Southwestern

SO FAR this year, homicides in Baltimore's Southwestern police district have fallen by 33 percent from last year's record levels.The key reason: Resumption of a strategy under which police may let low-level drug suspects go free if they identify violent fellow criminals whose illegal guns are seized right away. Hundreds of unlicensed handguns linked to a variety of crimes have been recovered, making mean streets in some of the city's worst neighborhoods a bit safer.Is this a model other districts should copy in an effort to reduce Baltimore's horrifying number of homicides, which exceeded 300 in 1998 for the ninth consecutive year?

All season, Dunbar has heard whispers from around the city that it wasn't as good as its record. Those whispers grew louder with each close game the Poets encountered during the city league schedule.But yesterday, the No. 2-ranked Poets left little doubt they're best in Baltimore, defeating No. 12 Southwestern, 75-60, in the city title game at Walbrook.After a two-year run by the West in the championship game, East Baltimore has bragging rights again. Dunbar was the last team from the East to win the title, defeating Southwestern in 1996.

A Southwestern High School student was shot and several others were injured in a large fight that broke out between two neighborhood groups yesterday morning in front of the school after students piled out of their buses."

In what may have been a state playoff preview, No. 11 Southern-Baltimore defeated visiting and No. 13 Southwestern, 56-54, for its third straight victory yesterday.So why wasn't Bulldogs coach Meredith Smith smiling?"We turned it over on the dribble, we turned it over on passes," he said. "We had an uncontested layup, and all we had to do was make a fundamental pass, but we lose it out of bounds trying a behind-the-back pass. That has been the problem with this team all season."The Bulldogs (6-5)

Defensive intensity has become a trademark of Southwestern over the past couple of seasons, even though it was something that was missing for most of the Sabers' near-upset of No. 2 Dunbar last Thursday.It was absent again in the early stages of No. 15 Southwestern's contest at No. 10 City yesterday. But the Sabers found it in time and ran off with a 67-51 victory in a Baltimore City non-league matchup.Earl Carr led Southwestern (9-7) with a game-high 25 points and five steals, and Terrell Dantzler added 12 points.

Sophomore Mohammed Smith scored his only points of the game with a three-pointer with 10 seconds left in overtime to lift the Northern Vikings (8-6) to an upset win over the visiting No. 15 Southwestern Sabers (5-7). Senior Donte Pennix led all scorers with 24 for Northern. Senior Marcus Oliver and junior Earl Carr led Southwestern with 22 points each.Pub Date: 1/21/98

Jamie Schoonover is on her way to dinner. As she strolls through Fells Point toward Bertha's, men and women stare audaciously."I'm just a poor Goth," says Jamie, all dressed in a wardrobe straight from "The Addams Family." Jamie, a 15-year-old with marbled blue eyes, black fingernail polish and a head shaved clean on the right side, takes the stares in stride."Oh, I'm used to people being scared of me for the way I look," says Jamie, a freshman at Southwestern High School in Baltimore.Days before, another ninth-grader at Southwestern certainly seemed scared of her. Head down, voice barely audible, her neck ringed with a silver cross, Jennifer Rassen was saying she couldn't get her voice out of her head -- the witch's voice.

Mervo entered the final day of the second Mayor's Basketball Academy Tournament eager to earn some respect by adding to an already impressive showing -- one that included an upset of No. 2 Randallstown.Yesterday, the Mustangs may have done just that by hammering defending Class 4A state champ Southwestern, 65-41, at Coppin State University.In the decisive first period, Mervo built a 20-7 lead as Marcus Hatten scored nine of his 16 points, and Damien Jenifer netted eight of his team-high 21. From that point, the Mustangs (7-2)

A pedestrian was killed and a motorist was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol Friday night after a hit-and-run accident on Southwestern Boulevard in Arbutus, Baltimore County police said.Jensen Peter Sorensen, 40, of the 4700 block of Belwood Green in Arbutus was struck by a vehicle in the northbound lane of Southwestern Boulevard about 9: 45 p.m. as he was crossing the street near Leeds Avenue, police said.Police said Brian Daley, 38, of the 8500 block of Timberland Circle in Ellicott City was arrested shortly after an abandoned vehicle was found near the accident scene.

No. 2 Southern-Balto. held off host and No. 12 Southwestern, 58-51, yesterday in a game that marked the return of Sabers coach Terry Leverett to the sideline following a five-week suspension.Leverett, last season's All-Metro Coach of the Year, had been removed as a coach while a referees' complaint that he followed them and cursed at them after a 65-60 loss at Randallstown Dec. pTC 13 was investigated.Southwestern principal Mildred Harris said yesterday she decided to allow Leverett to coach again after concluding that "some of the allegations, specifically the threats made against the referees, were not substantiated."

