Officers

Baltimore police officers shot two men -- one of them fatally -- yesterday after responding to separate domestic disputes. The Police Department did not release the name of either man or either officer involved, but a police spokesman said the officers have been placed on administrative duties pending an investigation. The fatal shooting occurred just before noon in West Baltimore, said Officer Troy Harris, the police spokesman. Officers had been called to a house in the 2500 block of Lauretta Ave. for a family dispute, Harris said, and when they arrived, a woman ran outside shouting, "He has a knife!"

Officer Richard Waybright was seen beating a handcuffed prisoner in a squad room booking area. Sgt. Lawrence Ames made offending comments about sex to a fingerprint technician in an evidence room. Lt. Timothy O'Connell was accused of failing to report a racial slur made by a subordinate.These are just three of the hundreds of disciplinary cases involving Baltimore police, examples of abuse no longer tolerated by a department forced to revamp its antiquated way of punishing the city's protectors.

Baltimore police have shot 123 people in the past four years, killing three dozen. But even when officers open fire when they shouldn't, they rarely get in trouble.A departmental crackdown on misconduct that has snared officers for offenses ranging from lying to sexual harassment has not included officers who misuse their weapons, the most potent form of force in an officer's arsenal.In almost every shooting over the past four years, especially when the suspect survived, a supervisor has ruled the gunfire justified and well within the department's rules, a review by The Sun of more than 100 internal files has found.

City police continued yesterday to investigate the death of a man who apparently suffered a seizure and died shortly after police arrested him during a struggle Tuesday afternoon in a West Baltimore alley.Lt. Timothy G. Keel of the homicide unit said some witnesses alleged that officers kicked the man as he lay on the ground. But Keel said one officer told detectives that she put her foot "on him to keep him down."Witnesses also said the 34-year-old man, whose name was not released pending notification of relatives, was bleeding profusely from the head.

Howard County police officers began a new work schedule yesterday that puts officers on the beat for 12 straight hours, sometimes for three days in a row.Police said the schedule will decrease overtime expenses, saving money that will help finance a retirement package approved in January.The schedule, police officials say, will also boost police presence along U.S. 40 in Ellicott City and in certain areas of Columbia, and give officers more weekends off."This will help coverage," said Sgt. Morris Carroll, the department spokesman.

In the third police-involved shooting in the city this year -- and the second that ended in a death -- a woman described as "incoherent" was killed yesterday by officers after she allegedly chased them with a knife.Blanche Harriet Baker, 50, of the 600 block of E. 41st St. was shot at least twice in the upper body, said Agent Ragina L. Cooper, a police spokeswoman. Officers had initially used pepper spray on Baker, but she would not drop her weapon or stop moving toward them, said Officer Gary McLhinney, president of the police union.

Citing personal bravery and restraint, as well as quick reactions in life-threatening situations, Howard County police last night bestowed more than 140 awards on officers and residents for their service last year.After the two-hour ceremony attended by about 300 officers and residents at the George Howard Building, Police Chief Wayne Livesay said the awards reflected the training his officers have received.And as departments across the country weather controversy surrounding excessive police force, the Howard County force honored four officers for showing restraint while facing dangerous subjects.

A man being subdued by two police officers was shot last night when one of the officer's guns discharged, striking the man in the back, a police spokeswoman said.Agent Angelique Cook-Hayes, the spokeswoman, said the officers were in the 4500 block of Park Heights Ave. in Northwest Baltimore about 10 p.m. when they saw a man beating a woman. When the officers intervened, the man bit both of them and ran into an alley, Cook-Hayes said.She said the officers followed the man into an alley behind the 4500 block of Homer Avenue.

Baltimore's homicide rate, which was rising fast only five weeks ago, has been slowed considerably by a new squad of officers blanketing high-crime neighborhoods.Known as the homicide suppression squad and consisting mostly of highly trained tactical officers, the unit is deployed alternately on the city's east and west sides, more than doubling the number of officers assigned to those areas at night.The squad aggressively looks for people carrying handguns or selling drugs. It also pays 60 officers overtime to stand on drug corners to disrupt business.

Three city police officers with less than a year's experience on Baltimore's streets had just made a drug arrest yesterday morning when a frantic citizen ran up and shouted about people trapped in a burning house two blocks away.The officers sped in a marked Geo Tracker to a three-story brick rowhouse at North Fulton and West North avenues and saw smoke pouring from the windows. They made their way inside and escorted two men to safety.Then, Officer Brian E. Pearson climbed a smoke-filled staircase and found five people, including three young children, sleeping in a bedroom of the apartment.

