Undercover

On the surface, Connie Marie Shore's Circuit Court file has all the makings of a big-deal drug case.Five grand jury indictments, an undercover drug buy, and the seizure and sale of the 18-year-old's Chevy truck are detailed in the file.But a closer look at Carroll County Criminal File 17376, her attorneys say, shows that the case of Maryland vs. Connie Marie Shore results from the defendant's "being at the wrong place, at the wrong time with the wrong person."Police say Ms. Shore was arrested by members of the Carroll Narcotics Task Force in February, when her boyfriend, Robert John Stevenson Jr., was observed selling marijuana to an undercover drug agent.

Some liberals are worried about Mayor Daley's desire to set up a limited version of the Chicago police department's old Red Squad spy unit.Daley says the undercover and intelligence-gathering cops would concentrate on violent street gangs.But opponents fear it would bring back the days when the undercover cops looked for dangerous communists and other subversives, but couldn't find any.Instead, they tried to spy on neighborhood groups, political activists, civil rights workers, hippies, yippies and critics of City Hall or the Vietnam War.As one who was snooped by the old Red Squad, I'm not concerned.

A plainclothes Baltimore City police officer was shot twice in the face last night while attempting to make an undercover drug purchase in the Seton Hill neighborhood, officials said. The officer, a seven-year veteran of the force, was rushed to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was in critical but stable condition last night. His injuries were not considered life-threatening. The 33-year-old officer and his partner, also in plain clothes, were at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Orchard Street shortly after 8 p.m. when they saw a group of people who appeared to be involved in drug transactions, said Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III. The officer was shot in the jaw and cheek when he tried to make an undercover purchase, Bealefeld said.

An undercover police purchase of $25,000 worth of cocaine in Aberdeen led to the arrest Monday of five persons suspected of operating a major narcotics ring in Harford.Authorities said they arranged forthe purchase of a half-kilogram of cocaine by an undercover agent atthe parking lot of the Sheraton Inn in Aberdeen. Four men and one woman were arrested and charged with drug distribution.Being held in lieu of $200,000 bond each at the Harford County Detention Center were Armando L. Mercado, 29, and Richard Perez, 27, both of Wilmington, Del.; and Angel J. Garcia, 24, Alberto Betancourt, 44, and Mary T. Capell, 26, all of Philadelphia.

I know where beef comes from. The town where I grew up, St. Joseph, Mo., once had three major meatpacking operations - Swift, Armour and Dugdale. When I was a kid, my Cub Scout pack toured these plants, watching suspended cattle carcasses swing from chains. As a teenager, I tried but failed to get a summer job "in the yards" running livestock from the pens into the slaughterhouses. But even with my cow-town past, I had a hard time watching the footage of the downer cattle at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. in California.

No trench coat. No deferential manner. No bumble or stumble. No "Just one more thing, sir." No murder committed in the opening sequence. No half-lighted cigar. No fiendishly clever murderer. And no clash of classes, with the rich and successful killer matching wits against the working-class cop.Tonight's "Columbo" movie has Peter Falk in the title role. It has a murder. And the murder gets solved. But those are the only links between this and the frequently wonderful "Columbo" movies of the past.

The man charged in the killing of an undercover Maryland State Police trooper during an October drug investigation in Washington was indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury. Kofi Apea Orleans-Lindsay of Silver Spring was indicted on one count of killing a person aiding a federal investigation in the death of Cpl. Edward M. Toatley on Oct. 30. Prosecutors did not rule out yesterday other possible charges. Orleans-Lindsay is being held without bond awaiting arraignment.

"Why do these people who preach liberalism and pacifism require a wall around their houses?" a Chicago policeman once asked Studs Terkel. "They need these buffers," the officer answered himself. "That's what we are, buffers."Caught in a cross fire of social controversy -- ethnic discord and the war on drugs in particular -- urban police must deal with a nearly uncontrollable environment in the service of an often hostile or indifferent public. Cops are crime fighters. But that's only a part of their job in complex, volatile cities.

Undercover narcotics detectives arrested two Pasadena men and recovered 27 ounces of marijuana Tuesday night after arranging a drug buy, police said.Detectives met the men at Williy D's Lounge in the 9000 block of Fort Smallwood Road around 10:30 p.m., bought a pound of marijuana from them, then arrested them, police said. They reported that they searched the suspects' 1988 Trans Am and found another half-pound of marijuana. The car was seized.Police obtained a search warrant for the home of one of the suspects and reported that there they recovered an additional 3 ounces of suspected marijuana.

After a high-speed chase through three jurisdictions, Howard County police arrested one man and were searching for a second on charges of selling drugs to an undercover officer last week.According to police, an undercover detective bought drugs from two men at Washington Boulevard and Levering Avenue in Elkridge shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday.Minutes later, when other officers tried to stop the men's car, it sped north on Washington Boulevard into Baltimore County. The car stopped near Joh Avenue, and the driver got out and ran. Police grabbed a second man before he could escape, police said.