Police Headquarters

The replacement late last week of the two top police commanders in the city's Central District, which covers the Inner Harbor and downtown area, is an encouraging sign that Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III is taking his department's problems seriously. A recent rash of intimidating behavior and assaults involving roving groups of unsupervised teenagers had raised troubling questions about the department's ability to keep a lid on things, especially after police assurances that more officers would be patrolling the streets failed to stop several well-publicized incidents of violence.

The Howard County Police Department will take public comment Monday about the agency's performance as part of the process to gain accreditation. The session is part of an assessment of the department by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies Inc. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the James N. Robey Public Service Training Center, 2200 Scott Wheeler Drive. A team of assessors consisting of law enforcement officers from around the country will be visiting the department throughout April.

Inside Prince George's County police headquarters yesterday, a squad of homicide detectives and nearly a dozen other senior investigators moved into a separate office and began poring over two recent cases that were suddenly the department's top priority. Not far away, in a quiet neighborhood near FedEx Field, all anyone talked about was the possibility that the cases - two double homicides - were connected, that someone is killing mothers and their daughters. The Loftons, Karen and Karissa, were the first, shot in late January in their Largo home.

Baltimore police are seeking to padlock a city motel deemed to be a public nuisance, officials said. Police have asked the owners of the Executive Inn, in the 3600 block of Pulaski Highway in East Baltimore, to attend a hearing at police headquarters to address "repeated crimes of violence taking place at the business," according to a news release. In 2008, police made at least 16 drug-related arrests and responded to more than 30 calls about violent crimes there. A 35-year-old man was found dead in a room at the motel in May 2007.

R ay Lewis paid a visit to Baltimore police headquarters recently, but it's not what you're thinking. The Ravens linebacker, who beat a double-murder rap a few years back but pleaded guilty to obstructing justice, wants to be on the right side of the law. He showed up at HQ a few weeks ago - during the season - and asked what he could do to help the city fight gang violence. "Ray Lewis was in here ... asking, 'What can I do to help?' Police Commish Fred Bealefeld told The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton.

A 16-year-old boy is the latest of seven suspects, ranging in age from 12 to 18, to be arrested and charged in a beating that critically injured a homeless man last week in Annapolis, police said. The 16-year-old suspect, Charles Richard Mason of the first block of Monument St. in Annapolis, surrendered at police headquarters this week, police spokesman Officer Hal Dalton said. Dalton said investigators had obtained a warrant charging him as an adult with assault, robbery and other related offenses.

City police arrested a 15-year-old girl yesterday and charged her with stabbing three people in two attacks in May, including one near a light rail stop in downtown Baltimore that snarled traffic for hours as authorities investigated. Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman, said Sharee Carter of the 800 block of Montpelier St. in Better Waverly was charged as an adult with one count of attempted first-degree murder and four counts of first-degree assault, with assault and weapons violations.

Gunfire yesterday evening in the Brooklyn Homes section of Baltimore killed a female driver and wounded her male passenger and a woman sitting on a porch, police said. Names of the victims were not released and no arrests had been made, police said. Shortly before 6 p.m., a woman was driving a Toyota sedan in the 4100 block of Mariban Court and was being followed by a white Cadillac, said Sterling Clifford, a city police spokesman. Near the intersection of 10th Street, Clifford said, someone in the Cadillac fired several shots into the Toyota, striking the driver and passenger.

The phone survey begins like this: "Good evening, my name is ____ and I am calling on behalf of the Baltimore Police Department." "I am calling to follow up in reference to your [insert crime] that recently occurred." The callers are not detectives trying to solve a crime, but officers and neighborhood leaders trying to regain the trust of city residents and determine for themselves whether the people they protect have received the service they expect. "We're trying to get a measure and get a feel for the quality of police service," said Col. John P. Skinner, who came up with the idea for the survey and ran the effort, which he plans to expand.

Third man involved in shooting A man who was shot and killed Wednesday night in Southeast Baltimore's Perkins Homes neighborhood was seen firing his gun at another man who was wounded in the shooting, city police said yesterday. A third man was shot in the left leg, police said. Police said they recovered a .40-caliber handgun from the man who died, identified yesterday as Marvin Lucas, 21, of the 3800 block of Belair Road. Officer Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman, said a patrol officer heard the gunfire and rushed to the 300 block of S. Dallas Court, where Lucas was seen firing a gun at a 20-year-old man. That man left the scene after a woman put him into a car and drove him to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was treated for a gunshot wound to his right leg, Monroe said.