Shooter

A man was found shot early Saturday in the 400 block of N. Collington Ave., near the Butcher's Hill and Patterson Place neighborhoods, police said. Around midnight, an officer on foot near the 2200 block of Jefferson Street approached as an unidentified person was shooting at a 30-year-old man, police said. Pulling his own gun, the officer ordered the suspect to drop his weapon, police said. The suspect instead turned and fired at the officer, who shot back without appearing to hit the suspect, police said.

Robert W. Gladden Jr. "expected to be killed" on the day he allegedly shot a fellow student at Perry Hall High School, according to his lawyers, who said the teen remains on suicide watch in jail. The comments came on the day of the 15-year-old Gladden's first court appearance since the incident; his morning bail hearing was postponed after his attorneys requested more time to secure and examine recent mental health evaluations. Gladden did not speak in court, but kept his head down, letting his long dark hair hang in his face.

Rodney Pridget and his girlfriend were unaware they were being followed as they stopped at Build-A-Bear Workshop, Nordstrom and other stores at a crowded Towson Town Center Mall six days before Christmas. But as they left the mall, a man vying to become a member of the Black Guerrilla Family gang in North Baltimore fired six shots and killed the 19-year-old Pridget, according to prosecutors. The prosecution of the men accused in the shooting has shed light on an incident that shook holiday patrons in the Baltimore County seat and illustrated how violence from a city gang dispute can spill into a busy suburban mall.

Thanks for Susan Reimer 's commentary on the shootings at Perry Hall High School ("Failing Bobby," Aug. 30). This young man seemingly didn't have a "normal" home life. To read about other students throwing food at him or ridiculing him makes me hope that those that made fun of him are not only praying for his alleged victim but also for themselves to be better friends to everyone. Anyone who ever bullied Bobby had a hand in his shattered soul. D. Taylor, Baltimore

Meet the parents. Bonnie Gladden, the mother of the 15-year-old charged with shooting a fellow student at Perry Hall High on the first day of the new school year, has a ninth-grade education and was 19 years old and four months pregnant with a daughter when she married Robert Wayne Gladden Sr. Four years later, in 1996, authorities filed charges of assault with intent to murder against him, listing Ms. Gladden as the victim, though he was acquitted...

Charged as an adult in the Perry Hall High School shooting, 15-year-old Robert Wayne Gladden Jr., was held without bond Tuesday as a portrait of a withdrawn and occasionally bullied student with a troubled home life emerged through interviews with classmates and court documents. The suspect was charged with attempted murder and assault in the cafeteria shooting on Monday, the first day of classes. He underwent a mental health evaluation Tuesday, and had been held at the Baltimore County Detention Center.

The family of Daniel Borowy, who was critically injured in the shooting at Perry Hall High School, thanked school staff, the police and EMS technicians for quickly getting the teen to safety and rushing him to the hospital. The family's only public comment on the shooting came in a statement issued through the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where Borowy, 17, remains in critical condition after being shot in the school's cafeteria Monday morning. Earlier Tuesday, police charged alleged shooter Robert Wayne Gladden Jr., 15, with attempted first-degree murder and assault in connection with the shooting.

"It can't happen here. " From the safety of suburban Maryland, it is only natural to think that random shootings erupting in movie theaters in Colorado will not visit our neighborhoods. Safe, quiet, stable communities are not the places we imagine when we think of kids and guns, the excitement of the first day at school and the terror of "code red," the evacuation of our children and debates over whether to charge a 15-year-old shooter as a kid or an adult. But it did happen at Perry Hall High School on Monday, and so we must follow the self-examination that other communities, from Littleton, Colo.

The gulf between the American left and right continues to widen against a backdrop of high unemployment, weak growth and high octane cultural battles. I got to thinking about this growing divide in the aftermath of the Colorado movie theater shooting spree that left 12 dead, 58 injured, and a nation in shock. Once the gravity of the story began to sink in, my mind turned to an inconvenient (for some) thought: How many lives would have been saved if someone in that theater had access to a firearm of their own?

Blaming the National Rifle Association when guns are used in criminal deaths as Dan Rodricks did in his recent column ("Adapting to the newest form of gun insanity," July 24) is like blaming the Alcohol Beverage Industry Association when a drunk driver kills someone. Or blaming the American Medical Association when a doctor causes an unnecessary death. The sole blame for the mass murders in Aurora, Colo., is squarely on the perpetrator for his very evil deeds. Ron Wirsing, Havre de Grace