Police Department

Police officers assigned to a small Eastern Shore high school arrested more than a dozen students in recent months for what critics say was simply misbehavior - prompting investigations by the NAACP and the Maryland attorney general's office. In one case, a 14-year-old girl known as a good student was handcuffed and escorted to the principal's office for talking back to an officer and refusing to sit down. The spate of arrests at Crisfield High School apparently began after the town Police Department stationed an officer at the high school in January.

The Baltimore police officer who shot and killed a man during a struggle for his service weapon on a Northwest Baltimore street early Thursday had previously shot four people, including one man fatally in 1994, according to department records. All four previous shootings were ruled justified, a Police Department spokesman said yesterday. The latest incident is under investigation. The officer was identified yesterday as Arthur Lee Edmondson Jr., a 19-year veteran assigned to the Northwestern District.

A Brooklyn Park man died after suffering several gunshot wounds early yesterday, Annapolis police said. Terrence Anthony Powell, 23, was killed in the first block of College Creek Terrace, where police had responded to a call about 4:45 a.m. reporting shots fired and a person possibly injured, said Officer 1st Class Kevin Freeman of the Annapolis Police Department. Powell died at the scene, Freeman said. The police investigation was continuing.

Harlow Fullwood Jr., a former Baltimore police officer who made his fortune operating fried-chicken franchises and established a foundation that has helped more than 1,000 students attend college, died of diabetes complications Saturday at Woodbridge Valley ManorCare in Catonsville. He was 65. Mr. Fullwood died just hours after his foundation's annual benefit and award breakfast, which was attended by more than 2,000. "He was holding on to make sure that everything went on as he scheduled it to go," said his daughter, Paquita Fullwood-Stokes of Randallstown.

With evidence missing in two cases of officers accused of rape, the Baltimore Police Department has asked the Maryland State Police to store all evidence in future police misconduct investigations. Greg Shipley, state police spokesman, said his agency has verbally agreed to the plan, and lawyers are reviewing a memorandum of understanding before it is made final. City prosecutors also are reviewing the proposal to ensure that no chain-of-custody issues would arise in court. The move comes after two incidents in which important items in the city Police Department's evidence control unit turned up missing.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- When he read that the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department was looking for recruits with rugby player physiques, Emile Engelbrecht knew he fit the bill at 6-foot-4, 230 pounds. But it was another trait explicitly sought by the department's brass that made him apply to be an officer: white skin. "Maybe I am the perfect candidate at this stage," said the 31-year-old. "They saw they made a mistake, and they need us white guys to help do the work." Having gone from a white-dominated force to a black-dominated one in the 13 years since apartheid's demise, the Johannesburg police force now says the pendulum has swung too far. Much of the change occurred in the 1990s as whites left in droves, often for private security jobs, and hiring black officers became a top priority.

The Howard County Police Department will soon have another weapon in its arsenal, and Chief William J. McMahon hopes it will quell disturbances more swiftly and with less force. The County Council approved the department's use of Tasers, which fire electric probes into the skin to incapacitate a person. The right to employ the hand-held stun guns in the county was also extended to law enforcement officers from other jurisdictions. But the Sheriff's Department and Howard County Department of Corrections will be prohibited from using the devices, at least until an analysis is completed of the first six months of the program.

Morgan State students who staged a shooting in an effort to dodge military service agreed yesterday to guilty pleas that will have them paying $22,500 to the Baltimore Police Department. David Briggs, Phillip Anderson and Xavier Marshall each pleaded guilty to charges of reckless endangerment, giving a false statement to officers and wearing, carrying or transporting a handgun. Each was sentenced to five years, with all but time served suspended. Each will serve three years' probation, and each will pay $7,500 to the Police Department under the plea deal.

After a deadly weekend with six city homicides, Mayor Sheila Dixon outlined yesterday her long-awaited crime-fighting strategy, which includes targeting the most dangerous offenders, cracking down on illegal guns and strengthening community partnerships. Many of the proposals expand on existing initiatives, such as the city's safe zones, and resurrect old crime-fighting strategies, such as zeroing in on Baltimore's most violent offenders - an approach heralded by noted criminologist David Kennedy, who worked with the city in the late 1990s and was consulted on the current plan.

Authorities are blaming miscommunication between police officers and an emergency dispatcher for sending an ambulance to the wrong address after Friday's pit bull attack on a young girl in Southwest Baltimore. As a result, paramedics didn't arrive at the scene until 18 minutes after they were first dispatched. By that time, a city sheriff's deputy had shot and killed the dog, and 7-year-old Kayla Mitchell lay bleeding on the street as police officers and onlookers made frantic calls to 911 seeking an ambulance, which had been dispatched to the 1800 block of Ramsay St. instead of the 1400 block, where the attack occurred.

