Narcotics

A 27-year-old off-duty narcotics detective was shot at three times but not hit after he struggled with a gunman who tried to rob him last night.Officer Jeffrey M. Jennings of the headquarters narcotics unit said he stopped at Charles and 20th streets shortly before midnight to make a call at a pay telephone.Three men approached, one armed with a handgun.While the gunman held the weapon to Officer Jennings' shoulder, he was frisked by one of the other men, who was searching for the officer's wallet.

Health officials still aren't certain what is causing the alarming uptick in heroin overdoses that has occurred across Maryland recently. But it would be especially disturbing if the trend turns out to be an unintended consequence of state efforts to crack down on prescription drug abuse and fraud. The concern is that people addicted to prescription drugs are now finding them harder to get, and as a result may be turning to illegal narcotics like heroin, which are cheap and relatively easy to obtain on the street but which pose even greater public health and safety risks.

County narcotics detectives arrested three people during a drug raid Thursday night in Laurel, police said.Officers recovered a small amount of marijuana and assorted drug paraphernalia in the raid in the 3400 block of Andrew Court, police said.The raid started at 9:30 p.m., when members of the Western District Tactical Narcotics Team and the Special Operations Section went to the apartment after receiving numerous complaints from citizens about suspected drug activity, police said.Undercover narcotics detectives made a drug purchase in the apartment before a search warrant was issued, police said.

A local minister vowed Saturday to investigate the death of a man who police said ingested narcotics during an arrest attempt in Baltimore and later died at a nearby hospital. "There are some sharp differences between the accounts of the eyewitnesses and what we're hearing from the police," said the Rev. C.D. Witherspoon, local leader of the Southern Leadership Christian Conference. At about 7:20 p.m. Friday, officers were attempting to arrest a 46-year-old man for a narcotics offense near the intersection of East Biddle Street and North Montford Avenue, when the man consumed drugs, said Detective Donny Moses, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department.

A man whose Woodlawn apartment was invaded Tuesday by two men who stole a safe reportedly containing $9,000 was arrested yesterday by Baltimore City police and charged with narcotics and weapons violations, according to a Baltimore County police spokesman.Spokesman Bill K. Toohey said Simmeon Anderson, 21, of the first block of Torlina Court was arrested about 4 p.m. at a house in the 5300 block of Lantern Court in Southwest Baltimore that city police described as a stash house for narcotics.

Anne Arundel County Police Chief Robert Russell demoted a veteran police sergeant to officer yesterday for having sex with a narcotics informant.The demotion was recommended by a police trial board Nov. 17 when it found Bret Ballam guilty of conduct unbecoming a police officer because of his relationship with the woman.He is the second sergeant demoted this year for having a sexual relationship with a narcotics informant. Officer Henry A. McClung also was demoted from the rank of sergeant.

In 1984, doctors told Patricia Paul, who suffers from a painful nerve condition called reflex sympathetic dystrophy, that she would need round-the-clock home care for the rest of her life and that she should forget about working ever again.Since then, she has returned to college, graduated magna cum laude and raised a teen-age son. She now runs an award-winning program in New Jersey that trains handicapped people for jobs.She attributes her dramatic turnaround to medical treatment that would have been unthinkable a decade ago: At her doctor's suggestion, she has taken large doses of narcotics, in pill form, every three hours for the past nine years.

Howard County narcotics detectives arrested two men in connection with a crack cocaine purchase at Harper's Choice Village Center on Monday afternoon, police said.About 1: 30 p.m., police saw one man sell drugs to another and arrested the pair, said Sgt. Morris Carroll, spokesman for the county police.Investigators were staking out the area, acting on a tip from Officer Mark Richmond, the department's high school liaison, Carroll said."It's part of our targeted effort to rid that area of street-level drug dealing," he said.

WASHINGTON - A new tactic being used by police to wage the war on drugs - stopping cars and circling them with dogs that can sniff for narcotics - is in serious constitutional doubt. But yesterday, the Supreme Court did little to clear it up. For the first half of a lively one-hour hearing, drug roadblocks appeared to be doomed. Several justices sharply criticized the tactic, raising the possibility that police would turn next to stopping pedestrians and subjecting them to canine inspection.

A Westminster teen-ager who was found dead at home last week died of an overdose of narcotics, probably heroin, Westminster police said yesterday.A state medical examiner has determined the cause of death of Liam A. O'Hara, 15, as "narcotic intoxication -- heroin," police said. The boy's father found him about 7: 30 a.m. Jan. 9.State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes said the medical examiner would perform further toxicology tests to determine with certainty that the narcotic was heroin.Michael O'Hara, father of the Westminster High School sophomore, said yesterday that he and his family would do whatever they could to cooperate with the police investigation.

