Northeast Baltimore

Baltimore officials began delivering 80 new police cruisers to the Northeast District Friday morning. The Chevy Caprice PPV police cruisers, purchased for more than $2 million, will be equipped with mobile data terminals, which will allow officers to electronically create and submit police reports from their patrol vehicles. The cruisers are also equipped with sophisticated mapping software to better track stolen vehicles, city officials said. "These new vehicles will allow our officers to spend more time in our communities, and continue to make Baltimore a safer city," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

City police are searching for a car thief who took the wheel of an idling Ford Explorer Thursday morning in Northeast Baltimore and made off with the vehicle and its 7-year-old passenger. The incident occurred in the 5900 block of Fairwood Avenue in the Glenham-Belhar neighborhood. The child, who was in the back seat, was quickly let out of the vehicle at a MTA bus stop near the intersection of Belle Vista and Hamilton avenues. He was not harmed, police said. The license plate of the silver 2004 Explorer, which is still missing, reads 828 M 506. The car owner was dropping a younger child at a day care center and left the car idling.

A 29-year-old man died Saturday afternoon after he was shot in northeast Baltimore, according to the Baltimore City Police Department. According to Detective Jeremy Silbert, officers responded at 2:39 p.m. to a report of a shooting in the 1200 block of Linworth Avenue. When officers arrived, Silbert said, they found a man who was inside a residence and had been shot several times. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Silbert said Saturday night that he could not provide information about the victim's identity.

Baltimore police responding to a report of a shooting shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday discovered a 60-year-old man in the 3100 block of Garrison Boulevard in Northeast Baltimore suffering from a gunshot wound to his head, police reported Sunday morning. The man was taken to Sinai Hospital, where he died from his injuries at 11:37 p.m., police said. Homicide detectives are investigating the incident and ask anyone with information to call 410-396-2100.

The two men wore body armor with "POLICE" written across the chest and spilled out of their unmarked car, weapons drawn, ordering Christopher Dukes and his passenger out of their vehicle at a South Baltimore gas station parking lot. When Dukes pulled off, they embarked on a high-speed chase down Interstate 295 until catching up and placing the pair under arrest, charging documents show. Then it was time for the real police to take over. The men in the body armor were not Baltimore police officers or federal agents, but instead a little-known classification of security guards known as "special police," who are commissioned by the city or state to arrest and detain citizens - but only on specific properties.

WEATHER: Mostly cloudy , with patchy morning fog and a high near 74. Friday night is expected to be partly cloudy, with a low around 53. TRAFFIC: Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues. TOP NEWS Boy Scout files reveal 90 cases of alleged sexual abuse in Md. : The veil was lifted Thursday on decades of confidential sexual-abuse allegations in the ranks of the Boy Scouts of America with the court-ordered release of more than 1,200 of the organization's "perversion files.

City fire officials continue the investigation to determine the source and cause of the fire that claimed the lives of four children and their grandmother Thursday in Northeast Baltimore. Autopsy results on the victims, who include Nancy Worrell, 55, and four children, who range in age from 1 to 7 years old, have not yet been released. "I would not expect anything for some time," fire department spokesman Chief Kevin Cartwright said early Friday. "We simply must allow the fire investigators the appropriate time needed to thoroughly perform their investigation and await their final dispositions.

When 19-year-old Roderick Goodman woke up in a smoke-filled bedroom early Thursday, his first instinct was to get out of the brick rowhouse where he lived with his grandparents and several other relatives. He jumped two stories to the ground in front of the Northeast Baltimore home and landed unhurt. But as flames shot from the first floor of the home in the city's Frankford neighborhood, he heard his aunt cry: "Help me, help me get my baby. " She threw the two-month-old from a second-floor window, into Goodman's arms.

Two men and a woman were shot in separate incidents in Baltimore on Sunday, and the woman died at the scene, according to city police. In the fatal shooting, police responded to the 6300 block of Fairlawn Avenue, at the intersection of Fordleigh Road in Northwest Baltimore, about 9:58 p.m. in response to a report of a shooting and found a woman shot, police said. The woman had a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:05 p.m., according to city police.

Melvin B. Lowe Jr., a floral designer and funeral home attendant who was also a partner in a special-events and decorating company, died Sept. 27 of renal failure at his Washington home. The one-time Northeast Baltimore resident was 47. "Melvin was a tremendously gifted person and could do many things," said Carlton C. Douglas, owner of Carlton C. Douglas Funeral Services in Baltimore, where Mr. Lowe was employed. "He was a gifted artist who could arrange flowers or redesign a casket.