Police Department

As a grand jury released a report critical of the Baltimore Police Department's management and drug-arrest record, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms angrily dismissed the findings yesterday as shallow and amateurish."

Baltimore Police Department is ordering majors to pick up patrol shifts on the street to ensure that high-ranking department personnel are available 24 hours a day to respond to significant crimes.The first patrol started last night when Maj. Michael Bass climbed into a marked patrol car. Twenty-eight majors will rotate through eight-hour shifts, which will involve reponding to crimes and inspecting district stations.Col. Bert Shirey, acting police commissioner, said it will ensure that a major is available to respond to incidents and that officers are doing their jobs properly.

A three-month internal audit of the police department's property section has shown that a previously reported theft was nearly three times greater than police estimated.Police Chief James N. Robey said Friday that $8,000 was stolen by former employees, but no guns, drugs or other property was taken. Police had believed that about $3,000 had been stolen.The department assigned five investigators to conduct an internal audit of its property records after the county auditor's office discovered a theft and other discrepancies in the property section records in October.

Howard County has settled a sexual harassment lawsuit by a female police officer for $75,000 after she alleged a hostile "men's locker-room" mentality in the Police Department. All but $8,000 of the settlement covers legal fees. Susan Ensko, a 17-year veteran of the force, had been seeking $500,000 in damages and attorney fees in the lawsuit, which she filed in 2004. The settlement states that both parties deny liability in the matter and are prohibited from speaking with the press about it. The settlement was written Sept.

WHEN 18-year-old Herman Charity joined the Howard County Police Department in 1968, he fulfilled a childhood dream.He didn't know that he was also becoming a pioneer.Mr. Charity, who retired last week as a lieutenant and head of the internal affairs division, didn't know before applying for the job that he would become the first African-American on the Howard force. He can't say that his race never mattered during his subsequent 30 years in the department.In the early days, he had to endure the racial taunts of fellow officers as well as the resentment of those residents who wouldn't give him the respect due a law enforcement officer.

Every year they raise their glasses to heroes who walk among them - the officers who rescue people from fiery crashes, the ones who speak for dead victims, the ones who search for Alzheimer's patients who wander away or missing children. Tonight, as has become the tradition, Anne Arundel County police officers chosen to receive awards of excellence and commendations will wave off the applause. They will instead talk about others not being honored in the ballroom at Michael's Eighth Avenue.

Edward E. Fox Jr. is a highly decorated Baltimore police officer who went undercover to help nail William "Little Will" Franklin, Tommy Lee Canty, James C. Harris and several other notorious drug dealers.The undercover work was dangerous, but Officer Fox thought he was performing a valuable service in the war against drugs. Now he wonders whether his work was recognized by the top brass in the Police Department.Officer Fox's career as a narcotics investigator abruptly ended in October 1991 after he was quoted in an article about "New York Boys" -- violent New York drug dealers who have set up shop in city neighborhoods.

A dispute between Annapolis officials and a contractor renovating and expanding the Police Department could be heading for legal action. A week after officials halted work on the $8.8 million project, consultants hired by the city are ripping out portions of the ceiling and walls in search of incomplete or faulty construction, while the contractor insists that the city is nitpicking and behind on payments. Jim Chase, project manager for J.G. Garcete Co. Inc. of Hyattsville, predicted that the two sides will end up in court.

Calvin Reed, the new general manager of the Jessup truck stop on Route 175, wishes that his unofficial books of those banned from the premises - two three-ring binders brimming with mug shots of bad boys (and girls) dating to 1995 - were thinner. The binders contain pages protected in plastic sleeves that list information on prostitutes caught darting between rows of parked semis, "lumpers" who loiter on the property in the early morning begging for money or looking for work and thieves and drug dealers.

The county Police Department has been awarded a $900,000 federal grant to hire 12 officers and will soon receive another $4,600 grant to train church leaders in arson prevention.The money to assist in hiring and training a dozen new officers over a three-year period is coming from the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Universal Hiring Program. The county will pay 25 percent of the officers' salary and benefits and a one-time expense of $37,000 each to buy patrol cars and other equipment.