Pipe Bomb

DANGEROUS juveniles don't belong in schools. That axiom falls into the "duh" category for most folks, but it's not a given in Baltimore County -- thanks to an uncharacteristic screw-up by county police.Last August, security guards at North Plaza Shopping Center found a pipe bomb, firecrackers, shotgun shelis and other bomb-making materials in the backpack of a youth at North Plaza Shopping Center. (Whatever happened to notebooks and pencils?)Anthony Lee Palmer, a student at Loch Raven High School, was arrested and charged with possession of a destructive device, which could land him in jail for 25 years and cost him up to $25,000 in fines.

Expulsion hearings were extended yesterday for three Loch Raven High School students accused of shooting at the home of two teachers.The three juveniles -- two age 14 and one 17 -- were granted an extension of five school days, said Charles A. Herndon, the Baltimore County schools spokesman. The hearings were scheduled to start yesterday.Police allege the three and Anthony Lee Palmer, 18, of the 2300 block of Salem Village Road in Carney fired gunshots and paint balls at the teachers' home on Dunwoody Road in Oakleigh Sunday night.

The discovery of a pipe bomb led to the evacuation of more than 40 trailers in a mobile home park in Edgewood yesterday afternoon, state police reported.Gary Capello told police he discovered a plastic garbage bag containing the homemade explosive device while mowing his lawn at the Bauers Mobile Home Park about 3 p.m., authorities said.State police bomb technicians defused it shortly before 6 p.m., and the residents were allowed to return. The incident remained under investigation last night.

State police apparently thwarted a plan to bomb an Eastern Shore school yesterday when they arrested a 19-year-old Somerset County high school senior after reporting that they discovered a pipe bomb at his home.Heron G. T. Boyce, a resident of Deal Island, was awaiting a bail review hearing late yesterday after being charged with threat to arson, which could carry a 10-year prison term, a $10,000 fine or both.State police said they found explosives packed into a 6-inch piece of bamboo when they searched a bedroom in Boyce's home about 7 a.m. yesterday.

The Anne Arundel County landfill in Millersville was closed for four hours yesterday while fire officials investigated what appeared to be a PVC pipe bomb, but the pipe turned out to contain no explosives.People doing court-ordered community service at the landfill found the device in a recycling drop-off area. Police were notified at 9: 25 a.m.County officials said the area, but not the entire landfill, was evacuated while the state fire marshal's office checked out the pipe and determined it was not an explosive device.

A Brooklyn man was sentenced to nine years and another was sentenced to seven years yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore for their roles in a gun-trafficking ring, the U.S. attorney's office said.Arthur Nelson Reid, 26, and David Daniel Granger, 25, both of the 3700 block of Everett St., pleaded guilty in November to selling and conspiring to sell 12 fully automatic 7.62-caliber SKS rifles and a pipe bomb.Frankie Lee Lebon, 24, of the 1600 block of Light St. in Baltimore was sentenced to three years and 10 months for conspiring to sell fully automatic weapons, and Alonzo Carle IV, 22, of Upper Marlboro pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

Late bloomersIT'S the icky, sticky days of August, and even most plants look as if they've about had it. Except two in the civil clerk's office in the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court House in Annapolis.Since their arrival last fall to dress up the new building for its official opening party, two poinsettias have kept right on blooming. The plants, about 4 feet tall, regularly sprout new red and white tops, unaware that their season ended some months back.They are hardly overindulged -- here and there they get watered and a shriveling leaf or two is plucked.

A Harford County man was charged last night with making a pipe bomb that prompted the evacuation of his neighborhood for about six hours yesterday, the state fire marshal's office said.Allen L. Ward, a deputy chief state fire marshal, said Joe Hornbarger of the 2200 block of Willoughby Beach Road in Edgewood was charged with manufacturing and possessing a destructive device.Ward said questioning of Hornbarger "led to us finding some materials at his home. We questioned him some more, and he eventually gave us a statement."

Howard County police discovered fragments from a detonated pipe bomb on a parking lot at Waverly Elementary School in Ellicott City this week, days after arsonists set the school's playground equipment ablaze.A police officer investigating the Friday playground fire found the bomb fragments about noon Tuesday.Later Tuesday, police arrested two 14-year-old Ellicott City boys in connection with the playground fire, according to Sgt. Steven Keller, a police spokesman. He said there did not appear to be any connection between the two incidents.

The wife of Columbia gun collector Richard Loewinger testified in court yesterday that she feared for her safety after what she called years of mental and physical abuse.Susan Loewinger filed four counts of second-degree assault against Richard Loewinger on July 11, one day after she said he dragged her from the bed by her ankle and hair and then grabbed her by the jaw, twisting her head around. She also said he slammed her against a wall.The case was recessed yesterday before Richard Loewinger was able to take the witness stand.

