Parked Car

A spate of car break-ins at Anne Arundel County high school parking lots has left car windows broken, CDs taken, principals searching for solutions and police encouraging high schoolers to lock up their cars and their valuables.Five of the 12 senior high schools in the county have reported repeated break-ins in school parking lots since school started in August: Broadneck in Arnold, Chesapeake and Northeast in Pasadena, Old Mill in Millersville and North County in Ferndale.Other high schools, Arundel in Gambrills, Meade in Fort Meade and Southern in Harwood have reported no rash of break-ins, but each has had one or two incidents since August.

A caravan to an amusement park ended in tragedy yesterday morning after a tractor-trailer slammed into a car on a highway shoulder in Cecil County, killing an Anne Arundel County teen-ager and injuring two other people.Nicholas Paul Liberatore, 16, of the 8100 block of Quarterfield Farms Drive in Severn was pronounced dead at the scene after a tractor-trailer driven by Robert Fertner, 49, of Wenonah, N.J., plowed into a car on the side of Interstate 95 near Millard E. Tydings Memorial Bridge about 9 a.m., state police said.

A PERILOUS situation confronts many who love the great outdoors near the tiny village of Ashland just north of Cockeysville.There, the Northern Central Railroad Trail winds through scenic woods and beckons many a bicyclist and hiker to wander along the 20-some-mile path through northern Baltimore County.But danger lurks among the robins and evergreens. As the trail crosses Paper Mill Road, traffic whizzing by at -- and above -- the posted 40-mph speed limit threatens to slam into the nature lovers ambling through.

Four Carroll County residents were injured, three seriously, in unrelated traffic accidents during the weekend, state police said.Two Sykesville men were injured when a pickup truck struck an unoccupied car parked along Route 26 near Oakland Mills Road at 2: 18 a.m. Sunday. Police said the truck overturned, ejecting a passenger.The passenger, Craig Dacuycuy, 30, was reported in serious but stable condition yesterday at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, a hospital spokeswoman said.

A Baltimore woman was killed Saturday when she was crushed between two parked vehicles after one was struck by a third car that skidded out of control on Interstate 70 near &L Hagerstown, state police said.The victim, Roberta Lee Gracie, 36, of the 2700 block of Northshire Drive in South Baltimore, was standing between her van and a station wagon, parked on the westbound side of the interstate, when the accident happened at 12: 12 p.m., police said. Gracie had been exchanging information with Barbara Barnette of Jefferson, who owns the station wagon, after an accident involving the two vehicles, police said.

A 16-year-old Meade Village youth was in stable condition at North Arundel Hospital on Friday after he drove a dirt bike into a parked car during an encounter with a police officer trying to stop him.Residents who witnessed the incident shortly before 3 p.m. said a county police officer stood in the street and tried to grab the boy's shirt and the handlebars of the bike as the teen-ager drove by, then pushed him, causing him to crash into a Pontiac Grand...

A Baltimore police officer on his way home from work watched as a gunman shot two people, one of them fatally, in a parked car near a major city thoroughfare at the start of yesterday's evening rush hour. Police said the officer shot the suspect after a brief foot chase.The late afternoon gunfire on Pennsylvania Avenue near Martin Luther King Boulevard was the culmination of two days of violence that included the Thursday shootings of a clerk at a Korean grocery store and the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old man during a dispute over a basketball fee.Also Thursday, police found the body of Leon Melvin Elem, 19, lying face down at Edgewood Street and Forest Park Avenue in Northwest Baltimore.

Savage residents are angry that they could face a $24 fine if they park on narrow streets and leave less than 20 feet of roadway for motorists to pass -- that's without no-parking signs, without notices, without warning.It's Howard County law -- section 20.914 of the county code -- and the ticketing could happen anywhere in the county."No one can park a car and leave less than 20 feet of roadway," said Sgt. Steven Keller, a police spokesman. "Even if signs aren't posted, we can enforce that section."

THIS ONE COULD EARN Howard County a spot on someone's "wackiest laws" list. A 24-year-old ordinance, recently criticized by a District Court judge, makes it illegal to place a "For Sale" sign on an automobile parked on a county road.County Executive Charles I. Ecker defends this example of legislative overreach as necessary to keep "our streets from becoming a used car lot" and to prevent the hazard of motorists stopping to look at cars parked along roadways.Never mind that it is perfectly legal for motorists to have "For Sale" signs taped to a rear window while the vehicle is parked in a driveway or while being operated along public roads.

A 7-Eleven store in Cape St. Claire was sprayed with bullets Saturday, county police said yesterday. One of the bullets struck a wall where two men were standing, and another hit a parked car that was occupied, but no one was injured.Police said a small, dark-colored car passed by the store in the 700 block of College Parkway shortly after 12: 30 a.m. and fired several shots.Police recovered seven spent rounds from the road in front of the store.Pub Date: 9/04/96