Police Charged

A Johns Hopkins University student was in critical condition Saturday with a head injury after he was struck by a car at the intersection of St. Paul and W. 33rd streets, police said. The 21-year-old sophomore is expected to survive, as is another student who was hit by the car at about 2:15 a.m. Saturday. Police said the driver who struck the students at the intersection near the university might have been intoxicated. Hopkins Dean of Student Life Susan K. Boswell identified the students in an email to the campus community as Benjamin Zucker and freshman Rachel Cohen, 18. Police said Zucker was in critical condition but is expected to survive.

A Sykesville couple is charged in four burglaries, and Howard County police are looking into whether the duo might be responsible for several more. The suspects were identified as Edward J. Johnson, 28, and his wife, Robin R. Johnson, 27, who live in the 1300 block of Buckhorn Road. Edward Johnson was arrested on Friday and charged with first-, third- and fourth-degree burglary and theft, and was being held at the Howard County Detention Center in lieu of $2,600 bond. His wife was arrested on Saturday and charged with the same crimes.

Seventeen Baltimore police officers were charged Wednesday — and more than a dozen others suspended — in an extortion scheme in which officers are accused of receiving thousands of dollars in kickbacks for steering accident victims to a towing company that was not authorized to do business with the city. Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III helped make the arrests, summoning the officers to the department's training academy under the guise of an equipment inspection.

A Virginia couple, staying at a hotel near the airport, was forced into a vehicle as a Glen Burnie man attempted to rob them Thursday, Anne Arundel County police said. The 43-year-old woman and 44-year-old man from Richmond were getting into their vehicle at about 9:45 p.m. near a restaurant in the area of West Nursery Road and Winterson Road when an armed man forced them into their vehicle and demanded money, police said. The couple told him they had no money but had some in their nearby hotel in the 1100 block of Winterson Road, near BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.

A 46-year-old man stabbed to death Saturday night in Severn was identified as a food delivery driver who Anne Arundel County police believe was targeted in a robbery, police said. County police also said they had arrested and charged a 39-year-old homeless man in the stabbing death of a 43-year-old man at a Glen Burnie shopping center Saturday night. The killings occurred about 45 minutes apart. Police were called to the 1800 block of Meade Village Circle in Severn at about 7:15 p.m. for a report of a sick or injured man lying in the roadway, police said.

City police made an arrest Friday in a 2007 killing that occurred in Northwest Baltimore, near Reisterstown Road and West Cold Spring Lane. Mark Durand Winchester, 31, of the 4300 block of Reisterstown Road is charged with first-degree murder in the July 14, 2007, shooting death of Yemel McMillan, 23. McMillan was shot in the head in the 2800 block of Boarman Ave., about a mile south of Pimlico Race Course , police said. He was one of four fatal shootings that July weekend.

Police in Baltimore intend to charge a 22-year-old man in connection with a homicide six months ago on North Belnord Avenue. Tyrell Smith, 22, was being held Friday on unrelated charges at the Baltimore prison once known as Supermax when police announced they had obtained an arrest warrant for him in the May 24 killing. At the time, police said an officer had answered a call about a shooting at 12:43 a.m. and found the victim lying on the sidewalk in the 900 block of N. Belnord Ave., in the Madison-Eastend neighborhood.

Baltimore police have charged as juveniles two youths ages 11 and 14 with twice breaking into the Carrie Murray Nature Center in Leakin Park and stealing a dozen animals, a department spokesman said Thursday. A tip from a neighbor led police Tuesday to a house on Clifton Avenue in a West Baltimore townhouse development within walking distance of the nature preserve. Police said the center was broke into once between Saturday evening and Monday morning and again sometime Monday night or Tuesday morning.

A group of six people has been charged with stealing five vehicles in Columbia between June 16 and August 1. Five of those facing vehicle theft and related charges live in the town, while the sixth person is from Baltimore. All the vehicles were recovered by police, who tied the suspects to the vehicles both from items left in them and from property stolen and later pawned. Howard County police said they got a break after the second theft, in which a 1997 Dodge Caravan was stolen from the 8700 block of Cloudleap Court on June 21. A patrol officer tried to stop the van but the driver sped off, eventually crashing into a tree on a ramp from Route 29 onto Route 175. The driver and passenger fled on foot but were arrested later police said.