Public Safety

Hundreds of police and firefighters have started training at a former school in Northwest Baltimore that will let cadets interact more with the community, city officials said yesterday. On any given day, several hundred police and fire trainees will use the space - the former Pimlico Middle School at Northern Parkway and Park Heights Avenue - for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, classroom and physical training. Exercises with firearms and vehicles will take place elsewhere, police said. A number of Police Department, Fire Department and elected officials met yesterday for a ribbon-cutting at the building.

CAMBRIDGE - - Gov. Martin O'Malley told a conference of state lawmakers and county employees Thursday that public safety must remain a priority, even as Maryland faces a nearly $2 billion revenue shortfall this year. He noted the recent abduction and killing of an 11-year-old girl in Salisbury and said officials must work harder to improve communications between agencies. "What could we have done differently?" the Democratic governor asked at the annual winter meeting of the Maryland Association of Counties.

Allegations of cronyism at Baltimore-Washington International Airport spread from the executive offices to the airport's fire department yesterday after union firefighters claimed that they are being managed by politically connected friends of Gov. Parris N. Glendening who lack airport emergency experience. Local 1742 of the International Association of Fire Fighters took an overwhelming vote of no confidence in airport public safety administrators, saying they have put public safety at risk by not following proper emergency procedures on several occasions and by placing unqualified people on emergency equipment.

Lawyers for the County Council and administration of James M. Harkins met late last week to begin hashing out amendments to a bill proposed by the county executive that would exempt public safety communications towers entirely from the zoning code. The county is working on a $23 million upgrade to its two-decade-old emergency communications system, and nine communications towers are a key part of the plan, officials say. The county wants to eliminate dead spots in coverage, both outdoors and inside buildings, where emergency workers cannot communicate.

A bid that would excuse disabled former public safety workers from county property taxes sounds simple but is proving complicated as the County Council prepares to vote on the bill Monday night. The current bill, backed by County Executive Ken Ulman and all five council members, would give the tax break only to former police and correctional officers, firefighters and volunteers who are 100 percent disabled and both work for and live in Howard County. Courtney Watson, the Ellicott City Democrat who introduced the bill, said the administration wants an amendment to include the spouses of such workers who die. The county's police union is pushing for a broader measure that would cover any public safety worker who lives in the county, regardless of the state or county agency they work for or where in the state they are stationed.

It's 2: 19 on a Saturday morning, and a police officer is aiming a gun at four robbery suspects trying to drive past him in a parking lot behind Crazy John's pizza on West Baltimore Street. Officer Brian Pedrick barely manages to keep control of the situation when one of the suspects climbs out of the car and tries to sneak away. The robbery victim dances and taunts and points at the remaining suspects from behind the safety of Pedrick's gun. This is part of an average all-night shift for an officer patrolling the west side of downtown Baltimore, which the city hopes to transform from a dying retail district known for its late-night cruising into an upscale residential neighborhood.

Hanover-based CompuDyne Corp. said yesterday that it has begun its acquisition of a California-based company that makes computer systems that help public safety agencies maintain their operations. CompuDyne will acquire Tiburon Inc. of Fremont, Calif., in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $26 million. Tiburon, a privately held firm with 250 employees, had revenue last year of $48 million. CompuDyne reported revenue last year of $131 million and a profit of $4 million. "The Tiburon acquisition is a very big thing for us," said CompuDyne's chairman and chief executive, Martin Roenigk.

A long-dormant Columbia Council committee on public safety took its first step last night in a new effort to combat crime and the fear of crime in the planned community.The Public Safety Committee met with Howard County Police Chief Wayne Livesay at Columbia Association (CA) headquarters to discuss issues ranging from how to enforce trespassing laws on the association's private "open space" to which illegal drugs are the most popular in the area.The three-member committee, which was founded by a former Columbia Council member several years ago but has not been active, plans to meet with Livesay on a quarterly basis.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake vowed to prioritize education and public safety while making "tough choices" to rectify a $120 million budget deficit, in her first State of the City address. Comparing the fiscal crisis to the great fire of 1904 and the 1968 riots, Rawlings-Blake said the city faced a "true test" that will be a "matter of survival but also renewal." "Mark these words, remember them and factor them into our actions and decisions in the coming days," said Rawlings-Blake.

The county should adopt legislation that would require cellular phone companies to notify neighbors before erecting a cellular tower and revoke permits for towers that interfere with public safety communications, county police and residents in the Edgewater community of Poplar Point told the County Council last night. "It's reasonable, middle-of-the road legislation, but it's responsible," said Poplar Point resident Winfield Vining, whose community is in a protracted dispute with Sprint PCS in an attempt to have a 125-foot tower taken down.