Police Department

Stolen electronics, a repossessed truck, perhaps even a drug dealer's bling can now be yours with the click of a mouse button. Thousands of dollars of stolen and forfeited property that used to languish in Maryland's police agency warehouses - from equipment used to grow marijuana plants to power generators - is being auctioned online to the highest bidder. Jurisdictions across Maryland are joining about 1,300 others nationwide on PropertyRoom.com, an eBay-style auction house that specializes in selling seized contraband for local governments.

Baltimore officials plan to give $100,000 to the family of man shot and killed by police in a North Baltimore alley four years ago. The city spending panel, the Board of Estimates, is expected on Wednesday to approve the payment to settle a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by the family of Shawn Corey Cannady, who was 30 at the time of his death. On March 6, 2009, Baltimore Police Officer Jemell Rayam and two other detectives were driving past an alley near the 2800 block of W. Garrison Ave., when they saw Cannady with his "hands in his waist area," according to board documents.

Baltimore officials settled a $200 million lawsuit yesterday that was filed over a police shooting -- caught on videotape outside Lexington Market -- that left a man dead and sparked community protests.The settlement in the case against former police Officer Charles M. Smothers II and the Baltimore Police Department was reached as a jury was being selected to hear the case in the city's Circuit Court. As part of the deal, the settlement amount was kept confidential and sealed in court records.

Anne Arundel County Executive Laura Neuman is asking law enforcement professionals from other jurisdictions to examine the county's troubled police department. Since she took over in February from disgraced former executive John R. Leopold, Neuman said Friday, her office has received a steady stream of anonymous notes alleging problems in the agency. Leopold was convicted of criminal misconduct in office for directing his police protection detail to perform political and personal tasks.

If you want to be a Baltimore County police officer, you'll have to start at the bottom.County officers fresh out of the academy earn $26,656 -- less than any rookie state trooper between Virginia and New York. But they also make less money than their counterparts in Washington, D.C., Baltimore City, and Howard, Anne Arundel, Montgomery, Fairfax and Arlington counties.In short, Baltimore County's newest earn less than everybody else listed in the Maryland State Police's 1998 salary survey.

CHARLES SMOTHERS has filed a $30 million lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department, claiming two counts of wrongful discharge, fraud, violation of rights and civil conspiracy.I hope he guts the department like a fish, bleeds it dry, makes it pay. In August 1997, Smothers -- then Officer Charles Smothers -- shot and killed a knife-wielding James Quarles at Lexington Market. It was one of the cleanest shootings in Baltimore police history. How did the department repay him? It made him the poster boy for domestic violence and had Smothers suffer for the sins of every Baltimore cop who beat his wife or girlfriend.

Baltimore officials plan to give $100,000 to the family of man shot and killed by police in a North Baltimore alley four years ago. The city spending panel, the Board of Estimates, is expected on Wednesday to approve the payment to settle a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by the family of Shawn Corey Cannady, who was 30 at the time of his death. On March 6, 2009, Baltimore Police Officer Jemell Rayam and two other detectives were driving past an alley near the 2800 block of W. Garrison Ave., when they saw Cannady with his "hands in his waist area," according to board documents.

Detectives have begun reviewing rape reports summarily dismissed by Baltimore police over the past 18 months, though efforts to discern why incident reports were not taken in hundreds of 911 calls to police have sputtered. Because 911 calls are typically stored for no longer than 90 days, officials are struggling to find other possible documentation. "There's not much to review," said Elizabeth Embry of the mayor's office on criminal justice. Meanwhile, some experts have asked whether the Police Department should be reviewing its own mishandled cases.

Paula Protani was posting signs in a parking lot on a hot day in August 2009 when she spotted a police officer arranging for a crashed car to be hauled away by a Majestic tow truck. A leader of the city's licensed towers group, Protani said she knew she was witnessing a violation of city law. She said she pointed out her concerns to the officer — and he told her she was under arrest. "I'm 50-some years old, and I had never been arrested before," Protani, a manager at East Baltimore's Frankford Towing, said Wednesday.

In his first week with the Baltimore Police Department 24 years ago, Officer Joseph Hlafka broke five nightsticks while on duty."Four times I was protecting myself from people who refused to leave a corner," Officer Hlafka recently recalled.The fifth nightstick fell from his hand and broke apart."So I started to make my own, and I got good at it, real good," Officer Hlafka said. "Mine don't break easily like some of the other ones."In making the nightsticks, he uses woodworking skills he learned in the Police Boys Clubs, and stronger wood.

