Tauris

Mary Alicia Personeus was not on the street the day 10-year-old Tauris Johnson died in a cross-fire between two drug gangs. And she never heard the shots that killed Latisha Murphy, a witness to Tauris' shooting who was later executed to protect the gang.But as the girlfriend of an alleged gang lieutenant, Ms. Personeus was privy to details of both crimes. Yesterday she offered what even one defense lawyer characterized as the "smoking gun" testimony against the four defendants, including Nathaniel Dawson Jr., the alleged leader of the drug gang, and his father, Nathaniel Dawson Sr., who is accused as the trigger man in Ms. Murphy's killing.

Latisha Regina Murphy will be buried today, whether or not East Baltimore peeks its collective head out of hiding long enough to notice.Murphy, 34, will be buried because she witnessed the killing of Tauris Johnson, a child caught in an exchange of gunfire between feuding drug dealers. Tauris was 10. Murphy, revolted by the murder and falling under various encouragements, decided she would testify in court about the things that she saw.In an ideal world, such a gesture carries the mark of nobility.

The father of the man accused of killing Tauris Johnson, the 10-year-old East Baltimore boy cut down in November by a stray bullet, was charged yesterday in the shooting death of a key witness against his son.Two bullets were fired into the face of Latisha "Jets" Murphy on Feb. 12 -- one day after Nathaniel Dawson Sr. met with his jailed son, Nathaniel Dawson Jr., a paroled New York drug dealer -- authorities said yesterday.In addition to indicting the elder Dawson in the death of Mrs. Murphy -- described by authorities as a witness to the Tauris Johnson shooting -- a federal grand jury charged the younger Mr. Dawson with killing the Johnson youth and with involvement in the witness' death.

An article in late editions of The Sun yesterday stated incorrectly action taken by the Baltimore City Council concerning a new curfew law Thursday night. The curfew was tentatively approved and is up for final passage at Monday's council meeting.Also, the article should have said that the jail term for a second curfew violation is 60 days.The Sun regrets the errors.Hoping to protect Baltimore's youth from the ever-escalating violence in the streets, the City Council adopted a strict curfew yesterday that requires parents to keep their children inside at night or face tough fines.

A distressed Baltimore City Council searched for solutions last night to the epidemic of violence that recently claimed the life of 10-year-old Tauris Johnson and left Tia Lipscomb with a bullet wound in her back.With the city on pace to exceed last year's record toll of 335 murders, one councilman called for offering rewards to schoolchildren to get information on weapons while another urged increasing federal taxes on handgun ammunition."Let's start a crusade to turn in the guns," said Councilman Lawrence A. Bell III, a 4th District Democrat who wants to create a school program patterned after Metro Crime Stoppers, which offers up to a $1,000 reward for information on criminals.

REPUBLICAN gubernatorial candidate Ellen Sauerbrey points to the former Maryland residents who have crossed the state line to live in Pennsylvania as folks who are running from high taxes. But taxes aren't the reason for the exodus -- crime is.After living in Baltimore for nearly 40 years, I recently moved my family to Shrewsbury Borough, Pa., because we felt unsafe in Baltimore. We're among the latest refugees to move to "Little Baltimore," so dubbed because supposedly about 80 percent of the population is from Baltimore and 50 percent commute there daily.

An early-morning robbery at a Burger King turned into high-level farce yesterday after a man hid in the bathroom of a nearby Holiday Inn, put cash in a toilet, climbed into a suspended ceiling and fell through it into an adjacent office, police said.The robbery was called in by employees of the Burger King in the 2000 block of York Road about 7 a.m., said Baltimore County Police spokeswoman Cpl. Vickie Warehime. Witnesses told police that a man had run to a Holiday Inn nearby and hidden in a bathroom in the lobby.

Joining hands in prayer, raising their voices in song or simply seeking to make a statement by their presence, hundreds of Baltimoreans stood shoulder to shoulder yesterday against drug dealers at nearly two dozen of the city's most notorious open-air corners.Groups of up to 100 community residents, city officials and police officers, many waving placards with anti-drug slogans, stood in shifts from noon to midnight at 22 drug "hot spots" throughout the city to take back their streets from the dealers -- if only for 12 hours.

Is it asking too much to want a city government that can figure out solutions to problems before they become acute?All too often the mayor and City Council look as though they never heard of the adage about an ounce of prevention being worth more than a pound of cure. Just look at all the scrambling over a new curfew law for young people.The city first imposed such a curfew nearly 12 years years ago to keep unsupervised minors off the street after 11 p.m. But in November 1993 a 10-year-old, Tauris Johnson, was shot and killed while tossing a football outside around 6 p.m. That spurred passage of a tougher curfew pushed by the council's African-American coalition.