Southern District

County police are trying to figure out how a loaded gun ended up in a Southern District jail cell. The .25-caliber handgun was found Friday afternoon, concealed by the holding cell's combination toilet, sink and water fountain - posing the most immediate danger to unarmed booking officers and inmates held there. Police commanders said yesterday that they are trying to determine whether an inmate had hidden the gun and to identify which of the officers might have failed to search someone properly and thoroughly check the cell for contraband.

Amid the deluge of be-on-the-lookouts and other information dumped on Southern District officers during afternoon roll call Friday, there are three names that stick out to Officer Andre Smith Jr. They are the light rail robbery suspect, the suspected Westport drug dealer, and the Juvie. At only 25 years of age, Smith, a product of Baltimore's east side, already has seven years on, after joining the force as a cadet upon graduation. He's young, talks fast, cares about the people on his post, and is eager to impress.

One hundred police officers and one bathroom. Fifty-eight square miles to cover and just 5,000 square feet of work space. More often than not, the numbers at Anne Arundel County's Southern District police station just didn't add up. That has all changed with the opening of its new $5 million, 15,000-square-foot building in Edgewater. Yesterday, County Executive Janet S. Owens and Police Chief P. Thomas Shanahan toured the station, which took more than 18 months to complete and features a "green roof."

The major who heads the Baltimore Police Department's Southern District is being moved to headquarters to head up an effort by the agency to become nationally accredited, according to a spokesman. Maj. Margaret Barillaro took over the Southern District in July of last year after a popular major, Scott Bloodsworth, retired rather than accept a new assignment overseeing reforms in the sex offense unit. The new major in South Baltimore will David Reitz, who is being promoted from his rank of deputy major in the Southeast District.

Starting today, Howard County's northern police district will be a little larger. The district is being expanded to embrace Long Reach village of Columbia. The Police Department is making the switch to try to balance the workloads of officers in the southern and northern police districts. Southern District officers have been handling the majority of the county's calls for service in recent years. In 1999, the Southern District responded to about 66,000 - 61 percent - of the county's 108,000 calls for service.

Anne Arundel County police want to know how a suspect in a shoplifting case could have had a loaded semiautomatic handgun in his possession at the county Detention Center more than 12 hours after he was arrested, by which time police officers should have searched him at least twice, police say.Lt. Jeff Kelly, a police spokesman, said yesterday that the department's internal affairs division has targeted at least one officer, whom he could not identify, in its investigation.Andrew J. Hurajt III, 23, of the first block of Melrob Court in Annapolis was arrested just before 4 p.m. Sunday at Parole Plaza in Annapolis and taken to the Southern District station in Edgewater, where he was held for several hours, then taken before a District Court commissioner for an initial hearing, Kelly said.

A blood drive to benefit Baltimore Police Department personnel and their families will be held from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at the Southern District in the first block of Cherry Hill Road.The drive is sponsored by the Baltimore Chapter of the American Red Cross three days a year.

Northern District 939 Hammonds Lane, Brooklyn Park 410-222-6135 Eastern District 3700 Mountain Road, Pasadena 410-222-6145 Western District 8273 Telegraph Road, Odenton 410-222-6155 Southern District 2972 Solomons Island Road, Edgewater 410-222-1961 Headquarters 8495 Veterans Highway, Millersville 21108

Baltimore City Southern District Theft: After stealing a debit card from a resident of Herndon Court on Tuesday, the thief removed more than $400 from the victim's bank account through an automated teller machine in the 3000 block of S. Hanover St.

The name of a Baltimore police officer who helped arrest and disarm two people in a Cherry Hill home invasion Saturday was spelled incorrectly in Sunday's editions. The officer is Derek Phyall of the Southern District.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 4/10/97

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III told a group of South Baltimore residents Wednesday night that he considers them "family" and has their best interests at heart as he looks to select a new district commander. Bealefeld spoke to about 50 residents at the Southern District police station, a meeting that came one week after popular commander Scott Bloodsworth opted to retire rather than accept a new assignment overseeing reforms in the department's sex offense unit, which Bealefeld said was in "crisis."

Days after the Baltimore Police Department announced that he would oversee reforms in the beleaguered sex offense unit, a popular district commander has opted to retire. Maj. Scott Bloodsworth had been in charge of the Southern District since 2008. His new appointment last week came amid questions about police handling of sex crimes and after city officials vowed to change the way the department investigates them. The new post included the citywide robbery, check and fraud, missing persons and child abuse units.

A Baltimore police officer who had just ended his shift shot one of three men who tried to rob him at gunpoint at a bus stop one block from the Southern District police station early Thursday, a department spokesman said. The 33-year-old officer, who has been on the force since October 2004 and is assigned to the Southern District, was off duty and standing at the stop in the 200 block of Cherry Hill Road shortly after midnight when three men - one armed with a handgun - tried to rob him, spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

Baltimore police said yesterday that they are seeking witnesses to a melee early Sunday in Federal Hill that left three people stabbed, including a man who authorities said tried to break up the fight and is still recovering at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Southern District Detective William Bailey said he is trying to piece together the details of the brawl, which apparently started with an argument about 2 a.m. at Light and West streets, just as hundreds of people were spilling out of neighborhood bars and restaurants.

Walter Abbott, the Parkville contractor accused of threatening Gov. Martin O'Malley, claims illegal aliens "ruined my life" because their presence in the Baltimore-area labor force over the last two decades kept him from getting drywall work. Abbott, on home detention awaiting trial, told me he's received phone calls of support from people who share his views -- of immigrants and/or O'Malley -- and hail him a hero. Abbott attributes to "illegals" most of his financial problems of the last two decades.

When friends recalled Marshall Shure yesterday, they compared him to Matlock, a folksy, down-home attorney who could lull people into thinking he was their friend while he was tearing their testimony apart. He could equally play the part of father confessor and social worker. Mr. Shure, an assistant state's attorney who prosecuted vagrancy, car theft, spouse beating and drug possession cases in Baltimore's neighborhood courts - mostly in the Southern District - died of lung cancer Wednesday at the Levindale Hebrew Center and Hospital.

Concerned that the street-corner sex trade is taking over some Baltimore neighborhoods, police have begun an all-out offensive to combat the menace, targeting women and men in sometimes elaborate undercover stings.Male customers have been hauled from their cars when they sought sex from female police officers dressed in shorts and halter tops. Women prostitutes have been rounded up and chained in public as residents gather for the evening spectacle.Police in the Southern District -- where the problem is particularly acute -- have arrested more than 275 people since April in prostitution-related offenses.

With homicides down by nearly a third, Anne Arundel County saw a small drop in overall violent crime in 2007. But property crimes, fueled largely by shoplifting and auto thefts, propelled an overall increase in serious crimes over the previous year, statistics released by the Police Department show. Thefts increased 10 percent to 12,048. Each of the four police districts saw a bump, though the increase was more pronounced in the Northern and Western districts, where the increases were 13.8 percent and 15.5 percent, respectively.

When the burglaries got to be too much, the residents e-mailed the mayor. They kept each other informed of crime in the neighborhood. And in the end, it was an alert resident who called 911 after seeing a man prowling the rooftops of a South Baltimore neighborhood. Patrol officers arrived and arrested the man. As detectives interrogated him, the man admitted, police said yesterday, committing seven burglaries in nine days in and around Federal Hill and Locust Point from late last month to early this month.