Police Presence

Prince George's County police have been flooded with tips and have identified several "persons of interest" in their investigation into the "college-age" man who raped one University of Maryland student last week and kissed or fondled three others, officials said yesterday. At a campus meeting, Maj. Kevin Davis of the county police told several dozen students that his detectives have stepped up police presence and "covert operations" in the college town. "There are more police per square foot in College Park than virtually any area in Prince George's County," Davis said.

More than two dozen people were arrested at the Pall Mall apartments in Park Heights yesterday afternoon when their search for "blue-and-white" heroin was abruptly ended by a Housing Authority of Baltimore City reverse sting.The housing authority police targeted the apartments, known as "The Ranch," in the 4200 block of Pimlico Road for 2 1/2 hours, luring would-be drug buyers into the complex's basement where they were arrested.Thirty-three people -- from a frail 32-year-old man with a 15-year, $100 a day heroin addiction to middle-class suburbanites -- were arrested.

A satellite police station along the busy Liberty Road corridor could dispel fears about crime and traffic hazards, state troopers told the county yesterday."

Giving due to Robey's public careerWhile Harold Jackson's column of Aug. 2 ("Either Feaga or Robey will do for some voters") accurately ascribed James Robey's appeal to Howard County voters in large measure to his local roots, it gave short shrift to his outstanding career as a public servant in the county for more than 30 years.While Mr. Robey's rose in the ranks of the Police Department from rookie in 1966 to chief in 1991, a review of his record by Mr. Jackson was limited to two controversial and extremely difficult cases the chief had to handle (one of which was largely distorted by a national television news segment)

IN AN OLD "Saturday Night Live" routine, Garrett Morris plays a sickly kid for whom the great Babe Ruth has promised to hit a home run. As Morris lies in his hospital bed, listening to a radio broadcast of the day's ballgame, an announcer says, "The Babe has promised to hit a homer today for little Johnny in the hospital, who's dying I"To which Morris bolts upright in bed and declares, "I'm dying?!"Some of us had that same sensation the other day when C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger took the oath of office for his second term as Baltimore County executive and announced his intention to ++ put police officers in each of the county's 24 high schools, most of which were previously considered not only academically healthy but secure: If the schools need police, does it mean they're starting to die?

With an unprecedented police blockade this weekend, residents of the 2900 and 3000 blocks of Westwood Ave. in West Baltimore got a respite, however temporary, from the open-air drug trafficking that has become a part of their neighborhood's routine.Since Friday evening, uniformed officers in marked police cars stationed at three intersections have barred anyone who does not live in the neighborhood or is not visiting someone there.That left Joe Downing's front stoop void of the usual loiterers.

Campus police at the University of Maryland, College Park have received several leads in recent attacks on female students after releasing a preliminary sketch of an alleged assailant Thursday.Cpl. Mary Brock, campus police spokeswoman, estimated that 100 people called after police distributed the sketch, based on a description from the most recent victim. Police have several "promising" leads from those tips, which came from the public and police in adjoining jurisdictions, she said.Three students were assaulted within a little more than a week at the state's flagship campus.

People in a subdued, sometimes sparse, Easter crowd at the Inner Harbor yesterday seemed more interested in looking and listening than being looked at and talked about.Jeans, sneakers, sweat shirts and other casual attire were the apparel of choice for most people strolling the waterfront and listening to the free jazz at the Inner Harbor amphitheater.They seemed to be taking seriously a handwritten sign at the water-taxi billboard which read, "Today's events: Have a beautiful day!"Michael Tunis, the skipper of one of two sailboats anchored in the Inner Harbor near the Aquarium, said he was finding the day exactly as advertised.

As Baltimore County police Maj. Michael H. Stelmack takes on a new assignment this week, he leaves behind a more visible police presence in the greater Hillendale area.Bike and foot patrols by police began last week. The Community Action Team -- patrols that target troubled areas -- is expanding its coverage. And a police drop-in station is in the works.All are efforts to keep the Baltimore County neighborhood, which local officials say is at a turning point, from slipping backward."Crime levels are down," Stelmack, now area commander of the Cockeysville and Garrison precincts, told a community group this month.

FIGHTING CRIME effectively requires a strong police presence in those communities typically targeted by criminals. The Howard County Police Department has recognized that fact in opening three neighborhood satellite stations, the latest in a North Laurel neighborhood that in April was the site of a heinous racial bias crime.Police will have an office inside the Seasons Apartments. Last month, the townhouse of a black family there was vandalized, ransacked and flooded in what police called the most destructive hate-bias crime in Howard in recent memory.

