School Police

James McHenry Elementary School was placed on lockdown yesterday after gunshots were fired in the parking lot. Two or three shots were fired away from the school about 2:20 p.m., and a witness saw a male run away afterward, said Marshall "Toby" Goodwin, chief of the city school police. No one was injured, but students were locked in their classrooms for about 15 minutes while city and school police searched the area, Goodwin said. Police were unable to find the gunman, and school was dismissed under police supervision.

The Baltimore school system's patchwork approach to curbing crime has failed to reduce a growing problem of student violence, a grand jury has concluded.After a four-month study of school crime, the grand jury said the district's safety programs at individual schools provide only a "piecemeal" solution and should be expanded citywide."What we are suggesting is they are good but not enough," said Nancy A. Miller, the chairwoman of the grand jury's subcommittee on school crime. In addition, the school system needs stronger and clearer policies for handling student misconduct, and a larger school police force, the jurors recommended.

Baltimore City school police officers - concerned that student security is at risk because of a reduction in the department's size - are in the midst of taking a no-confidence vote for their chief, Jansen Robinson. The vote, taken over two meetings last month and still continuing, should be tallied by the end of this month, officials said. City Union of Baltimore officials say the officers' chief complaint is that Robinson wants to fill about 45 vacancies in the department with nonunion security guards.

A Southwest Baltimore woman who was charged with assault in an attack on her third-grade daughter's principal at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School was released on her own recognizance yesterday, school police said. Tamarice Lynette Cooper, 28, of the 4600 block of Lawnpark Road, was also charged this week with assaulting a school secretary in the alleged incident May 16 at the school. Police said the school's principal, Havanah Kenlaw, and secretary, Sharnese T. Hall, were treated for minor injuries at a local hospital and released.

A senior at Edmondson-Westside Senior High was arrested yesterday afternoon during class after school police said they found him with a loaded automatic handgun and more than 60 vials of crack cocaine.Jerrod Darnell Gault, 17, of the 1500 block of Aisquith St. was charged as an adult with possession of a handgun and drug distribution."We're shocked by this," said Nat Harrington, a city school spokesman, who added that the seizure was one of the largest in memory.The arrest comes one day after another 17-year-old student, Carroll Skipwith -- a leader of the basketball team at Southwestern High School -- was arrested at his family's apartment in a Lexington Terrace high-rise.

A pre-kindergarten student at Northwood Elementary School in Baltimore brought a small gun to school Friday morning, according to school officials. A teacher discovered the weapon and notified administrators who called the school police. School police arrested the mother of the 5-year-old boy, Vernetta Holson-Anderson, 37, of the 6900 block of Blanch Road, at Northwood Elementary, according to a police document. Holson-Anderson was charged with giving a minor access to a firearm, reckless endangerment and having a handgun on her and in a vehicle, the documents said.

School police who arrested an 8-year-old boy Thursday and charged him with bringing a loaded handgun to a South Baltimore elementary school purposely did not notify the Baltimore Police Department until the next day, which city police say impeded efforts to find out how the child got the weapon and whether any adults should be held responsible. Four days after the third-grade student was arrested at Sharp-Leadenhall Elementary School, city police said they had not yet traced the .380-caliber handgun to determine who owns it and have few leads on how the child obtained it and secreted it in his book bag. The delay meant it took 28 hours for city police detectives to get to the child's house in North Baltimore, and police officials say that a search by that time was all but useless.

A former city police officer is due in court this morning after being charged with posing as an undercover officer at a Southwest Baltimore high school. School police say 26-year-old Pierre Dorsey of the 4400 block of Shamrock Ave. told an officer he was working for the principal of Edmondson High School on an undercover detail to investigate illegal activities occurring in the school and crimes that involved students at nearby Edmondson Village Shopping Center. But Dorsey said he did not have any identification, and the principal said that she had not asked Dorsey to conduct any observation, according to records.

Though they reported more gun incidents, weapons possession and robbery, Baltimore schools saw a slight drop in overall crime in the first half of this school year.While serious offenses increased, common assaults, petty thefts, trespassing and disorderly conduct all declined significantly in the first semester, school police reports say.Meanwhile, officials are pressing ahead with a series of Safe Schools initiatives, including adding five school police officers and an anonymous hot line staffed by school police (396-8591)

An article in yesterday's Sun incorrectly stated the average number of security incidents per day that took place in Baltimore public schools through the end of December 1991. The correct number is an average of 12.5 incidents per day, up from 10.7 per day through the same period in 1990, according to school police.The Sun Regrets the ErrorsViolence is a daily fact of life for Baltimore school principals, who see more police and a special school for disruptive young teen-agers as partial solutions.