Two regional police departments are accepting applications for youth summer programs that will demonstrate the skills and training involved in becoming a police officer. The Howard County Department of Police and the Baltimore County Police Department are looking for students interested in exploring career opportunities and leadership training through short-term programs under their guidance. The HCDP is considering youths between the ages of 15 and 18 for its Youth Police Academy, to be held between July 7 and July 12 in Marriottsville.

Baltimore police said they were aware of no problems connected to early St. Patrick's Day celebrations Friday night, as they brace for a weekend of boozy revelry once bars open today. The department announced plans to flood bar districts with officers and will have help from state police forces too. They are hoping to avoid a repeat of last year, which saw Canton Square trashed by drinkers and a large group of teenagers fighting downtown. So far, though, things are quiet, according to police, and this evening additional officers will be patrolling the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Canton and Federal Hill.

When city school police officer Joseph Baribeault attempted to arrest two combative students at the old Greenspring Middle School, he ended up injured at the bottom of two flights of concrete stairs. Even though the city has acknowledged his disabilities from the incident, he has been left without pay and benefits for being injured in the line of duty — all because members of the School Police Force are classified as civilians in Baltimore's pension system "In July, I got a life-saving award, and months later, I'm on food stamps," said Baribeault, 36, who retired this year because of his injuries after seven years on the force.

Eager to avoid a repeat of the violence last St. Patrick's Day, when youths fought in downtown streets and a tourist was beaten unconscious, Baltimore police are stepping up patrols in nightlife centers starting this weekend. Commanders will add extra patrols at the Inner Harbor and in Fells Point, Canton and Federal Hill in coming weeks as bars and restaurants start celebrations early. Police will also send plainclothes officers to those areas in advance of March 17, a Sunday. "Everybody's getting excited about the holiday, and so are the police," Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

The director of Baltimore's police training academy didn't know that instructors were holding exercises at an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Owings Mills. There were no supervisors on site. A police service weapon somehow got mixed up with a practice paint-cartridge pistol. The gun was pointed at a trainee. Many of the missteps surrounding the exercise at which a University of Maryland police recruit was critically wounded last week ran afoul of nationally recognized training safety standards, according to law enforcement experts and a review of past incidents from around the country.

Top Baltimore police commanders, including the director of the agency's training academy, were unaware that training exercises were being conducted at an Owings Mills facility where a rookie University of Maryland officer was shot in the head and critically wounded, officials said Wednesday. Anthony Guglielmi, the city Police Department's chief spokesman, called the training at a former state psychiatric hospital a "communication breakdown in the chain of command," and said the department has identified multiple problems - including the fact that there were no supervisors on site.

The Aberdeen Room always enjoys getting assistance with extensive record keeping by donors who have been very active in civic affairs in the Aberdeen area. At times we receive help from those who have worked for city government and are very knowledgeable about their work. We were very fortunate to have a visit by retired First Sgt. James Testerman from the Aberdeen Police Department. He brought with him, as a donation, a binder containing pictures and information about the Aberdeen Police Department, from which he had retired after 39 years and 28 days.

Walmart announced Tuesday that it has donated $25,000 to the Baltimore Police Department to buy a fleet of mountain bikes, even as the retailer awaits a crucial City Council vote on whether to rezone land needed to build a new store in Remington. Officials said at a news conference attended by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake that the gift, made through the nonprofit Baltimore Police Foundation, was an act of a good corporate citizen and independent of any action pending before city officials.

The Baltimore officer who shot a man Tuesday was also involved in a controversial shooting in 2007 in which the man he shot ultimately won a $40,000 lawsuit against the Police Department. Police identified the officer Thursday as Donald Muir Jr., a nine-year veteran assigned to the Northwest district. Police said officers in the 5000 block of Pimlico Road heard shots Tuesday evening, then saw a man emerge from an alley holding a handgun that he refused to drop. Muir then shot the man, police said.

Brenda J. Clayburn, a founder and later president of the City Union of Baltimore who was also a longtime city Police Department supervisor, died Sunday of undetermined causes at her Northwest Baltimore home. She was 63. "She had recently been sick, and we are waiting the results of an autopsy," said her daughter, Shirley Y. Cooper, who lives in Baltimore. "I was very saddened to learn of the passing of Brenda Clayburn. Brenda was a strong advocate for the thousands of city employees she represented, and she cared deeply for their welfare," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement Monday.