Police Lieutenant

A veteran Anne Arundel County police lieutenant was suspended from duty yesterday and accused of falsifying a prescription for Ritalin, the police department confirmed.Lt. Robert Tice, 44, a shift commander in the Northern District, was charged with two counts of prescription fraud after a pharmacist notified police Friday that Tice had altered his Ritalin prescription, according to police.Lt. Jeff Kelly, a police department spokesman, confirmed that a criminal summons was issued to Tice and that he was suspended -- with pay -- pending an internal investigation.

A veteran Anne Arundel County police lieutenant was suspended from duty yesterday and accused of falsifying a prescription for Ritalin, the Police Department confirmed.Lt. Robert Tice, 44, a shift commander in the Northern District, was charged with two counts of prescription fraud after a pharmacist notified police Friday that Tice had altered his Ritalin prescription, according to police.Lt. Jeff Kelly, a police department spokesman, confirmed that a criminal summons was issued to Tice and that he was suspended -- with pay -- pending an internal investigation.

Joseph T. Maskell, a retired Baltimore police lieutenant who was shot in a 1964 robbery that began the notorious Veney brothers case, died of lung cancer April 10 at his Mount Washington home. He was 73.Lieutenant Maskell joined the Police Department in 1946 and, after recovering from his wounds, retired in 1966. He became an adjuster for an insurance company and was appointed vice president of marketing at Freestate Adjusting Co. in 1979. He retired again in 1986 and was a rental car salesman until 1990.

A veteran Baltimore police lieutenant who complained that a commander sat in his car and refused to help colleagues during a fight last month in which three officers were injured was ordered transferred yesterday out of the Eastern District station.Lt. Ed Jackson, whom supporters credit with preventing a revolt by a squad of officers upset about the incident, said he has not been given a reason for his assignment at the Northwestern District. He said that he is being forced out."The commissioner has asked me to leave, so I leave," Jackson said yesterday.

Richard M. Catania Sr., retired director of security for the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel and former Baltimore City police lieutenant, died of cancer Dec. 9 at his Linthicum home. He was 64.He was director of security for the Sheraton from 1985 until he retired last year.The former resident of Morrell Park in South Baltimore joined the Police Department in 1955 and retired in 1985. He received 16 official commendations during his career.In 1965, he received a special commendation after he and another officer raced into a burning West Baltimore rowhouse and rescued three children.

In a May 13 article on the funeral of Baltimore police Lt. Owen Sweeney, The Sun reported incorrectly how many years Sweeney and his wife, Elaine, had been married. They were married 27 years ago. Also, the article stated incorrectly that Sweeney's family met at the funeral with a helicopter medic and a Shock Trauma doctor, both of whom had treated Sweeney. No such meeting occurred.The Sun regrets the errors.An article in yesterday's Maryland section incorrectly named the East Baltimore church of the Rev. John McLoughlin, who delivered the sermon for slain Baltimore Police Lt. Owen Eugene Sweeney Jr. It is St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church.

Robert Morris Vogel, 80, business co-ownerRobert Morris Vogel, co-owner of a home improvement business in Baltimore County, died of dementia Saturday in a Fairfax, Va., nursing home. He was 80.The Baltimore native and a late brother opened Vogel Bros., a home improvement business, in Milford Mill in 1945. He retired in 1987 and moved to Fairfax in 1994.Mr. Vogel attended Polytechnic Institute in the mid-1930s and served in the Army from 1941 to 1945 during World War II.He was a longtime member of Mount Olivet United Methodist Church in Randallstown.

A 41-year-old man charged with fatally shooting a Baltimore police lieutenant in May entered an insanity plea yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court.Baron Michael Cherry of the 5900 block of Bertram Ave. entered a plea of not criminally responsible in the May 7 shooting death of Lt. Owen Sweeney, 47.Sweeney, a 28-year veteran, was killed by a shot fired through the front door of Cherry's northeast home after Denise Cherry had called police because her husband...

William H. Faul: The name of William H. Faul, a Baltimore County police lieutenant, was misspelled in his obituary, which appeared in yesterday's editions.The Sun regrets the error.William H. Fall, 57, Balto. Co. police lieutenantWilliam H. Fall, a Baltimore County police lieutenant who was in charge of support services for the property crimes section of the Criminal Investigation Division, died Sunday of a heart attack at his Woodlawn home. He was 57.Lieutenant Fall, who would have celebrated his 35th year with the force next month, had been assigned to the division since 1976 and had been in charge of support services since 1992.

A Howard County police lieutenant, a state inspector from Laurel and a federal employee from Virginia were identified yesterday as the three people killed when their plane crashed as it was trying to land near Lakeland, Fla., their families said.Clarence H. "Jack" Ward Jr., 48, of Laurel was piloting the four-seat aircraft shortly before 5 p.m. Friday when the plane made an unusually tight turn and rolled over, slamming into a grassy area near a runway of Lakeland Linder Regional Airport, according to a Lakeland Fire Department statement.

