Toohey

An Ellicott City man has been charged with numerous traffic violations stemming from a three-car collision in Baltimore County on Thanksgiving night that killed a 62-year-old woman, police said. Rakhmat Shuhrat Yusupov, 26, was driving a 1999 BMW on Reisterstown Road about 10:05 p.m., said Bill Toohey, a county police spokesman. The BMW, heading south, rear-ended a 1994 Crown Victoria that had just made a right onto Reisterstown Road from Greenspring Valley Road, Toohey said. The Victoria spun counterclockwise into the path of a Pontiac Bonneville heading north.

A body found almost a month ago near a Woodlawn apartment complex's playground might be that of a Hispanic teen-ager, police said Friday. They have readied fliers, asking for help in Spanish, for distribution in the city and county.The identity of the young woman, whose age is estimated at 19 or younger, is not known, nor is how she died, said Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey."They still have not come up with cause or time of death," he said.Police hope the fliers, which were translated by Maria Cumming, a Puerto Rican native who lives in Towson, will bring forward someone who knows the woman.

A pair posing as deliverymen forced their way into a Green Spring Valley home yesterday, tied up a housekeeper and 4-year-old boy, ransacked the house and stole valuables, Baltimore County police said.The home invasion occurred at about 2: 30 p.m. yesterday in the 3200 block of Caves Road at the home of Jill A. Kolodner and her husband, David Duke. Neither Kolodner nor Duke were home at the time of the robbery, police said.Police spokesman Bill Toohey said the men tied up the unidentified housekeeper and the child and left them in a bathroom while they looked for valuables.

With the school year starting today, the Baltimore County school system is still trying to recruit a few more crossing guards to ensure that students get to and from school safely.Crossing guards, like bus drivers and cafeteria workers, tend to choose summer as the time to resign. That means the school system and the county Police Department must scramble to fill those jobs before the school year starts, said Charles Herndon, school system spokesman."It's simply a shortage that's not unusual to face every year," he said.

In two unrelated incidents, a bank and a Coca-Cola distribution center were robbed yesterday by men wearing clothing that led victims to believe they were workers, Baltimore County police said.No one was injured in either robbery."It's not the same guy, the physical descriptions are different," said police spokesman Bill Toohey. "I think it's probably just a strange coincidence."The first robbery occurred just before 9 a.m. at Westview Federal Savings & Loan Association in the 1000 block of Ingleside Avenue in Woodlawn, Toohey said.

Baltimore County police called in to handle a suspected shoplifting case wound up Tuesday arresting a suspect charged with attempted murder, carjacking and robbery of an 82-year-old Glen Burnie woman in November.Gerald Strosnider, 48, of no fixed address was turned over to Anne Arundel County officers last night, according to Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey.Strosnider was being held at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center last night.A Towson Town Center store employee called police Tuesday after detaining a man the employee said he saw putting a scarf in his coat and leaving without paying for it.Officers found a scarf in the man's coat, said Toohey.

Eight adults and a juvenile were charged yesterday with animal cruelty and related offenses after Baltimore County police broke up what they said was an organized dogfight Saturday night in Lochearn.All were arrested in a raid on a dwelling in the 4000 block of Buckingham Road, police said. The adults were being held at the Garrison Precinct last night in lieu of bail, ranging from $25,000 to $150,000, police said. The juvenile was released to the custody of his parents.Police did not release the names of the suspects.

Classrooms were full and cafeteria lines long again in Maryland schools yesterday, one day after rumors of violence and mayhem prompted some 250,000 students to play hooky.The mass absences were triggered by predictions of May 10 shootings and bombings -- plus, some educators speculated, a beautiful spring day. The rumors, the latest in a string of classroom disruptions since classmates opened fire on students in Littleton, Colo., prompted state officials to put off the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program achievement tests for third- and eighth-graders by one day.The testing began yesterday, said Ronald A. Peiffer, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, and none of Maryland's 24 school districts reported problems.

A decomposing body near a playground at a Woodlawn apartment complex was found by a child on his way to school, but the circumstances around the death remained a mystery, police said.The body was reported about 10 a.m. when Lori Harcum, a resident of Belmont Park Apartments in the 1900 block of Richglen Drive, called 911."One of the kids ran out and told me about it," Harcum said yesterday.She went outside to a wooded area near her apartment and looked down a 20-foot embankment, where she could see a body wrapped in a blanket, she said.

Baltimore County police called in to handle a suspected shoplifting case wound up Tuesday arresting a suspect charged with attempted murder, carjacking and robbery of an 82-year-old Glen Burnie woman in November.Gerald Strosnider, 48, of no fixed address was turned over to Anne Arundel County officers last night, according to Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey.Strosnider was being held at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center last night.A Towson Town Center store employee called police Tuesday after detaining a man the employee said he saw putting a scarf in his coat and leaving without paying for it.Officers found a scarf in the man's coat, said Toohey.

