Unattended

Heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic was disrupted for two hours last night while the city police bomb squad investigated a suitcase left unattended across the street from the Pratt Street Pavilion at Harborplace. Arriving at the scene at 6:47 p.m., police blocked eastbound Pratt Street from Light to Gay streets, Commerce Street between Pratt and Lombard streets and westbound Lombard Street between Commerce and South streets. Police blasted the suitcase and knocked it over with a remote-controlled high-pressure water gun. When officers opened it, they found clothing and traffic resumed at 8:45 p.m., police said.

Train service to the BWI Thurgood Marshall train station was temporarily suspended Tuesday morning while police officers examined an unattended bag. According to Maryland Transit Administration spokesman Terry Owens, service was suspended around 6 a.m. after police officers received reports of a suspicious package left on the outdoor train platform. Owens said service to the station was suspended as a precaution, delaying trains on the MARC Penn Line, but it was restored by 7 a.m., after officers determined the package was no threat to passengers or employees.

CHICAGO - Donna Spinozza of Gurnee, Ill., admits to occasionally leaving her three youngsters buckled in their car seats while she runs into a bagel shop. She would never leave them in the minivan for more than a few minutes, she says, and she's certainly not the only well-intentioned parent who is reluctant to unload sleeping babies and haul them into the cold during a quick errand. The key is she always keeps a nervous eye on the kids through the store window, she says. Under a new Illinois law, parents who leave their children unattended and out of their view can face child endangerment charges that carry a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

An unattended Charm City Circulator bus hit five vehicles and a building Saturday afternoon, Baltimore police said. Shortly before 3 p.m., the bus was parked on the 1500 block of North Charles Street, which is near Penn Station, when "for whatever reason, it drifted backward into traffic," Det. Donny Moses said. The bus hit five vehicles that were stopped at the red light, he said. It also struck a light pole before hitting a building at 1420 N. Charles St. Several people had minor injuries, Moses said.

A man and woman robbed a Holiday Inn hotel restaurant in the 3400 block of Fort Meade Road in Laurel of an undisclosed amount of money Saturday afternoon, but no weapons were used and no one was hurt, Anne Arundel County police said.The pair opened an unattended cash register and stole $20 bills, police said.They fled west on Route 198 in a gray sedan with out-of-state license plates, police said.Pub Date: 8/12/96

Anthony M. Juliano sends Baltimore his deepest apologies.The Connecticut resident had a wonderful time touring the city in a rental car with his wife and two friends. And then, when he left, he unknowingly sent Baltimore-Washington International Airport into a panic Sunday when he left the car unattended and a bomb-sniffing dog apparently mistook a blown-out tire in his trunk for explosives."I feel worse than anybody," said Juliano, 36, of North Branford, Conn. "I should have taken more responsibility."

After reports that the floor of the Baltimore County Women's Detention Center where a Randallstown woman committed suicide was left unattended for about 40 minutes before her death, detention center administrators have stopped the longtime practice of ordering staff to leave their posts. However, the administrator of the county's two detention centers said yesterday that he doesn't believe the lack of an officer could be blamed for the suicide July 19 of Sommer Brooks, 23, who was accused of torturing and beating her mother to death in January.

POLICE* Harper's Choice: 6300 block of Cedar Lane: Someone stole $20 from a purse that was left unattended in a lounge area between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. May 25.

POLICE LOG* King's Contrivance: 8700 block of Carriage Hill Drive: Fire caused $8,000 damage to a house when food was left unattended while cooking on a stove at about 6 p.m. Thursday.

Police logPasadena: Someone stole two leaf blowers from a sidewalk at Leeds Drive and Abbey Court between 12: 45 p.m. and 1: 30 p.m. Tuesday when landscaping workers left them unattended. The blowers were valued at $800.Pub Date: 11/22/96

The manager of a Waverly farmers' market said that following a dog-biting incident adjacent to the popular Saturday event, his security detail would issue civilian citations to the owners of animals left unattended. Marc Rey, who runs the 32nd Street Farmers Market, said that since a woman walking alongside the market in the 3200 block of Barclay Street was mauled Aug. 25 by a Rottweiler who broke from a leather leash attached to a parking meter, the owner of any unattended dog near the market could receive a ticket, or civil citation.