City police were investigating four shooting incidents that occurred over the weekend, one of them a double shooting. None was fatal, and no arrests had been made. The latest occurred about 1:35 a.m. Sunday in the 2500 block of Hollins St. Southwestern District police arriving at St. Agnes Hospital said a man, 28, was shot in the back in an apartment on Hollins Street but refused to cooperate with investigators. He was expected to survive. About 8 p.m. Saturday, a man, 26, was sitting on the front porch of a house in the 2800 block of Boarman Ave. in northwest Baltimore with other men when someone fired a shot hitting him in the shoulder.

In its first game, No. 5 Walbrook lost to a tough Northeast Catholic team from Philadelphia, learned a little bit about itself and got off on the wrong foot in what should be a promising season. Last night, the Warriors left no doubt who was the better team. Host Walbrook (2-1) used a high-octane offense and a tough zone defense to cruise to a 75-56 victory over rival Southwestern (1-2) in the night's final game at the Function at the Junction basketball mixer. Forward Roscoe Smith led Walbrook with 28 points and 14 rebounds.

Bea Haskins was in the upstairs study of her home on South Woodington Road when she heard the gunshots. She ran to a window in time to see a man jump into a pickup truck. "He shouted something to the effect of, 'We have to get out of here,'" she said yesterday. The body fell near her door. Haskins' house is well-kept, with a grass plot surrounded by a tall wooden fence across the street from Mount St. Joseph's High School. She has a comfortably shaded porch painted the color of sandstone to match the color she made every other brick in her facade.

Southwestern District detectives were seeking at least one unidentified assailant in the shootings early yesterday of three teenage boys in the city's Northwest Community Action neighborhood in West Baltimore. Shortly before 1 a.m., police responding to shots fired in the 2900 block of Westwood Ave. near St. Stephen's Street found three boys suffering from gunshot wounds, police said. Police said one boy was shot in the upper leg, another in the lower back and the third in the shin. All three were taken by city Fire Department ambulances to area hospitals.

St. Mary's City -- Nezia Munezero and her 10-member family spent years running from one East African refugee camp to another, staying one step ahead of death in a world torn by ethnic warfare and genocide. In 2002, they were resettled in Baltimore. At age 16 and with no knowledge of English, she enrolled at the now-shuttered Southwestern High School and lived in a grim neighborhood beset by urban crime. It was a stepping-stone to a better life, but also another place to flee. "Students at Southwestern weren't friendly toward immigrants," said Munezero, 22, a slight woman with a lilting accent.

For months, police in the Southwestern District have focused on dangerous gangs, using aggressive tactics to engage suspected offenders displaying gang colors and signs. And, police say, frustrated gang members and criminals seem to be pushing back. In six weeks, three officers have either been shot or shot at, including Tuesday's gun battle near a city school that left an officer and suspected gang member seriously wounded. Yesterday around 9:30 a.m., blocks from a city school, more gunfire erupted, leaving a 15-year-old shot in the head, which forced authorities to lock down two schools, one of them for the second consecutive day. Sterling Clifford, a city police spokesman, said that the increased enforcement in the Southwestern district is part of the department's citywide crackdown on violent offenders.

Dave Jaffe won my friends' annual guys-only vacation competition this year. The five of us each pitch a destination, cajoling, using brochures -- and rarely common sense -- to persuade the others to vote our way. Frankly, the rest of us would have preferred to sail in the Virgin Islands, feet up, sipping Sam Adams and cracking open lobsters. But Jaffe was persuasive. And, how bad could it be, we figured, hiking for three days in the beautiful Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico? And with a string of llamas carrying our loads, no less.

David Ross, a popular foreign-language teacher who taught in city and county schools for more than two decades, died Saturday of a heart attack at his Northwest Baltimore home. He was 54. Mr. Ross was born in Baltimore and raised in Cherry Hill. He was a 1971 honors graduate of City College and earned a bachelor's degree in French with a minor in Spanish from Morgan State University in 1975. While a student at Morgan, Mr. Ross made the dean's list every semester of his college career.

The White House drug czar visited Frederick Douglass High in West Baltimore yesterday to laud a faith-based program that places youth advisers in troubled schools. John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said he was "very, very impressed" with the work being done by New Vision Youth Services. The program started in 2005 at Baltimore's Southwestern high school complex but moved to Douglass this school year because the Southwestern complex is closing.

The 23-year-old woman who accused a Baltimore police officer of coercing sex from her inside a district station house continued testifying yesterday. Officer Jemini Jones, 29, is the first of three officers accused in the incident to stand trial on rape charges in Baltimore Circuit Court. Trials for Officers Brian Shaffer and Steven Hatley, who are accused of doing nothing to stop Jones, are scheduled to follow. The officers were members of the Southwestern District "flex squad," a specialized group of officers who investigated mostly drug cases.