An Owings Mills man who spent years helping his parents run a summer camp in West Virginia was found shot to death over the weekend, Baltimore County police said Monday. Scott Michael Greenberg, 51, was discovered Saturday evening by his former wife in the home of his parents, Fred and Evelyn Greenberg, in the 2300 block of Velvet Valley Way, where he had been living, according to police spokesman William Toohey. Lisa Greenberg told police she had gone to the house to drop off the couple's two children, Brady, 8, and Hannah, 10. When they arrived, the door was locked and there was no sign of Greenberg.

The posting on the Baltimore Police Department's Facebook page seemed innocent enough - a link to a news article about the imperiled mounted horse unit. The chief spokesman put it online, hoping to generate interest and donations to keep the unit alive. Then the public weighed in. "Think it over Sheila!" Ian Hall wrote, referring to Mayor Sheila Dixon. Carol Taylor-Long compared Dixon to former Washington Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr., who had legal troubles of his own: "If anything gets cut, it should be her salary and replace her with a more honest person!"

A man was being held Friday in the stabbing death of a 26-year-old acquaintance in Woodlawn. A Baltimore County police spokesman said the suspect would be charged with first-degree murder on Friday evening, and that the department would release both his name and that of the victim at that time. The spokesman, William Toohey, said the two men got into a fight shortly before 1:30 a.m. Friday outside an apartment building in the 3300 block of Aurora Lane. "We don't know what they were fighting about," Toohey said.

A Randallstown High School football player has been charged with stabbing one person and robbing three others at gunpoint in Baltimore County in the past two weeks, according Baltimore County police. Police say that Vaschon Gilmer, 18, randomly walked up to three people on the street March 19 and March 20, displayed a handgun and robbed them of money, iPods and cell phones. The first robbery occurred near the 4400 block of Old Court Road. Police believe he stabbed a man March 23, as he walked down the street near Offutt and Liberty roads, said Baltimore County spokesman Bill Toohey.

Yesterday, Baltimore County police identified the officer who fatally shot a robbery suspect in Essex last week, and said the suspect attempted to grab the officer's holstered pistol during a struggle. Police spokesman Bill Toohey said the man was shot by Officer Ruth of the Essex Precinct, who has been with the department since December 2005. According to its contract with the Fraternal Order of Police, the department can identify officers involved in shootings only by their last names, Toohey said.

Baltimore County police yesterday said they do not know why an unknown man walked up behind a woman in line at a Catonsville liquor store and slit her throat in a fatal attack Saturday afternoon. The victim was identified as Aysha Dawn Ring, 24, of the first block of Chadnor Court, which is in a town house development west of Security Square Mall. About 4 p.m., Ring was waiting at the cash register inside Charing Cross Liquors, in the 5200 block of Baltimore National Pike, when a man approached her from behind, police said.

A 17-year-old Loyola Blakefield high school student was killed and a 17-year-old girl was injured when their cars collided head-on on Jarrettsville Pike in northern Baltimore County yesterday morning, police said. A southbound 1997 BMW driven by Dennis Woolford of the first block of Glenberry Court in Jacksonville went out of control, crossed a double yellow line and collided with a northbound 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee in the 13500 block of Jarrettsville Pike near Jacksonville, said police spokesman Bill Toohey.

A 14-hour standoff ended peacefully yesterday evening when an Overlea man gave himself up to Baltimore County police, several hours after releasing three unharmed hostages, authorities said. A tactical police unit "coaxed him out voluntarily" about 6:30 p.m. yesterday, said Cpl. Ben Yohe. "Charges have not been determined at this point," he said. The man's name will be released today, he said. The man entered the home in the first block of Walnut Ave. about 4 a.m. looking for his girlfriend but didn't find her, said Bill Toohey, a county police spokesman.

A Baltimore priest has been permanently removed from ministry 15 years after allegations that he had committed sexual abuse and three years after he pleaded guilty in court to abusing a minor - too long a wait for some advocates for abuse victims. At the request of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Pope Benedict XVI this month defrocked Jerome F. Toohey Jr., who admitted in November 2005 that he sexually abused a high school sophomore in the late 1980s while Toohey was chaplain at Calvert Hall College High School in Towson.

Lansdowne man shot by deputies dies A Lansdowne man shot yesterday afternoon by a Baltimore County sheriff's deputy attempting to serve a warrant on him has died, a county police spokesman said. Bill Toohey, the spokesman, said that when four deputies arrived at the home of Wayne K. Hicks, 55, in the 2200 block of Gaylawn Drive about 2:30 p.m. to serve the failure-to-appear warrant and take him into custody, Hicks appeared at the front door armed with a handgun. Toohey said he did not know the nature of the civil case for which Hicks failed to appear.