Police Commander

Two Baltimore police commanders who had been suspended during separate investigations involving an abandoned police vehicle and the loan of a handgun have been cleared of criminal and administrative wrongdoing, their lawyers said Thursday. Majors Anthony Brown and Terrence McLarney have returned to their jobs running the tactical and homicide divisions, respectively, according to the chief spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department. The spokesman declined to comment further, citing personnel issues.

A handgun reported stolen from a politically connected Southeast Baltimore businessman is registered to a top Baltimore police commander, and police are investigating how the business owner came into possession of the weapon, The Baltimore Sun has learned. On March 26, Nicolas Ramos, owner of Arcos Restaurant on South Broadway, called police to report that someone had rifled through his office and taken a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver from a storage case in a closet, according to a copy of the police report.

From the Baltimore Crime Beat blog: The Baltimore police commander who heads the homicide unit was suspended today after he abandoned his unmarked cruiser on the side of I-95 near Route 32 in Howard County, city police confirmed. Maj. Terrence P. McLarney apparently ran off an exit ramp in Sunday night's rain storm. State Police said his car went into a ditch and there was minor damage to the front bumper. Another motorists called police to report seeing the vehicle off the road.

He grew up listening to his elders telling tales of vice raids over games of pinochle, and he followed his grandfather, father and uncle onto the city's police force. On Wednesday, after nearly 38 years patrolling Baltimore's streets and helping run the department, Lt. Col. Michael J. Andrew is retiring, just two months shy of turning 60, bringing to a close a family lineage that stretches back to 1921. Having joined the force in June 1973, he's the last active-duty cop to have held the rank of captain and one of the last who remembers using call-box keys and summoning help by banging his nightstick — lovingly known in Baltimore as an espantoon — on the sidewalk.

The 911 calls that came at 9:25 Monday morning sounded familiar: Park Heights residents had heard gunshots. Yet another shooting with one more dead victim was the familiar outcome after another violent weekend in the city. The man found with a bullet in his head behind a string of rowhouses on Shirley Avenue was the seventh person fatally shot or stabbed since Friday afternoon, when a 78-year-old man was killed in his house on Edison Highway. Police have not arrested anyone in this latest spate of violence but say they have good leads in several cases.

Twelve years ago, the newly elected Anne Arundel County executive fired her police chief for allowing on-duty officers to appear in print ads for the incumbent she had defeated. A year later, in 1999, a top Baltimore police commander called it "personally distasteful" when uniformed, off-duty officers appeared in a campaign television ad for the mayor's opponent. In the Arundel case, an ethics panel ruled that the defeated county executive had abused his office by using police in his ads. In the city case, the officers were speaking on behalf of the union, but the department worried the nuance would be lost on residents.

Alvin Williams' summer is pretty much over. The 5-year-old can't run around with his friends. Instead, he sits in a folding chair on the front porch of his grandfather's house off York Road in North Baltimore, his broken right leg wrapped in a cast and propped up on another chair. His leg was broken when a Baltimore police cruiser ran over it last week. This week, a top department officer, whose command includes boats in the harbor and the detectives who investigate traffic accidents, paid Alvin a visit.

David B. Mitchell knew there was a good chance some students would cause trouble on the streets around the University of Maryland if the men's basketball team defeated rival Duke. So before the game, the veteran lawman asked firefighters to douse trash cans so they couldn't be set on fire. He went to bar owners and liquor store operators along U.S. 1 and asked them not to sell bottles of beer that could be used as missiles and to please use paper or plastic foam cups. He reminded them to be vigilant in checking IDs that night.

A Baltimore police commander who leaked a memorandum to The Baltimore Sun critical of a fatal police shooting has collected a settlement from the city, bringing an end to a lengthy legal case that advocates say represents a victory for government whistle-blowers. City Solicitor George N. Nilson said he agreed to end the case after Lt. Col. Michael J. Andrew won a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which ruled last year that the officer couldn't be punished because he was speaking as a private citizen and about "concerns for public safety."