A fire likely caused by an unattended grill caused $50,000 worth of damage to a three-story townhouse in Harmans, fire officials said. The fire in the 1300 block of Hill Born Drive started around 5:30 p.m., according to Lt. Cliff Kooser of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. A preliminary investigation shows the fire was accidental, he said. The fire also caused an estimated $25,000 worth of damage to an adjoining townhouse. It took firefighters 45 minutes to get the fire under control.

An backpack left at a bus stop near an M&T Bank branch in Roland Park shut down streets, shops and a school Friday afternoon. The backpack, left in 700 block of Deepdene Road, was X-rayed and found to contain books, according to Sgt. Anthony Smith, a spokesman for police. Police blocked off several streets in the area during the evening rush hour and buses were re-routed. Roland Park Elementary/Middle School was put on lockdown. Businesses along Roland Avenue were evacuated.

Few experiences can be more unnerving to a parent than temporarily losing track of a toddler or very young child. It usually means a frantic search with one's heart in one's mouth, all the while imagining the worst, even when it turns out the child has wandered no farther than into the next room. So one can empathize with Megan Brown, the Harford County mother who earlier this month spent 40 anxious minutes desperately searching for her 4-year-old son, Luke, after his school bus arrived earlier than usual in front their house in Darlington and the driver left him there unattended.

Maryland State Police were investigating a fatal accident involving a tractor-trailer Tuesday morning on the north side of Interstate 695's Inner Loop, near the Providence Road area. About 4:30 a.m., a tractor-trailer "hit an unattended vehicle that was sitting on the shoulder, and also the concrete abutment, and turned over," said Sgt. Douglas Forrester of the state police. The driver of the tractor-trailer was killed, Forrester said. Police were working to identify the man, who Baltimore County emergency crews pulled from the vehicle after they extinguished a fire that erupted after the tractor-trailer hit the highway barrier, said Elise Armacost, a spokeswoman for the department.

A pot of food left cooking on a stove when no one was home was blamed for a small fire in Glen Burnie on Wednesday night, Anne Arundel County Fire Department officials said. A neighbor spotted flames in a kitchen in the 7900 block of Parke West Drive at 9:48 p.m. and called 911, Battalion Chief Steve Thompson said. Firefighters arrived to see smoke coming from the roof, he said. The blaze was under control at 10:14 p.m. No one was injured. The room and its contents were damaged, Thompson said.

A 14-year-old Manchester girl who took her family's car out for a ride Tuesday night has been charged by Westminster police with three traffic violations.Westminster police spokesman Cpl. Rick May said the girl was pulling out of a parking space in a lot off Pennsylvania Avenue at about 11:50 p.m. Tuesday when she backed into the front of another car."According to what she told the officer when she was caught, she said she noticed that she had hit something, but she didn't care," Corporal May said yesterday.

Sometimes, the stories are downright horrible to hear, like parents who leave their babies locked in a car while they drink in a bar or shoot drugs behind a convenience store.Other times, they are more understandable, but no less dangerous: A hurried parent runs into the bank to cash a check and leaves a small child alone in the back seat.In both cases, if the child is under the age of 8, the parents are committing a crime.And more and more, county police are charging parents who leave their offspring unattended, said Pamela L. Smelser, supervisor of protective services for the Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services.

A pot of food left cooking on a stove when no one was home was blamed for a small fire in Glen Burnie Wednesday night, Anne Arundel County Fire Department officials said. A neighbor spotted flames in a kitchen in the 7900 block of Parke West Drive around 9:48 p.m. and called 911, Battalion Chief Steve Thompson said. Firefighters arrived to see smoke coming from the roof, he said. The blaze was under control at 10:14 p.m. No one was injured. The room and its contents were damaged, Thompson said.

At the end of a particularly spirited night, one in which nearly 90 percent of the more than 60 patrons packed inside the Southside Saloon would puff away hour after hour on cigarettes, owner Stuart Satosky would make it all of about two steps inside his South Baltimore home before the stench would hit his wife, who demanded the immediate removal of his smoke-filled clothes. "I'd have to put them in another room," said Satosky, a nonsmoker who has owned the bar in the 400 block of E. Fort Ave. for eight years.