Police Academy

Maj. Pat Bradley, who has headed the Baltimore Police Academy through a decade of tumultuous change, is retiring from his post after a 23-year career that took him from a self-described "5-foot, 8-inch patrolman in glasses" to the director's office of the state's largest police training center.A leader in the movement to modernize police training in Maryland, Major Bradley was selected this week from a field of 45 candidates to take over the No. 2 job in the state agency that oversees police academies statewide.

Lawrence R. "Larry" Sibley, a retired Baltimore County police officer who had a second career in security and as an office manager, died Thursday from heart disease at his home in Shrewsbury, Pa. He was 64. The son of an Old Bay Line seaman and a homemaker, Mr. Sibley was born in Baltimore and raised on Frankford Avenue in Gardenville. After graduating in 1965 from City College, Mr. Sibley entered the police academy, from which he graduated the next year. He joined the Baltimore County Police Department in 1967 and had worked as a detective.

Just days before Latisha L. Price was scheduled to graduate from her 26-week Baltimore police academy class, she flunked a driving test on a police car and was fired.Ms. Price has a valid state driver's license, but at 4 feet 11 inches she has trouble reaching the brake and accelerator pedals on the large patrol cars.The department is currently preparing to change its fleet to midsize Ford Tauruses, because of a high accident rate among young officers unfamiliar with the larger Chevrolet Caprice.

The Harford County Sheriff's Office is once again offering Harford County residents the opportunity to attend the annual Citizens Police Academy - a 15-week program designed to provide residents with a better understanding of the Harford County Sheriff's Office and its operations and to foster a partnership between the sheriff's office and the communities it serves. This year's academy, which is free to participants, will be every Tuesday evening beginning March 6 through June 12 and is open to any Harford County resident 18 years of age or older.

These 13 officers graduated from the Howard County Police Department's 21st academy class during a ceremony last night at River Hill High School: Ronald Baker, Mark Duncan, Norma Hurley, Joseph King, Jerome Linkins, Andrew Lux, Heather McPherson, John Mooney, Matthew Mulholland, William Rafferty, Thomas Rukamp, Rocco Sovero and Chad Zirk.

Local law enforcement officials gathered at Dundalk Community College yesterday to celebrate the opening of the new Baltimore County Police Academy -- a partnership expected to shore up the college's sagging enrollment and save the county $1.6 million."

Heat and sweat fill the gymnasium at the Maryland State Police Academy in Pikesville as 48 recruits run laps, lift weights and grunt through chin-ups, pullups and push-ups.A call to order and the day's lesson begins: how to take handcuffs off your belt so they're ready for immediate use. It's a five-step sequence, trickier than it looks, and it's not long before at least one recruit is lost."SIRQUESTIONSIR!" It's one long word, shouted military-style.Half a beat later, he corrects himself.

Carroll Community College and the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission are providing the Maryland Law Enforcement Training Academy a home at the Westminster college. Twenty-four cadets composed the first class. They started training Oct. 16 and graduated Feb. 23. Agencies in Carroll County will employ seven of the graduates. Two - Jesse Gregory Clagett and Gregory Domingo Fabela - will be with the Westminster Police Department. The Carroll County Sheriff's Office will employ five: Diane Francine Conaway, William John Mansfield, Robert Eric Riggio, Rex Washington Scott Sr. and Bruce Todd Vanleuvan.

Baltimore's search for a new location for its Police Academy has been narrowed to two sites -- the old Signet Bank Operations Center downtown and the former Waverly Press building in East Baltimore.The Police Academy has to vacate the former Colts football training complex in Owings Mills by March 1 so the facility can be prepared for use by the Cleveland Browns, in anticipation of the team playing in Baltimore in the fall.The academy trains 200 to 300 police recruits each year and provides annual training for the Police Department's approximately 3,000 officers.

Erika Heavner might not have been on stage, let alone been able to speak for her entire Howard County Police Academy class, had it not been for Michael Marino. Along with another cadet, Marino helped Heavner endure a stressful eight-hour day meant to build teamwork among cadets during the first week of training. "I was to the point of exhaustion with leg cramps. [I] wasn't really sure how I was going to make it through, and I look up and here comes Mike running down the hill," Heavner said after Thursday night's graduation ceremony.

