damage to the vehicles, according to the Carroll County sheriff's office. The buses were parked behind a vacant business on Lee Lane at Route 32. Finksburg area Theft -- A resident of the 2600 block of Cedarhurst Road told state police a $225 deer stand was taken between Sept.

Baltimore County officials and at least one community group in Anne Arundel County say they are planning to continue lobbying the state to restore money for paying local police officers to patrol light rail stops. The state funding, which had been in place for 11 years, ended with the 2005 fiscal year June 30, and Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. said he plans to bring up the issue during a meeting with Deputy Transportation Secretary James F. Ports Jr. today. Smith said he has also asked Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. for a meeting to discuss various transportation issues, including the light rail funding.