Police Department

The Baltimore County Police Department invited educators and activists to an informal gathering at a Towson restaurant yesterday. The goal was to help make law enforcement careers more attractive to minorities.Black officers make up 11 percent of the 1,635-member department, which serves a county that is about 15 percent black. Hispanic officers make up about 1 percent of the force and Asians account for less than 1 percent.The department needs more minorities and women, but recruiting them is a national problem, said Services Bureau commander Col. M. Kim Ward.

BALTIMORE City Police Department Col. Margaret Patten sat in one of her office chairs, right beside the pest of a columnist who offered his theory on why some police officers might abuse their spouses or girlfriends."

Leon N. Tomlin, a retired city police commander who successfully fought 1970s drug traffickers and later led security for Pope John Paul II's Oct. 8, 1995 visit, died Wednesday of a heart attack at Garrett County Memorial Hospital in Oakland. The Deep Creek Lake resident, who lived for many years in Northeast Baltimore's Hamilton, was 63. Among the highlights of his 38 years in the city Police Department -- he rose through the ranks to be a deputy commissioner, the department's second-in-command -- was his role in the 1992 capture of killer Dontay Carter, whose car and hostage Mr. Tomlin spotted.

Officials in the Howard County Police Department will dust off old stripes for some aspiring supervisors next month.About 30 officers will be promoted to corporal, a rank the department abandoned more than a decade ago. The promotions will be made by mid-April, and the officers named to corporal will receive a 5 percent pay increase, said Chief James N. Robey.The promotions will provide career advancement for aspiring supervisors, who will be called on to fill the gap when sergeants are sick, on vacation or in training, the chief said.

Sykesville is among 1 percent of the nearly 7,000 police jurisdictions nationwide, and the only one in Maryland, to say "No, thank you" to a federal police protection grant.Sykesville is one of 63 police departments nationally to turn down a grant -- nearly $65,000 -- from the Community Oriented Policing Services at the U.S. Department of Justice, said an agency spokesman."Maybe the others were understaffed," said Mayor Jonathan S. Herman. "We have a good ratio of officers to residents."Councilman Michael H. Burgoyne said he doesn't care if Sykesville is the only town in the country to reject the grant.

Paul John Lioi, a highly decorated retired police sergeant who headed arson investigations in Baltimore and once delivered a baby, died Friday of complications from diabetes at Florida East Hospital in Orlando. The former Cedonia resident was 72. In his 27-year career with the Baltimore Police Department, he received numerous commendations, including a top honor for his 1972 rescue of a woman held hostage at gunpoint. Sergeant Lioi was described in The Evening Sun in 1977 as "a small, quiet man, always neatly dressed and always very polite."

Baltimore Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris said yesterday that his department does not have a shortage of police cars and that its new deployment strategies are working well. Police commanders and union officials have complained recently that the department was having difficulty sending officers into high-crime areas because they did not have enough marked and unmarked cars. Norris said that officials are reviewing the department's needs and that the complaints might spring from "a management issue."

Budget cuts that will leave the Baltimore County Police Department 122 officers short next month have prompted police officials to announce a major reorganization that will shift dozens of supervisors and administrators to patrol duties.The plan proposed by Chief Cornelius J. Behan was to be implemented in July, but will take effect Feb. 1 to cope with staff shortages caused by unfilled vacancies and the number of officers accepting a retirement incentive package announced last year by County Executive Roger B. Hayden.

Edgar Russell Moxley, whose more than 40-year career in law enforcement ranged from foot patrols as Ellicott City's night policeman to serving as first chief of the Howard County Police Department, died of cancer Saturday at his Ellicott City home. He was 98. Mr. Moxley was born and raised in Ellicott City, the son of a farmer. "I was born on June 30, 1906, in my father's house off of Jonestown Road, and I grew up as an ordinary country boy wearing knickers and overalls," Mr. Moxley wrote in an unpublished autobiographical sketch.

The county police department is nearly $47,000 richer after receiving a check from the Justice Department for helping the Drug Enforcement Administration in four different cases, authorities said Friday.The check for $46,744 represents 18 percent of the cash and property seized by federal agents in the cases, said Officer Randy Bell, a spokesman for the department. The money will be used to help pay for department programs.The largest forfeiture was $149,000 seized in the case of Steven Downey, a Linthicum drug kingpin arrested in October 1993.