Police Detective

A suspected robber shot and killed Friday night at the Annapolis Mall Hecht's store by an off-duty Prince George's County police officer had a female accomplice and was holding a bag containing more than $100,000 worth of jewelry stolen from Kay Jewelers when he died, Anne Arundel County police said yesterday.The man, still unidentified but described as being in his 40s, was a clever thief, said Daniel Boone, a county police detective, because of the large amount of jewelry taken and the practiced skill of the robbery.

J. Gordon Holmes, who as a young detective helped to solve the famous 1950s Grammer murder case and later retired as a Baltimore County Police Department inspector, died of cancer Thursday at Stella Maris Hospice. He was 80.The Kingsville resident began his police career in 1946 as a patrolman assigned to the Towson station. He was promoted to detective in 1951.Anselm Sodaro, who retired 17 years ago as chief judge of the Baltimore Circuit Court, prosecuted the Grammer case for the state.

A headline on an article in yesterday's editions of The Sun incorrectly stated the guilty plea of Nicholas J. Tomlin, a former Baltimore police detective. Tomlin pleaded guilty to striking one teen-ager and pistol-whipping another.The Sun regrets the errors.A former Baltimore police detective pleaded guilty yesterday to assaulting two teen-agers he believed had shot a fellow officer, pistol-whipping one and striking the other with his flashlight, prosecutors said.Nicholas J. Tomlin, 28, who resigned from the city force and is employed by the DeForest, Wis., Police Department, entered an Alford plea in Baltimore Circuit Court and received a six-month suspended sentence from Judge Mabel H. Hubbard.

Opening arguments will begin today in the Circuit Court trial of an Ellicott City man charged with raping a 14-year-old girl who Howard County police say is borderline mentally retarded.The girl told police that a man walked her to a shed behind an abandoned house in the 3600 block of Fels Lane in Ellicott City and had sex with her the evening of March 4. The shed is near the Roger Carter Neighborhood Center in Ellicott City.Jury selection and the trial were delayed for several hours yesterday because a key witness -- a police detective -- was unable to appear in court, said defense attorney Jonathan S. Smith.

John Furer Dickstein hoped to play the white knight for Blasa Valdes.The Ellicott City man wanted to save Ms. Valdes, with whom he had had an affair, from an extortionist who threatened to kill her if she didn't pay $200,000.But Dickstein's plan to capture the affections of Ms. Valdes unraveled as police began suspecting he was behind a string of threatening letters and harassing telephone calls to the woman, her former husband and their teen-age son.Yesterday, the married, 38-year-old actuary for the Social Security Administration pleaded guilty to extortion and telephone misuse in Howard Circuit Court.

A 28-year-old Howard County police recruit died yesterday shortly after finishing a two-mile run at the police academy in Columbia, authorities said.Roger Dale Cassell Jr. -- whose brother is a Howard County police officer and whose father is a state police detective -- finished the run and was cooling down with several other recruits when he collapsed about 3:45 p.m. in the parking lot.Police officials said a heart attack was the likely cause of death....

When there's a fire or burglary at a Harford school, police and firefighters aren't the only ones on the scene. Eventually, Wally Brenton shows up, if he isn't there already.He's not averse to wading through pools of water in schools soaked by sprinkler systems after a fire or methodically searching a building for clues to a theft.As the lone school security officer, Wallace C. Brenton oversees problems from vandalism to alarm systems to errant teachers.His territory covers 3,700 school employees, almost 35,000 students and about 75 buildings, including the 47 schools.

Police have released all suspects in Tuesday's fire that killed five children in East Baltimore and are now focusing their investigation on recent problems within the family, investigators said.The state medical examiner's office ruled yesterday that four of the five victims died of smoke inhalation. One of those four, a 1-year-old child, appeared to have been severely underfed, police said.An autopsy on the fifth victim had not been completed last night.A statement from the medical examiner's office yesterday on the autopsy of the 1-year-old, Gregory Cook, said the body "showed evidence of probable chronic abuse and neglect."

Dean AbbottPolice detectiveBaltimore Police Detective Dean Abbott, an 11-year veteran of the force, died of cancer Thursday at his Baltimore home. He was 36.During his 11 years on the force, Detective Abbott spent two years in the Youth Section's Child Abuse Unit and three years in the D.A.R.E. program, which educates and counsels children on how to resist the drug culture. He received a unit citation for his work in the program.He received letters from the State's Attorney office and Police Commissioner Edward Tilghman commending him for his investigation of a child abuse case.

An $80,000 BMW that had been stolen during a Feb. 18 carjacking and murder of a wealthy Baltimore businessman was found over the weekend in New Jersey, U.S. Park Police reported yesterday.The car, a top-of-the-line black BMW-750iL model that had been stolen from J. Schuyler Alland, was recovered Saturday in a small city -- but park police would not identify the location."Only the killer knows where he put it, and it's to our advantage to keep some details secret right now," said a park police detective, who asked not to be named.