One by one, they stood and walked up the blue carpet to the front of the chapel to pay their respects to Edward William Eldridge Jr. They were retired police colonels and active police majors in dress blues, black mourning bands stretched across their badges. A current Baltimore councilwoman and a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives. A police chaplain and a war veteran. The Baltimore County state's attorney. Neighbors, one-time friends and former colleagues. Strangers who felt it necessary to say goodbye.

James A. Jones, a retired Maryland State Police lieutenant colonel who was an early advocate of alcohol and drug testing to reduce highway accidents, died of an embolism Dec. 19 at his Perry Hall home. He was 78. Born in Baltimore and raised in Overlea, he was a 1948 Calvert Hall College High School graduate. He joined the Navy and became an aviation electrician aboard an aircraft carrier. Among other decorations, he received the Korean Service Medal with two battle stars. He joined the Maryland State Police in 1957 and was stationed at Waldorf, Upper Marlboro, Bel Air and Golden Ring, before moving on to the state police headquarters in Pikesville.

BAGHDAD -- U.S. soldiers arrested a police lieutenant suspected of working for an Iranian-backed militia after a firefight in Baghdad yesterday that left six Iraqi police officers and seven gunmen dead. The troops were ambushed from rooftops, a church and a police checkpoint during their pre-dawn raid in eastern Baghdad meant to apprehend the lieutenant, who American authorities believe was funded by an Iranian security force. The soldiers called in fire from a fixed-wing aircraft, aiming directly in front of a police checkpoint that was the source of a small-arms barrage.

INJURED TROOPER Name: Tfc. Eric D. Workman Age: 36 Residence: Baltimore County Family: Divorced, with no children. Stepfather David O'Hara is a retired state police lieutenant who lives in Frederick. Workman's brother is a police officer in Fairfax County, Va. Career: Joined the state police in 1997, assigned to the Westminster barracks. A criminal investigator since 2002. Awards: Received honors for saving a suicidal person on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and for his work on a shooting investigation, 1998; Commander's Award for outstanding service and Baker Award for Highway Safety, 2000; Governor's Citation for Bravery, 2005.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes from police reports in Baltimore and Baltimore County. Baltimore Central Officer assaulted/arrest -- A police lieutenant was struck by a pickup truck early Saturday while he was detouring traffic away from a busy nightclub near the Inner Harbor. Lt. Frederick V. Roussey, former president of the city police union, and several other officers were attempting to direct the driver of a Nissan pickup truck away from traffic barrels and police tape on northbound Market Place between Pratt and Lombard streets at 1:40 a.m. when the driver sped toward him. Before he could avoid the truck, Roussey, who was in uniform, was struck in a knee, according to a police report.

BAGHDAD - In a rare strike on a heavily fortified target in the Iraqi capital, insurgents attacked the country's Interior Ministry building entrance with automatic gunfire and grenades yesterday, killing two police officers and wounding five others. Elsewhere yesterday, guerrilla violence spanned the country, from the northern city of Tal Afar to the southern port of Basra, and officials said fighters linked to al-Qaida fighters had seized large areas of the strategic city of Qaim. In all, 20 people were killed and another 20 wounded.

Frank William Grunder, a retired Baltimore police lieutenant who ran the department's polygraph lab, died of kidney failure Saturday at Anne Arundel Medical Center. The Linthicum resident was 96, and the father of a slain city police sergeant. Born in Baltimore and raised on Fort Avenue, he graduated in 1926 from Calvert Hall College High School, where he played tennis and football. As a young man, Lieutenant Grunder rowed for the old Arundel Rowing Club in the Patapsco River and was an alternate for the 1932 Olympic games held in Los Angeles.

THE VOICES in Denise Wilkes' head pattered on, seven strains echoing in her ear: You think you're funny. Ha! Don't touch anything. Keep your hand in your pockets and get in the house. Get under the bed. After five minutes, the Baltimore police officer couldn't focus on the simplest task: writing her name, filling out a form, holding a conversation. Incessant, nonsensical, the voices turned vindictive, spewing profanities, urging her ... to kill. "It was really wild," she recalls now. But, in that hour, as the recording resounded in her ear, Officer Wilkes got a sense of what it might be like to suffer from a psychotic disorder.

George Henneman II, a former Baltimore police lieutenant who enjoyed working with children through the Police Boys Club, died Nov. 25 of cancer complications at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Arbutus resident was 92. Born in the Baltimore community of Pigtown, he left Southern High School before graduation to pursue work. As a young man, he was a clerk at First National Bank and a machine operator in area shipyards. He joined the police force in 1942, working first for the Police Boys Club, which organized athletic leagues for city youth.

If all goes according to plan, one Annapolis police lieutenant may spend many of the coldest nights this winter driving a bus that will double as a roving homeless shelter. Lt. Robert E. Beans, a police officer in Annapolis for three decades, says he knows winter is a desperate time for the homeless - particularly in a city with only one shelter, which is so overwhelmed that it turned away 1,100 people last year. Starting next month, Beans plans to pick up homeless people who have been screened for drugs and alcohol by the Lighthouse Shelter and either drive them to a temporary shelter or house them overnight on the bus. "It blows me away, this whole plan," said Capt.