After a lull in July, violence returned to the Inner Harbor during the weekend when a man and a boy were shot during a scuffle between what appears to be rival gang members inside one of the pavilions. The incident occurred just as a concert in the amphitheater was letting out, and though police arrived within minutes, the gunman apparently got away in the rush of people fleeing the scene. Further complicating matters, the victims themselves have made apprehending a suspect difficult by refusing to cooperate with investigators.

Prince George's County police have been flooded with tips and have identified several "persons of interest" in their investigation into the "college-age" man who raped one University of Maryland student last week and kissed or fondled three others, officials said yesterday. At a campus meeting, Maj. Kevin Davis of the county police told several dozen students that his detectives have stepped up police presence and "covert operations" in the college town. "There are more police per square foot in College Park than virtually any area in Prince George's County," Davis said.

Organizers of Annapolis' first triathlon, who first struggled to win over some angry downtown merchants, have climbed over another obstacle: the possibility of the race being kept off county-owned roads. The Annapolis Triathlon Club last week agreed to pay Anne Arundel County an unspecified fee for a beefed-up police presence during the Sept. 9 event, which is expected to draw 1,500 athletes and thousands more spectators to the city. On Monday, the county rejected the organizers' request for a permit to use county roads, a key part of the triathlon's second leg - a 40-kilometer bicycle ride through the Historic District, up through Crownsville and back to Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

LAST WEEK'S ISSUE: -- County Executive John R. Leopold announced that he will introduce emergency legislation to lift a ban prohibiting police officers from taking second jobs at bingo parlors and businesses that serve alcohol. The move comes about two weeks after a veteran of the county Police Department sued to block an order issued by Chief James Teare Sr., which was based on a county's ethics commission opinion that off-duty jobs at businesses that serve alcohol presented a conflict of interest.

3 homicides reported in city shootings The city's homicide death toll grew by two yesterday with a pair of unrelated shootings - one in a North Baltimore apartment, the other on a street in West Baltimore. About 6 p.m., officers responding to a 911 call found a man dead in an apartment in the 500 block of E. 43rd St., police said. He had wounds to the head and body. Police said it appeared the man had been dead for several hours but noted that there had been no report of gunfire in the area yesterday until the man was found.

A 20-year-old man was killed late Monday in Edgewood, shot several times in his upper body and found lying in a flower bed in front of a townhouse, authorities said yesterday. The shooting comes on the heels of a nearly 10-year high in homicides for Harford County, when seven people were killed in 2006. About 11 p.m., Walter Antonio Overton was found unconscious by sheriff's deputies in the 400 block of Meadowood Drive. Overton was taken to Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air, where he was pronounced dead.

After decades of pushing for increased police presence, residents of the Route 198 corridor praised the opening of a new police substation serving the Russett, Maryland City and Laurel communities. Although no police officers will be headquartered at the substation, the office is intended to increase police presence by giving officers a place to file reports and perform other administrative tasks instead of driving to the station in Odenton, said Lt. Jeffrey Silverman of Anne Arundel County police.

More than three decades ago, when police Lt. John Bailey was just breaking into the force, his first assignment was to patrol Belair Road in Northeast Baltimore. He did it on foot. "That's how we got around then," Bailey said. "It was nice then because you knew everybody that worked around there." In an effort to crack down on drug dealing and other crime in some of the city's most violent neighborhoods, Baltimore police have returned to the good old-fashioned foot patrol, if just for a few hours Friday nights, typically the busiest time of the week for criminal activity.

Concerned about public safety, some Eastport residents are demanding more police presence on neighborhood streets after several recent vicious attacks on pedestrians. "I don't feel so safe anymore. I have a different feel for my neighborhood, and I don't like it," said Richard J. Sharoff of Boucher Avenue. But Annapolis law enforcement officials insist that increased patrols would do little to change the situation. "We feel our manpower is adequate," said Officer Hal Dalton, a city police spokesman.

Concerned about public safety, some Eastport residents are demanding more police presence on neighborhood streets after several recent attacks on pedestrians. "I don't feel so safe anymore. I have a different feel for my neighborhood, and I don't like it," said Richard J. Sharoff of Boucher Avenue. But Annapolis law enforcement officials insist that increased patrols would do little to change the situation. "We feel our manpower is adequate," said Officer Hal Dalton, a city police spokesman.