Registration is now open for the Laurel Police Department's next Citizen's Police Academy. The goal of the Citizen's Police Academy is for citizens to gain an inside view of how law enforcement departments function and operate. The 14-week program includes classroom and hands-on instruction in topics such as major crime investigation, community policing, arrest techniques, officer survival, crime scene investigation and gangs, and includes a ride-along with an on-duty Laurel Police officer.

Bubba Smith, the fearsome defensive end who played five seasons for the Baltimore Colts and helped them to victory in Super Bowl V in January 1971, was the very definition of a larger-than-life figure. A 6-foot-7, 250-pound All-American at Michigan State who prompted cries of "Kill, Bubba, Kill!" from Spartans fans, he was the No. 1 pick in the 1967 NFL draft and became a two-time Pro Bowl selection with the Colts before ending his injury-shortened career with the Oakland Raiders and Houston Oilers.

Thaddeus Allen served two tours in Iraq as an infantryman in the Army, barely escaping injury when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Jeep. His third time out as a newly minted state trooper, the rookie barely escaped again, this time by jumping over a concrete divider just as a suspected drunken driver slammed into the back of his cruiser while stopped on Interstate 95. For the 27-year-old trooper, Friday's narrow miss on the rain-slick highway bore out what instructors had drilled into him at the academy.

He circled the track at Northwestern High School six times, completing 1.5 miles in 12 minutes and 28 seconds — four minutes under the cutoff. Gilnord Estime Charles had already passed the civil service exam. His successful run on the morning of Jan. 14 got him one step closer to Baltimore's police academy, and one step closer to fulfilling his dream of being an officer. Then the 29-year-old walked off the track and collapsed. Two other applicants, both paramedics, rushed to his side, and an ambulance took him to Sinai Hospital, where he died.

Baltimore's top cop is adding another obligation to his busy schedule next month: part-time student. Speaking at a ceremony Friday for a group of officers enrolled in a leadership certificate program at the University of Maryland University College, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III disclosed that he would soon be going back to school himself. Bealefeld has a high school diploma. He dropped out of Anne Arundel Community College to join the police academy after suffering a sports injury that dashed his hopes of earning an athletic scholarship.

A Columbia man on trial for allegedly assaulting Howard County police during a large parking lot brawl in April said Monday that officers beat him after he was handcuffed, bringing up a key issue in his separate, $50 million federal civil lawsuit against the county. Melvin J. Yates Jr., 24, who has the legal support of the county chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was amid a chaotic crowd just after midnight on April 10, both sides agreed in opening statements during the first day of a jury trial before Judge Richard S. Bernhardt in Howard County Circuit Court.

Baltimore is buying a vacant bank building downtown to be used as the new site of its police training academy.The city is buying the old Signet Bank Operations Center and an adjacent parking garage at 210-220 Guilford Ave. for $2.25 million to house its Police Academy, documents show.The academy has to vacate its current site at the former Colts football complex in Owings Mills so that the complex can be prepared for the interim use by Baltimore's new National Football League team.The five-story bank building and the 300-car garage, which have an assessed value of $4.9 million, have been on the market for a little more than a year, with an original asking price of $3.9 million.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- Two suicide bombers struck at police trainees in the Iraqi capital yesterday, killing at least 27 people and wounding 50 others, including an American contractor. The first blast, outside a classroom at a police academy, sent recruits fleeing into a bunker where the second suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his chest, the U.S. military said. One trainee injured by shrapnel said he and a group of fellow students were about to go to lunch when the attack happened.

A 19-year-old man was shot three times by Baltimore police after a traffic stop early Saturday near Gwynns Falls Park, police said. According to police, two officers from the Southwestern District were approaching the vehicle in the 1000 block of Ellamont Ave. about 1:30 a.m. to question three men when a passenger in the rear seat pulled out a gun. Both officers fired several shots at the vehicle in response, striking it as it sped away, police...

Royal Graham "The House" Shannonhouse III, a retired attorney and University of Baltimore law school professor who was a beloved taskmaster and had a profound influence on his fledgling law students, died in his sleep Friday at his Federal Hill home. He was 81. "He was the quintessential law professor who inspired his students to be the best lawyers they could be, and his influence continues on in us 40 years later after we left his classroom," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James F. Schneider said Tuesday.