Driver is arrested for fleeing after hitting Essex pedestrian Baltimore County police arrested the driver of a Jeep who sped off after hitting a pedestrian Tuesday in Essex. Police made the arrest shortly after the man hit a person attempting to cross Eastern Boulevard at the intersection of Wiltshire Road about 12:30 p.m. The pedestrian was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Police have not released identifications of the pedestrian or the driver. - Brent Jones Shooting caught on cameras leads to woman's conviction Officers monitoring Citiwatch surveillance cameras caught a 2007 shooting as it happened, leading Baltimore police to nab the shooter - 28-year-old Keah Wooden - within minutes after she fired the gun. The city State's Attorney's Office released the video footage Tuesday, saying it led to Wooden's conviction last week in Circuit Court on assault, handgun and reckless endangerment charges.

Dallas Jermaine Smith, a 22-year-old with an FBI file, was found guilty Monday of having an explosive device and attempting to disarm a police officer after a pipe bomb was discovered in his backpack last year while he was standing near the University of Maryland BioPark. He was sentenced to two concurrent 20-year prison terms, with all but eight years of each suspended, and given a 13-month credit for time served. Smith's attorney had argued to have the evidence suppressed, claiming police had no right to stop or search his client.

Dallas Jermaine Smith was the kind of kid who read the dictionary cover to cover - encyclopedia, too. He could be a "nuclear scientist" if he wanted, his dad told a police investigator. He can dismantle and rebuild a computer in no time, and he is his former foster mom's favorite ward. She called him "very special" in court documents. But those records also show him to be a boy who built 21 pipe bombs by the time he was 13, when he detonated one in his mother's Temple Hills apartment, perhaps practice for the Los Angeles federal complex his personal journal said he wanted to target, according to FBI records from 2000.

Baltimore Co. man found not criminally responsible in death A Circuit Court judge found a 23-year-old Baltimore County man not criminally responsible Monday in the fatal stabbing last year of a woman who was paying for her purchases at a Catonsville liquor store. David A. Briggs, who was arrested in November and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Aysha D. Ring, 24, was committed to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup, according to Baltimore County prosecutors.

Man indicted in killing of Hamm's stepdaughter The man accused of killing the former city police commissioner's stepdaughter was indicted yesterday by a Baltimore grand jury on first-degree murder charges, according to the city state's attorney's office. Joseph Antonio Bonds, 35, of the 3500 block of W. Garrison Ave., is accused of assaulting and killing Nicole Sesker, the 39-year-old stepdaughter of Leonard D. Hamm. Court documents say Sesker died of blunt-force head injuries and was strangled.

GREENBELT -- A Prince George's County man who was so upset by the idea of terminating pregnancies that he plotted to blow up a Maryland abortion clinic and shoot people inside received a five-year prison sentence yesterday in federal court. The proceeding in U.S. District Court here marked the end of the case for Robert F. Weiler Jr., 26, of Forestville, whose erratic behavior so alarmed his parents that they tipped off authorities this summer. "We must continue to act quickly against anyone who plots to murder doctors or bomb abortion clinics," Rod J. Rosenstein, the Maryland U.S. attorney, said in a statement.

A would-be abortion clinic bomber admitted his guilt in a federal court in Greenbelt yesterday as part of an agreement that could send him to prison for five years. Robert F. Weiler Jr., 25, of Forestville pleaded guilty to possessing a pipe bomb, being a felon in possession of a firearm and attempting to destroy or damage an abortion clinic. Agents arrested Weiler at a rest stop in Western Maryland with a loaded Smith & Wesson .40-caliber handgun. He had been prohibited from possessing a gun after a 2003 conviction in Utah state court for obstructing police.

ATLANTA - With a slight tremor in his voice, convicted bomber Eric Rudolph apologized yesterday for people maimed or killed by a pipe bomb packed with nails that he planted amid a crowd during the 1996 Olympics. "Responsibility for what took place in the park that night belongs to me and me alone," said Rudolph, 38. "I would do anything to take that night back. To those victims, I do apologize." In a chilly, nondescript courtroom, Rudolph's victims stood before him: A college instructor in a tweed jacket suddenly thrust his hand into the air to show Rudolph the stump where his index finger had been blown off. A retired federal agent called Rudolph an "isolated cancer of mankind."

A 14-year-old Fulton boy was arrested after he told a Reservoir High School staff member that he had a pipe bomb, police and school officials said yesterday. The teen, who was arrested after school at his home Wednesday, did not threaten to use the pipe bomb at the school or against students, police and school officials said. Working with the state fire marshal and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Howard County police searched the boy's home and recovered the pipe bomb Wednesday afternoon, police said.

A 14-year-old Fulton boy was arrested after he told a Reservoir High School staff member that he had a pipe bomb, police and school officials said yesterday. The teen, who was arrested after school at his home Wednesday, did not threaten to use the pipe bomb at the school or against students, police and school officials said. Working with the state fire marshal and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Howard County police searched the boy's home and recovered the pipe bomb Wednesday afternoon, police said.