Pioneer Drive

County police arrested a Severn man Monday on drug charges in the Orchards at Severn community after an officer stopped the car he was riding in for speeding and found what police said was crack cocaine.Kevin T. Henson, 18, of the 1700 block of Circle Road was charged with possession and possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine.The driver, Richard S. Dorsey, 44, of the 1400 block of Log Inn Road, Annapolis, was charged with speeding and driving with a suspended license.Officer Thomas Kohlmann was on Pioneer Drive near Indian Drive about 11 p.m. when a car sped past him, police said.

A 17-year-old youth arrested after a brief chase through Pioneer City has been charged as a juvenile with robbing an Odenton woman and a Pizza delivery man within an hour of each other.County Officer Patrick Ronaghan reported that he was on Pioneer Drive about 9: 30 p.m. Thursday when he saw a white Oldsmobile speeding out of Arwell Court. The driver saw the officer, pulled over and motioned for help, police said.Yevette E. Kiser, 23, of Odenton told Ronaghan she was getting out of her car in the 1800 block of Arwell Court when a young man approached, struck her in the face, snatched her wallet from her hand and fled.

This week's drug sweep won't entirely shut down the open-air crack cocaine market in Meade Village and Pioneer City, Anne Arundel County police said. But they believe the eight arrests and six warrants issued should slow drug traffic substantially. "It's not going to stop it all," said Western District Sgt. Rex Snider. "But we've taken a big bite out of it." The local market probably sold several hundred dollars' worth of crack cocaine a night, with rocks of cocaine selling for between $20 and $50 each, Snider said.

A Baltimore teenager has been arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder in the shooting and wounding of a man early Sunday morning in Pioneer City, Anne Arundel police said yesterday. Laronte Lee Richardson, 18, of the 900 block of First St. in Baltimore also is charged with assault, reckless endangerment and other offenses. He is accused of firing several shots at a man who was walking near Pioneer Drive and Arwell Court, said police spokesman Sgt. Shawn Urbas. Police say Derrick D. Poole, 35, of Pioneer Drive was cutting through an open lot near his home about 3 a.m. when a young man wearing a dark coat and knit hat began shooting at him. Police don't think they knew each other.

County police were still looking yesterday for a gunman who wounded a man while driving down a Severn street Tuesday night.Police have no description for the assailant, except that he was driving a red Toyota.Michael Jerome Brooks was shot in the back about 9 p.m. while standing in the 8500 block of Pioneer Drive.Brooks, 33, of the 400 block Old Stage Road, was released yesterday morning from the Maryland Shock Trauma Center at University Hospital in Baltimore.Police said witnesses saw the gunman drive south on Pioneer Drive, slow down in the 8500 block, and fire once from a shotgun.

A 14-year veteran of the Anne Arundel County Police Department accidentally fired his gun during a weapons search in Pioneer City yesterday morning, striking a pregnant woman's right hand, police said. Michele Andrea Church, 33, was at the Curtis National Hand Center at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore yesterday, police said, and it appears the shooting will cause no complications to her pregnancy. Police would not disclose the name of the officer yesterday because they wanted to give him an additional day to tell his relatives about the incident, said Lt. Joseph Jordan, a police spokesman.

A Baltimore teenager has been arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder in the shooting and wounding of a man early Sunday morning in Pioneer City, Anne Arundel police said yesterday. Laronte Lee Richardson, 18, of the 900 block of First St. in Baltimore also is charged with assault, reckless endangerment and other offenses. He is accused of firing several shots at a man who was walking near Pioneer Drive and Arwell Court, said police spokesman Sgt. Shawn Urbas. Police say the victim, Derrick D. Poole, 35, of Pioneer Drive was cutting through an open lot near his home about 3 a.m. when a young man wearing a dark coat and knit hat began shooting at him. Police don't believe they knew each other.

The notices Anne Arundel County police slapped on the doors of 19 homes in the Warfield Condominiums Tuesday declared the property, not the tenant, a nuisance. But that was little consolation for some of the residents."My house ain't no nuisance," fumed an indignant William McDonald, 39, of the 8300 block of Pioneer Drive. Police put the notice on Mr. McDonald's door while he was at work. His wife was at home and became so upset after receiving the notice that he left work early.On Monday the state's attorney's office filed a complaint in District Court asking a judge to declare the 19 condominiums nuisance properties because of the drug dealing, shootings, robberies and other crimes that occur in the area.

Peggy Herbert loves the kitchen in the two-story townhouse she's hoping to buy. It's spacious with clean new cream-colored tile, a wide new hunter green counter top and new wooden cabinets.The bathrooms in the Pioneer Drive home are new, too, along with the kitchen appliances, the windows, doors and siding. And if NationsBank approves her loan, Herbert will be something new in this community struggling to turn its image around: She will be a homeowner."I didn't think they were going to do so much remodeling," Herbert, 30, said during her first tour of the remodeled home.

Pioneer City, a townhouse community in Severn that has suffered from crime and blight in recent years, soon will get its first community health center. Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens announced this month that People's Community Health Centers, a local nonprofit organization, received a $714,938 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to build the center within the Pioneer City census tract. County officials said the organization was the only group in the state to have received a grant this year.