A 55-year-old man operating an unauthorized cab in Baltimore witnessed a passenger's arrest, according to prosecutors, then turned down a bribe to give false testimony in the case. Months later, he was shot to death in front of the suburban home he shared with his elderly mother. City and Baltimore County prosecutors revealed the details of the 2011 killing of Ronald Givens on Thursday as they announced the murder indictments of four men, three of whom were also charged with conspiracy, witness intimidation and obstruction of justice.

Two unidentified operators of a prescription drug clinic in Lutherville that was raided by Baltimore County narcotics officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents Tuesday have been arrested, according to county police. One was arrested at the Healthy Life Medical Group clinic in the 1100 block of York Road, the other at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, police said. Both have been charged with conspiracy to distribute Schedule II narcotics, which include amphetamines, methamphetamines and other drugs that can be used in a medical setting but have "a high potential for abuse which may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence," according to the DEA website.

An employee at the Harford County Detention Center was exposed to a substance that investigators believe is narcotic, police said Thursday night. About 5:30 p.m. a female staff member was sorting incoming inmate mail at the detention center in Bel Air when she came into contact with an unknown substance and then started feeling light-headed and experienced a metallic taste, according to a statement by the Harford County Sheriff's Office. The mail room was evacuated and quarantined.

Baltimore City has long held the unfortunate title of "U.S. heroin capital. " Over the years, many people inside and outside of Baltimore have chosen to promulgate this unofficial designation when reporting on or portraying Baltimore's challenges with drugs, addiction and the residual effects of high crime, violence and other social ills. Baltimore, like many urban jurisdictions across the country, has suffered and continues to suffer tremendously from the consequences of illegal drugs flowing into our city.

Baltimore County police investigated the apartment of Ravens rookie wide receiver and kickoff returner David Reed Wednesday after getting a call about "possible narcotics," police said Friday. "We did conduct a police investigation," at Reed's apartment in Owings Mills, said police spokesman Lt. Robert McCullough . He said police were called to investigate "for possible narcotics" and that "there was evidence seized but charges are pending further investigation. " Reed would not comment on the investigation.

One of nine people charged in what authorities contend is a huge drug conspiracy turned against two of his former bosses Monday, testifying as a government witness on the opening day of their narcotics conspiracy and weapons possession trial. At least a half-dozen people have reached plea agreements with the Maryland U.S. attorney's office, including Antoine Boston, who was alleged to have been a drug shop manager for Johnnie "JR" Butler and Calvin "Turkey" Wright. Boston testified Monday to certain heroin dealings with the defendants, whose attorneys worked to discredit him. Prosecutors contend Butler and Wright ran a violent and well-connected heroin operation on Baltimore's east side, able to sneak drugs into prison, get a heads-up about warrants from courthouse staff and skirt the gun-application process.

Six people, including a female bystander, were shot and wounded during a gunfight involving the police last night on the fifth floor of a West Baltimore public housing high-rise.Plainclothes narcotics Officers Stewart Carlton, 29, and Neyland Vaughn Jr., 22, responding to a report of drug dealing at the Murphy Homes building in the 1000 block of Argyle Avenue, found about a dozen people apparently engaged in drug dealing in a fifth-floor hallway, police said.One man opened fire with a .357-caliber Magnum and the officers responded with 15 shots, striking five men and one woman, said Dennis S. Hill, a police spokesman.

LIMA, Peru -- Drug traffickers, operating with the protection of corrupt Peruvian army units that block U.S.-backed interdiction operations, have dramatically stepped up narcotics production and commerce in northern Peru, according to diplomats.Army commanders have been openly cooperating with traffickers since September, the diplomats said, marking a serious deterioration in the narcotics war. Army troops and police units accompanied by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents have faced off in several tense confrontations.

The window of opportunity to bring down drug trafficking organizations in Central and South America is quickly shrinking. However, despite its recent efforts, the Obama administration still lacks the one thing that we desperately need to win the fight against the cartels: a strategy. While it may seem like an obvious thing to have, the United States surprisingly lacks a comprehensive plan to bring down drug trafficking organizations. The federal government does have some counterdrug strategies, but they are either too broad - like the annual National Drug Control Strategy, which reads more like an "accomplishment report" of past successes rather than a "how to" manual - or too narrowly focused, like the National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy, which addresses, among other things, ways to strengthen security along the border itself.