A city attorney resigned Thursday immediately after failing to persuade an internal disciplinary board to recommend firing a police officer convicted of administrative charges of assaulting a man outside a Federal Hill pizza shop in 2005. The attorney, Sandra Holmes, got a partial victory in her case against Officer Michael D. Brassell - an assault conviction and a recommendation to the police commissioner that Brassell be suspended 60 days without pay. But the board found the officer not guilty of lying to investigators, which carries an automatic termination.

A Baltimore police officer facing internal discipline for speaking to a Baltimore Sun reporter said in court filings Tuesday that she was exercising free speech and that her comments served a public concern. Sgt. Carrie Everett, who was then assigned to the Southwestern District, spoke to a reporter after she was administratively charged in connection with an incident in which a murder suspect committed suicide by jumping from a top-floor window while under police supervision at Mercy Medical Center.

Baltimore police are searching for a man who they said broke into a West Baltimore home, struck a woman in the head with a baseball bat and then raped her at knifepoint. Authorities released a computer-generated sketch of a possible suspect described as a medium- to dark-complexioned black male in his early 20s with a slim build and standing about 5 feet 7 inches tall. He has short-matted dreadlocks and boyish features, according to police. A clothing description was not available. The attack occurred Sept.

Officials for Washington's Metro system are preparing to install video cameras on an unspecified number of rail cars, the first step in what could become a systemwide surveillance network that officials say will help them better manage crowds and investigate criminal activity. The agency's board voted Thursday to accept $27.8 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security to pay for cameras. Most of the money will put more cameras on buses, in ventilation shafts, at station entrances and near the ends of platforms over the next few years.

Del. Jon S. Cardin not only planned an August night to remember for his girlfriend that featured a mock police raid and marriage proposal. He also invited Gov. Martin O'Malley to make a surprise appearance afterward to congratulate the couple. As it turned out, O'Malley had a prior engagement and wasn't able to meet the couple that fateful night. That saved the governor from becoming embroiled in a scandal stemming from Cardin's enlistment of Baltimore police resources and on-duty officers to stage his proposal on a boat in the Inner Harbor.

The police won't get to watch patrons down beers at Shirley's Honey Hole after all. Baltimore's police commissioner is planning to veto a condition worked out by the bar's owner and a city attorney that would have allowed law enforcement to monitor live video feeds from surveillance cameras inside the tavern, according to the department's chief spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi. It was one of several concessions the owner, Shirley Barner, had agreed to this week to keep authorities from padlocking her business after a spate of shootings outside and accusations that drug dealers were using the vestibule to sell and store narcotics led police to label the bar a public nuisance.

The war on terror has accustomed us to the idea of constantly being watched. In airports and train stations, in schools, offices and stores and along city streets, the ubiquitous, unblinking eyes of surveillance cameras daily record our images. We're no longer unduly alarmed by the idea of police video surveillance of public spaces, or of private businesses installing security cameras to tape what's going on inside their premises. Some people feel safer knowing the authorities are watching.

With the city staring at budget cuts, the top brass of the Police Department are scheduled to go on an $11,000 overnight retreat next week. But officials are defending the expenditure, with the trip paid for through cash seized from criminals and the destination hardly glamorous - commanders will be bunking at Leakin Park for the night. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said 48 members of the agency's leadership team - from Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to the deputy majors - will attend the training and team-building retreat at the park's Outward Bound center.

Baltimore police officers who ordered several peace protesters to disperse Friday from a city park across from the Inner Harbor "were clearly wrong" and "uneducated on public demonstration laws," according to the Police Department's chief spokesman. That official, Anthony Guglielmi, said the five women had a legal right to protest at McKeldin Park, a triangular median bordered by Calvert, Light and Pratt streets. He said Maj. Dennis Smith, the commander of the Central District, has ordered the officers "to be retrained."

The Baltimore Police Department plans to equip more than 2,000 officers with sophisticated smart phones allowing them to check warrants, retrieve driver's license photos and conduct background checks on hand-held devices, an initiative designed to get police out of patrol cars and walking the beat. The city Board of Estimates approved on Tuesday spending $3.5 million in federal stimulus money on the new technology, expected to be in place by the end of the year. City Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III called it the most extensive program of its kind in the country.