Police Chase

ROCKVILLE - Prosecutors said yesterday that a Calvert County man accused of leading police on a high-speed chase through six Maryland jurisdictions starting in Baltimore knew full well two children were in the Mercedes SUV he allegedly carjacked, but didn't care, continuing to elude police and dart through highway traffic at speeds topping 100 mph. "This case is not about a car. It is about a mother and her children," Montgomery County Assistant State's...

Howard County police charged a Baltimore man with first-degree murder yesterday in the robbery and fatal shooting of a Jessup deli owner who was returning from a bank Wednesday morning and holding a bag containing $125,000. Police said they were preparing an arrest warrant for a second suspect, who was hospitalized after being shot by a Baltimore County police officer at the end of a chase through Howard and Baltimore counties that ended with an auto crash in Baltimore. Police found the money bag - containing the amount of cash reported missing and bank deposit slips with the deli's name - and two handguns in the car, police charging documents show.

A robber shot and killed a Jessup deli owner yesterday, grabbed two bags filled with cash, and within minutes began leading police on a high-speed chase through two counties and the city that ended with a car crash, the arrest of one suspect and the shooting of another by a Baltimore County officer, police said. The victim, Kwang Jun Kim, 53, owner of the Jessup Plaza Deli & Convenience and a Presbyterian church deacon, was shot once in the head about 11:30 a.m. as he was about to walk into his store carrying two bank bags.

A 29-year-old Edgewood man was being held last night, accused of attacking his girlfriend in their home with a sword, taking her car, leading police on a five-mile chase along U.S. 40 and trying to ram a state trooper's cruiser before being forced to a stop, authorities said. Edwin Lugo of the 200 block of Sedgemore Court was being held at the Harford County Detention Center on two counts of first-degree assault and several assault and traffic offenses. State police in Bel Air said the incident began shortly after 7 a.m. when they responded to a 911 call reporting that a woman, Tracy Denise Harris, 30, was being assaulted with a "Samurai-style sword" at the home she shares with Lugo.

Police chased a motorist from Brooklyn Park through Baltimore and into Baltimore County yesterday morning before stopping him and discovering that he was wanted in an assault on an officer last month, state police said. A state trooper from the Glen Burnie barracks stopped a 1993 Pontiac Bonneville at Church Street and Liberty Terrace just before 2 a.m. because the car's tag light was not working, police said. Initially, the driver complied with the officer's orders but then got in his car, rammed the patrol car and drove off, according to police accounts.

A Halethorpe man was charged yesterday in the death of a 6-year-old girl who was struck by a pickup truck while crossing the street on her way home from the circus in downtown Baltimore on Saturday evening. Witnesses were so enraged that they attempted to stop the truck at the scene, police said, only to have the man speed off on Lombard Street. One eventually caught the driver, punched through the window and was dragged for a short time down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Guillermo Diaz Lopez, 23, of the 400 block of Bigley Ave. was charged yesterday with manslaughter, attempted murder, assault and driving under the influence of alcohol.

Two juveniles suspected in a carjacking at gunpoint at a Pikesville gas station were arrested last night after a luxury sedan stolen in the incident was pursued by county police, then struck two vehicles. Baltimore County police said the robbers fled on foot from the stolen car, a 2000 Mercedes-Benz that was heavily damaged. The suspects were found after running through a nearby back yard. The car was taken from an unidentified motorist filling up at a Shell station in the 1700 block of Reisterstown Road, and driven north toward Owings Mills.

Police arrest man, find stolen '99 car after chase, search A police chase and a search through the woods in Finksburg ended yesterday with the arrest of a man on the ninth green of a golf course - and, authorities said, the recovery of a car stolen more than three years ago. An undercover state trooper was driving west on Interstate 795 about 7:15 a.m. when he saw a 1999 red Lexus GS 400 speeding and weaving. The car had no front license plate, and the officer used a newly issued personal data assistant to learn that the rear plate was listed as having been stolen in July 1999, said Lt. Terry L. Katz, commander of the state police Westminster barracks.

Eric D. Stennett, the young Baltimore man acquitted of murder last year in the death of a city police officer, pleaded guilty yesterday to federal drug and gun charges that will send him to prison for 10 years. The lanky 19-year-old, whose high-profile case became a symbol for problems in the city court system, allegedly boasted, "I'll beat that," when arrested in March on the new charges. But on the day he was to have stood trial, Stennett sullenly admitted his guilt instead. The plea agreement was welcome closure for city police and prosecutors and for the family of Officer Kevon M. Gavin, who was fatally injured when Stennett's Ford Bronco plowed into his cruiser in a police chase April 20, 2000.