Local Police

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes from state and local police and sheriff's reports in Carroll County. Eldersburg Thefts: Six residents of Vincenza Drive reported items stolen from parked vehicles June 2. On June 1, a digital camera was reported missing from an unlocked vehicle in the 1800 block of Vincenza Drive. Finksburg Arrest: Dustin Reed Barton, 18, of the 3200 block of Murray Road, Finksburg, was arrested and charged with the Feb. 15 armed robbery of a woman in a parking lot behind the Finksburg Plaza in the 3000 block of Gamber Road, state police said.

As part of what is described as the largest security effort ever in the nation's capital, officers from local police departments from Seattle to Baltimore are set to go to Washington for the first inauguration since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Baltimore County is sending 52 members of its special-response team. Baltimore City is lending 50 officers, and Howard County is sending 40 from its civil-disturbance unit. Maryland state troopers, along with officers from five other Maryland counties, also are expected to help out in Washington next week.

Some apartment complexes lure new tenants with swimming pools, wall-to-wall carpeting and fitness centers. But the newest amenity at Grand Pointe Apartments in Columbia will be a cop down the hall. For years, Columbia's Village of Oakland Mills has struggled with a reputation for drug activity and crime. Local leaders say that reputation is undeserved and is as hurtful to the community as crime itself. Now one apartment complex near the village center wants to reduce both the perception and occurrence of crime by enticing local police officers with three rent-free apartments.

NAJAF, Iraq - Iraqi security forces staged an unsuccessful raid yesterday to seize rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite Muslim leader blamed by the United States for a surge in violence in this holy city that has claimed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of lives. In their first such move against al-Sadr, members of the Iraqi National Guard and police officers tried to arrest the firebrand leader at his home here in Najaf near the sacred Imam Ali shrine, the base from which he had urged followers to rise up and eject U.S. forces.

A directive issued to some Baltimore police officers appears to order them to meet quotas by making at least two arrests per week - something critics call an example of how city police are pushing too hard to improve their crime statistics. The two-arrests-per-week standard was laid out in a memorandum last month to Southwestern District officers who work the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift. It also establishes weekly minimum enforcement numbers for several other types of police action, including car stops, stop and frisks, curfew violations and parking tickets.

A four-hour standoff at a Jessup home between Howard County police and a 19-year-old man suspected of robbing an armored truck employee at a nearby bank ended peacefully after he came out of the house and was questioned and released. Police did not charge the man, whom they refused to identify. About 10:30 a.m., a Brink's Inc. employee was robbed by a man with a gun in the lobby of Wachovia Bank at 8600 Washington Blvd., police said. An officer with the police dog unit responded immediately to the scene with a trained dog who picked up a scent and tracked it behind the Columbia Junction shopping plaza into deep woods and onto a trail that led to a house about a quarter-mile away.

Most Baltimore police officers rely on city maps to help pinpoint crime spikes and deploy the troops to tamp down violence. But Baltimore Police Lt. David Engel has a different kind of map hanging on his office wall -- one of the world. The map reflects the mission assigned to Engel, commander of the city intelligence unit, and his 36 detectives. Working closely with federal agents specializing in national security, the city's intelligence team tracks global flare-ups of terrorist activity, scans the Internet and pumps informants for tips about potential threats.

Authorities were searching for an 8-year-old Finksburg girl abducted Monday afternoon, Maryland State Police said. Gabrielle Nicole McClelland was abducted in Finksburg about 3 p.m., said police, adding that witnesses reported seeing a dark midsized vehicle with a Pennsylvania tag near the scene. Police also are looking for the girl's mother, Michele Lyn Feilinger of York, Pa. Feilinger frequents Westminster, Finksburg, York, Pa., and Spring Grove, Pa., police said. Her last known address was in the 700 block of W. King St. in York.