A city attorney resigned Thursday immediately after failing to persuade an internal disciplinary board to recommend firing a police officer convicted of administrative charges of assaulting a man outside a Federal Hill pizza shop in 2005. The attorney, Sandra Holmes, got a partial victory in her case against Officer Michael D. Brassell - an assault conviction and a recommendation to the police commissioner that Brassell be suspended 60 days without pay. But the board found the officer not guilty of lying to investigators, which carries an automatic termination.

A man whose car was hit by a train after it became stuck on the tracks in Harmans Saturday afternoon tried to steal several cars afterward, Anne Arundel County police said. A woman who lives in the 7400 block of Railroad Ave. told police that she went outside about 5:30 p.m. to see what caused a loud noise and saw a stranger in her vehicle. He ran when she yelled. She found the vehicle's steering column had been tampered with, police said. The loud noise that had drawn her attention was the sound of an Amtrak train hitting a vehicle.

It used to be that officers wrote off domestic killings as a given - unfortunate and often brutal crimes that added numbers to the city's death tally but couldn't be prevented in the traditional way, such as with more police, neighborhood sweeps and arrests. And there wasn't much of a public outcry. People felt bad and were angry, but they didn't feel less safe because the man up the street killed his wife in an upstairs bedroom. A new team of Baltimore police and prosecutors is turning those antiquated theories around.

When commanders in the Baltimore Police Department's Southwest District draw up their staffing charts, Officers Frank Friend Jr., Gary Schaekel and Steffon Scott are routinely placed among a shift of seven officers and a supervisor tasked with protecting miles of the Gwynns Falls Trail that wind through Leakin Park. That's their assignment on paper. But in practice, the officers are known as the district's "fireman squad" - roaming high-crime areas in surrounding neighborhoods and "putting out the fires" for the district commander, Maj. Anthony Brown.

Next to the workers who write parking tickets, the traffic enforcement officers who stand at busy Baltimore intersections are perhaps some of the most hated municipal employees. But W. Thomas Robinson, who grew up in the city and lives in Florida, calls Danielle Allen a saintly ambassador for an urban area with a reputation for crime, grime and other ills. All Allen did was help Robinson park his car and find a sandwich for lunch, a seemingly trivial gesture that means a lot in a cynical city.

Several Maryland correctional officers witnessed Davon Cole, 19, strangle a cellmate at the Baltimore City Detention Center Monday night, according to court documents charging Cole with first- and second-degree murder and assault. The suspect "disregarded the officers' orders" to release Xavier Tilghman, 21, the documents state, and officers had to enter the cell to pull him off the victim. Cole had Tilghman pinned to the floor with his "arm wrapped tightly around Tilghman's neck," the officers told investigators.

Baltimore police officers shot two men -- one of them fatally -- yesterday after responding to separate domestic disputes. The Police Department did not release the name of either man or either officer involved, but a police spokesman said the officers have been placed on administrative duties pending an investigation. The fatal shooting occurred just before noon in West Baltimore, said Officer Troy Harris, the police spokesman. Officers had been called to a house in the 2500 block of Lauretta Ave. for a family dispute, Harris said, and when they arrived, a woman ran outside shouting, "He has a knife!"

The Annapolis Police Department's union and the city will head back to the bargaining table, after union members overwhelmingly rejected the city's first salary and benefit proposal. "We are tired of working shorthanded! We are tired of the lack of recruiting efforts by the city! We are just tired!" read a flier distributed by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400. On Thursday the union turned down the city's offer of a 2 percent cost-of-living increase. It is seeking 8 percent.

After the arrest of a rookie Anne Arundel County police officer accused of photographing himself fondling a teenage girl during a traffic stop, county police officials defended yesterday their recruit training. Officer Joseph F. Mosmiller, 22, and the three officers implicated in the Jan. 20 incident were all members of the same recruiting class last spring, said Lt. David Waltemeyer, a county police spokesman. "The values that we teach our officers and that 99 percent of officers use as a guide don't reflect this type of activity," Waltemeyer said.

In the second time in seven months that a mentally disturbed man has died during a confrontation with Anne Arundel County police, a 24-year-old Pasadena man stopped breathing after being subdued by six officers. Steven Ray Ellison allegedly assaulted four people Wednesday night, then struggled with a half-dozen officers who got him onto the ground and into handcuffs before he lost consciousness, county police said yesterday. The cause of Ellison's death has not been determined. Homicide detectives and the state's attorney's office are investigating.