Park Police

College Park voters narrowly decided in a nonbinding referendum yesterday that their city could explore the possibility of establishing a police force. The vote was 674-649 in favor, said city election supervisor Jack Robson. The referendum, designed to gauge voter support, will bring no immediate change. Much of the support came from District 3 - an area of the city with the highest student density - where the margin in favor was 310-161. The city is policed by the Prince George's County force.

Howard County police have charged a Guilford man with attempted first-degree murder in a July shooting in which a couple sleeping in their North Laurel mobile home were injured.Police arrested the man last week after a monthlong investigation into the incident in the first block of Cross St. at the Midway Trailer Park.Darrin Bernard Ridgeway, 27, of the 9500 block of Glen Oaks Lane, is being held on a $100,000 bond at the Howard County Detention Center, officials said.According to police, about 4: 50 a.m. July 22, someone fired three shotgun blasts through the wall of a mobile home at the Midway Trailer Park, striking Richard Morgan Kinney and Beth Ann Hanning in the legs.

Annapolis and College Park would lose their Maryland State Police barracks if the General Assembly agrees with a recommendation from legislative analysts to close the two for a savings of $5.2 million as part of a state police cost-cutting plan. The Department of Legislative Services plan would preserve the 70 trooper and supervisory positions at the barracks, likely redistributing them to some of the 21 other state police locations throughout Maryland. But Lt. Bud Frank, a state police spokesman, said the department vehemently opposes closing Annapolis and College Park, calling them "major hubs for dealing with homeland security."

A Brooklyn Park man killed his wife and her twin children on Sunday before he sent a text message to his mother and turned a gun on himself, police said. Anne Arundel County Police identified the man as Kelly Brian Thompson, 33, who lived in a Wood Street rowhouse. They said he first shot and killed his wife, Nina Thompson, 34, and her 15-year-old twins, Taishawn Pugh, a girl, and Treshawn Pugh, a boy. He then texted an agitated message to his mother, who called police and went to the house around 9 a.m., police said.

Donna L. Evans says she was just doing her job as a parking control agent when she wrote a citation for a car she thought was illegally parked. Then the unthinkable happened: She got handcuffed by police. Evans said she wrote a $42 ticket for a car parked during street-cleaning hours in the 1300 block of W. Pratt St. She said the car's driver complained to her, then to a nearby police officer, claiming that an official city parking permit displayed in the back window allowed him to park without fear of being ticketed.

Authorities are looking for Clarence Terrell Randall III, 30, in connection with a sexual assault that took place Monday, police said. An arrest warrant has been issued for Randall stemming from an incident in Brooklyn Park, according to a statement Wednesday by the Anne Arundel County Police Department. A 22-year-old woman told officers that at about 2:45 a.m. a man she didn't know picked her up near the intersection of Belle Grove Road and Ritchie Highway, police said. He drove her to the 5600 block of Ritchie Highway where he sexually assaulted her, the statement said.

Prince George's County State's Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks was right to bring criminal charges this week against two county police officers accused of savagely beating University of Maryland student John McKenna last year, but it appears she hasn't yet gotten to the bottom of this case. There's reason to believe that many others beyond the two indicted officers may have been involved in the incident and its aftermath, and Ms. Alsobrooks, who took office in January, needs to bring all of those responsible to account if she is to convince the public that serious police misconduct will not be tolerated on her watch.

An Anne Arundel County police surveillance team has charged two men with drug possession in a Brooklyn Park neighborhood. Kevin Charles Brown, 32, of the 6000 block of Amberwood Court in the city's Frankford neighborhood, faces two counts of heroin possession and one count of intent to distribute. Dale Charles Edge, 30, of the 100 block of Lincoln Ave. in Glen Burnie, was charged with possession of heroin. Officers, responding to numerous residents' complaints of drug activity, set up surveillance Tuesday in the area near First Avenue and Ritchie Highway.

Anne Arundel police spent much of Friday morning investigating reports of slashed tires in Brooklyn Park. Neighbors of several streets in the Arundel Village area, near the city line, began realizing their tires had been slashed at about 8 a.m. Officers found more than 30 vehicles damaged during the overnight hours in the 500 block of Taney Avenue, the 5200 block of Kramme Avenue, the 5200 block of Ballman Avenue, the 5000 and 5100 blocks of...

The badly burned body of a woman was found yesterday by Baltimore County firefighters in a Pikesville park, county police said. Police described the victim as a black woman, and were uncertain of her age. The body was taken to the state medical examiner's office in Baltimore for an autopsy, said Bill Toohey, police spokesman. The homicide unit is investigating the case. Firefighters were called about 5:40 a.m. yesterday after a resident near Gwynnvale Park reported a fire near a tree line in the park.