Transportation Authority Police

Police searched water near the Bay Bridge Sunday night after witnesses called 911 to report a possible suicide attempt. No one had been found as of yesterday, Maryland Transportation Authority Police officials said. Two passing motorists called police just before 10 p.m. to report that a man was standing near the edge of the westbound side of the bridge, said Catherine Leahan, a spokeswoman for the agency Leahan said one of the callers told police that the man was outside the guard railing near mile marker 34. Officers found an unattended vehicle in the slow lane, Leahan said.

Maryland Transportation Authority Police used dogs and mirrors to check vehicles for bombs and hazardous chemicals last night on the Key Bridge as part of a security exercise that will be duplicated at other state tunnels and bridges. Police set up security checkpoints from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. at both sides of the bridge - at the tollbooths on the Baltimore County side and along the Beltway on the bridge approach in the city. Transportation authority Police Chief Gary W. McLhinney said that no threat had been made to the bridge, but police wanted to test and refine security measures.

Maryland Transportation Authority police were searching yesterday for a 79-year-old man who left his wife at Baltimore-Washington International Airport on Monday while he went to rent a car.Harley Freemont Burden Jr. of Freemont, Ind., and his wife flew into Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia shortly after 7 p.m., said Cpl. Gregory Prioleau, spokesman for transportation authority police. The couple's Northwest Airlines flight had been diverted from BWI. They had planned to attend the wedding of their son, Ken Burden of Silver Spring, this weekend.

A 25-year-old Dundalk man jumped from the Key Bridge early yesterday after fleeing his house when his girlfriend called 911 to report finding a dead woman in his kitchen, Baltimore County police said. According to police, Shane M. Foster of the 3200 block of McShane Way appeared distraught when his girlfriend arrived at his house early yesterday. He told her that he believed he had hurt someone, police said. Foster's girlfriend, whom police did not identify yesterday, entered his kitchen and found the body of a woman who was later identified as Ashley Davis, 18, of the 8000 block of Del Haven Road in Dundalk, police said.

The state medical examiner's office is conducting an autopsy on a man's body found floating in the Patapsco River at Dundalk Marine Terminal on Tuesday, and police were attempting to identify the body through fingerprints, authorities said. About 10:30 a.m., a crewman aboard the ship MV Star Derby, docked along Pier 3 at the marine terminal, spotted the body and pulled it aboard before calling police, said Cpl. Jonathan Green, a spokesman for the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, the agency in charge of security at the terminal.

A 34-year-old California man was arrested Saturday morning after a handgun was found at a security checkpoint at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, police said. Police said Daniel E. Deprest of Valley Village, Calif., who was intending to travel to Pittsburgh on US Airways Flight 71, was charged with possession of a handgun. The weapon was discovered in Deprest's carry-on bag, police said. Maryland Transportation Authority Police spokeswoman Kerry E. Brandt said she did not know whether he had a permit for the gun. Deprest was released after posting $5,000 bail, authorities said.

The brother of a 42-year-old North Carolina driver killed this week by Maryland Transportation Authority police near the Fort McHenry Tunnel toll plaza called yesterday for an independent investigation into his brother's death. "When the fox raids the henhouse, you don't have the fox do the investigation," said Michael Waterman of Raleigh, N.C. Waterman's brother, Josh Thomas Waterman, was shot by three police officers as he approached the toll plaza Tuesday. They fired seven times into Waterman's car. Last night, transportation police spokesman Cpl. Gregory Prioleau said a preliminary investigation shows that the officers fired at Waterman because he was driving toward them and they were "in fear for their lives."

A Forest Hill man was arrested yesterday after he refused to move his car from the road in front of Baltimore-Washington International Airport's upper level, Maryland Transportation Authority Police said. Philip Karl Smith, 60, parked his vehicle in the middle of the road around 9:30 a.m. yesterday morning, obstructing traffic around the terminal as he unloaded his luggage, police said. A police officer asked him "numerous times" to move his car to the curb, but Smith refused, said Cpl. Gregory Prioleau of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police.

The Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer involved last month in an off-duty shooting incident has been fired, a police spokeswoman said yesterday. Officer Devin Walker initially told Baltimore police that he was sitting on the steps of a house in the 2700 block of Parkwood Ave. when a man shot at him and another man acted as a lookout. Walker said he shot the man who fired at him. The men were arrested and charged with attempted murder, but the charges have been dropped. In the case against the man accused of being the lookout, prosecutors said Walker changed his story.

The funeral for Courtney G. Brooks, the Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer who died New Year's Day after being hit by a vehicle, will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, 5200 N. Charles St. Viewings will be held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday at Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Home, 8728 Liberty Road in Randallstown. Brooks was struck by a hit-and-run driver New Year's Eve while he worked a traffic detail on Interstate 95 where it meets I-395.