3 officers suspended amid review of victim complaint 2 Three Baltimore police officers have been suspended with pay as internal investigators look into allegations that they failed to take a report from a woman who said she had been raped, police said. Anthony Guglielmi, the department's chief spokesman, said the 44-year-old victim filed a complaint alleging that police brushed her off when she reported that a knife-wielding man had forced her to perform a sex act in the 3900 block of Garrison Blvd on Sept.

Wailing almost uncontrollably, Daniel E. Thompson Jr. told a police detective again and again after his arrest last year that he was not a bad person, even as he recounted details of the fatal stabbing of a man who was hours from becoming a father. "Jesus! Jesus!" Thompson moaned repeatedly in the taped conversation. "I pray for help! God help me, please!" Now, during his first-degree murder trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court, the mercy he seeks is from a jury of his peers. Jurors who heard the tape in court yesterday must decide whether he is responsible for the death May 10, 2008, of Carlos Adolfo Santay-Carrillo, 19, during what police said was a botched robbery while the victim was buying gas at a Catonsville gas station.

Brown charged with 2 felonies in attack Chris Brown has been charged with two felonies stemming from what a police detective describes as a brutal argument between the singer and his girlfriend, Rihanna. Brown appeared in court yesterday on charges of assault likely to cause great bodily injury and making criminal threats. The R&B singer, 19, was granted a request for a continuance until April 6. He remains free on $50,000 bail. According to a detective's affidavit, Brown and Rihanna got into a fight early Feb. 8 after the "Umbrella" singer checked her boyfriend's cell phone and found a text message from another woman.

College students face vandalism charges Three Wake Forest University students were arrested and a fourth is expected to be charged in the damaging of three cars parked Saturday in the Springhill Suites Hotel lot in Annapolis, county police said. Officers went to the hotel lot, on Admiral Cochrane Drive, about 1 a.m. Three vehicles had been scratched along the sides, one had a broken windshield, and on another, a racial slur had been written in the dew. Charged with destruction of automobiles were Jeffrey Trask, 19, of Wilmington, N.C., Thomas Kelsey, 18, of Dover, Mass.

A police detective in Baltimore's Southeastern District was indicted yesterday by a city grand jury on charges of second-degree rape and misconduct in office. William D. Welch, a 12-year veteran of the Police Department, is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl July 16 in the station house. The teenager had been arrested because she had an outstanding warrant in Baltimore County on prostitution charges, police said. Welch, 40, was suspended without pay, a police spokeswoman said last night.

Wilbert Leon Sisco Sr., a retired Baltimore police detective, died of heart failure Tuesday at Chester River Hospital Center in Chestertown. He was 79 and lived in Chestertown. Mr. Sisco grew up in Rock Hall and graduated from Garnett School. He served two years in the Army and was a sergeant stationed in Germany and Japan. He married Evelyn C. Johnson in the late 1940s. The marriage ended in divorce. In 1954, he joined the Baltimore Police Department and started out patrolling Gay Street, Broadway and Fayette Street.

Garnett "Gus" Dobbin Johnson, a Vietnam veteran and retired Baltimore County police detective, died Feb. 26 of lung cancer. He was 59. Fellow officers said he was an aggressive investigator who spent most of his career working armed robbery cases -- from bank robberies to street holdups -- solving about a third of all the department's cases. "He was a hell of a cop," said Gus Vaselaros, who worked with him for 20 years. "He led the show, he knew his job, and he was a damn good detective."

Man dies after he is arrested in connection with robbery A 28-year-old man allegedly fleeing in a car after an electronics store robbery yesterday evening ran into a Baltimore police detective's unmarked car, then complained of a breathing problem after being arrested and died, authorities said. The man, whose name was withheld, died at Sinai Hospital, said Donny Moses, a city police spokesman. Officers responded to the Radio Shack store at Reisterstown Road and Fords Lane in Northwest Baltimore about 5:50 p.m. after reports of an armed robbery.

During a videotaped, six-hour interview with police detectives, a Columbia woman confessed to strangling her friend and fellow Loyola College doctoral student in March after a night of drinking and an argument in her car. Melissa Burch Harton, 25, told police that after she and Natasha Bacchus argued about how Harton's parents didn't like Bacchus, they started hitting each other and then Harton choked her friend for "one time, for a length of time."...

Taking the witness stand yesterday for the third consecutive day, a homicide detective who interviewed the two Mexican immigrants accused of killing three young relatives was put on the defensive -- about his acting abilities. Policarpio Espinoza, 23, and his nephew, Adan Canela, 18, are on trial on three counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy charges in the May 2004 slashing deaths in Fallstaff of an 8-year-old girl, her 9-year-old brother and their 10-year-old male cousin. The trial began with opening statements July 8 and could continue into early August.