Secret Service Agents

The crowded food court of the Westfield Annapolis mall turned into a scene of panic last night as a gunfight broke out and wounded three people - including an off-duty Secret Service agent who tried to stop the shooting. The gunbattle erupted in an area of the upscale mall frequented by teenagers and spurred panic among hundreds of patrons, who fled screaming to escape what several witnesses said were at least 10 gunshots. Anne Arundel County police said a group of youths surrounded a young man about 7:15 p.m. and began hitting him just inside the food court entrance.

There's great fun to be had in seeing Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland chew up the scenery (as well as their fellow actors) as Secret Service agents struggling to unravel a plot to assassinate the president. Too bad The Sentinel doesn't offer much more. Instead, the movie - based on a novel by Gerald Petievich - offers a setup that inexplicably goes away about halfway through, characters who seem to have missed much of their Secret Service basic training, atmosphere that doesn't really have to do with anything and way too many guys with machine guns within easy reach of the president of the United States.

An American Airlines pilot concerned about the credentials of an Arab-American Secret Service agent on President Bush's security detail ordered the agent off his flight Tuesday night as it prepared to leave Baltimore-Washington International Airport for Texas, an airline official said yesterday. The captain denied passage to the armed agent after reviewing his paperwork and credentials and observing "discrepancies," said Laura Mayo, an airline spokeswoman. The flight eventually took off without the agent.

WASHINGTON - A gunman fired several shots just outside the White House yesterday and refused to surrender in a tense standoff that ended when a Secret Service agent subdued him by firing a bullet into his knee, authorities said. The gunman made no effort to force his way onto White House grounds, officials said, and President Bush, who was exercising in the private residence, was never in danger. Aides said he and Vice President Dick Cheney, who was working in the West Wing, were alerted but kept to their schedules.

U.S. Secret Service agents recovered a computer yesterday in Northeast Baltimore that allegedly was used to create counterfeit checks in a case that arose from a $1,383 shopping spree Tuesday at six Westminster stores.A search warrant for a house in the 5000 block of Goodnow Road turned up the computer system and equipment for printing checks, a spokesman said.In Westminster yesterday morning, District Judge JoAnn M. Ellinghaus-Jones reduced bail from $50,000 to $10,000 for the four Baltimore men charged in the case, who appeared in jail stripes without lawyers.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court all but ended a 10-month legal battle between President Clinton and independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr yesterday by turning aside White House and Secret Service objections to testifying before a grand jury.The court issued no decisions. But it denied a review of what may be the last remnants of that prolonged fight over the legal "privileges" against having to testify. Only two justices -- half the number needed -- voted to hear the two privilege cases.By the time the court acted, what was left of the courtroom battles over Starr's investigation of White House sex scandals was a clear verdict, important to history and to future presidential operations, that privacy inside the president's inner circle had been diminished significantly.

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Secret Service agents who were summoned to testify before a grand jury said yesterday that their clients did not know anything that would substantiate allegations that President Clinton had improper sexual conduct with an intern and sought to cover it up.John Kotelly, an attorney representing Larry Cockell, the head of the protective detail that follows virtually every step the president takes, said Cockell expects to be called this...

WASHINGTON -- Denied legal protection by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Secret Service bodyguards for President Clinton obeyed subpoenas yesterday and began answering prosecutors' questions about Monica Lewinsky.As Secret Service agents for the first time testified against their will to a grand jury, the protective force that prides itself on being nearly invisible found itself in the full glare of the media spotlight at the end of a feverish week of court activity.With independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr prevailing in the Supreme Court in a legal bout with the Secret Service that began in late January, three of the eight subpoenaed agents and officers went before a grand jury, including one retired agent.

WASHINGTON -- Rushing back to court to open a new challenge to Kenneth W. Starr, Justice Department lawyers tried yesterday to prevent agents in the president's security detail from testifying before a federal grand jury.U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson held a 50-minute, closed-door hearing on the issue. The judge is presiding over the special grand jury looking into the Monica Lewinsky matter.Johnson had taken no action as of late last night, legal sources said. Fearing that her inaction would mean the subpoenas would have to be obeyed promptly, administration lawyers asked the federal appeals court here to step in.Meanwhile, the president's private lawyers threatened to start still another court battle with the independent counsel, accusing him of a "backdoor attempt" to learn what Clinton may have told them privately about Lewinsky, a former White House intern.

WASHINGTON -- Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, reaching further into President Clinton's personal movements and daily life, issued a subpoena yesterday demanding that the head of Clinton's Secret Service detail testify in the Monica Lewinsky investigation, an administration source said.In a significant escalation of the five-month fight between Starr and the Secret Service, the independent counsel summoned Special Agent Larry Cockell. He is often the person positioned closest to the president in Washington and around the globe.