Victim

If you're a big fan, you already knew what was coming in the season finale. But it didn't make it any easier -- or less heartbreaking -- to watch. The majority of the Season 3 "Downton" finale, or the "Christmas special" as its called in the U.K., took place in Scotland, where the whole family (minus Branson) visits the Highlands home of the Dowager's niece, Susan, and her husband, Shrimpy. Most of the trip included bagpipes, hunting, more bagpipes and Scottish reel dancing. But more on that later (and more on O'Brien meeting her Scottish lady's maid doppelganger)

Officers were near enough to hear the gunshots and run toward a man who had just been shot in the parking lot of a Baltimore County 7-Eleven early Sunday, and arrested the suspected attacker, police said. The officers were in the 1100 block of Ingleside Avenue in Woodlawn about 1:45 a.m. Sunday when they heard the shots, police said. In the 7-Eleven parking lot, police saw a man shooting at two other men, one of whom was injured. The suspect then dropped his gun and tried to run off but was apprehended by police, who identified him as Dominic R. Dillard, 25, of Baltimore.

A 16-year-old boy who was stabbed in the chest in Aberdeen over the weekend has died, according to police, who identified the victim Sunday as Thomas Burdsall Jr. Officers responding to a call found Burdsall about 7:30 p.m. Saturday on the 200 block of Edmund St., He was taken to Harford Memorial Hospital in Havre de Grace, where he was pronounced dead "a short time later," according to Aberdeen police. Officers said they are looking for four people -- two men and two women -- who may have been present during the attack.

The victim in an assault at Camden Yards last month has been upgraded to serious condition. Matt Fortese, 25, has been hospitalized with serious head injuries since the May 29 incident. Police said a man, Michael Bell, sitting in a section above Fortese and his date threw a beer that hit them. Fortese approached Bell and began arguing with him and another man, Gregory Fleischman, when Fleischman punched Fortese in the head, according to police. Fortese then fell onto concrete about five feet below.

The victim in an assault at Camden Yards last month has been upgraded to serious condition. Matt Fortese, 25, has been hospitalized with serious head injuries since the May 29 incident. Police said a man, Michael Bell, sitting in a section above Fortese and his date threw a beer that hit them. Fortese approached Bell and began arguing with him and another man, Gregory Fleischman, when Fleischman punched Fortese in the head, according to police. Fortese then fell onto concrete about five feet below.

A man who was shot in 1997 died earlier this year from his injuries and will be counted as a homicide victim this year, while police identified a man fatally shot to death in East Baltimore this week.  Police say Leslie Johnson, 36, died January 30 at Mercy Hospital from complications from injuries from a shooting on April 14, 1997 in South Baltimore's Brooklyn neighborhood. The shooting occurred in the 800 block of Jack St.; here's the account from The Sun at the time: "Southern District      Shooting: A man armed with a shotgun shot another man in the back and a leg in the  800  block of  Jack   St . yesterday.

Baltimore County police identified the woman who died in a Dundalk fire Sunday morning as 57-year-old JoAnn Julian, and investigators said it began because she was smoking in bed. The blaze, which occurred about 6:30 a.m. at Julian's house in the 2900 block of Yorkway, started in the basement, where crews found Julian unconscious. She was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where she later died. Investigators said Julian accidentally ignited bedding materials while smoking.

The woman who was pronounced dead after a fire in East Baltimore Sunday night has been identified as Barbara Lee Crawley, a fire department spokesman said. Her age remains unknown, said the spokesman, Chief Kevin Cartwright. Crawley was unconscious when she was pulled from the house in the 1600 block of E. Lafayette Street in the Oliver neighborhood. She was later pronounced dead by medics, but it was unclear whether she died as a result of the fire. The fire remains under investigation, Cartwright said.

Baltimore police have identified a man who was found shot early Tuesday morning in East Baltimore. An officer had found Vance Williams, 19, of the 1600 block of W. Preston Street E. Hoffman and N. Caroline streets in the Oliver neighborhood at 2:45 a.m. Tuesday morning. Medics pronounced him dead at 2:53 a.m. The medical examiner's office is performing an autopsy, according to police. Text BUSINESS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun Business text alerts

Shame on The Sun for its recent article on a victim, Tyrone Brown, the ex-Marine who served his country and received a honorable discharge ("Haunted by violence," March 23). The reporter twisted the story to make him seem like the shooter. He was unarmed when he was assassinated by off-duty Baltimore Police Officer Gahiji Tshamba. Mr. Brown's story didn't need to be placed on the front page. The question remains how many more loose cannons are there in the city's police department?

It helps no one to allege that the military's disagreement with lawmakers' proposals to remove control of criminal sexual assault cases from commanders amounts to insensitivity ("They still don't get it," June 6). In fact, many readers could well conclude that your editorial accuses commanders of outright hostility to victims. That stridently emotional position is simply not factual. Commanders' objections to removing their discretion to deal with the problem of sexual assaults while holding them accountable for it does not mean that they, or the armed forces in general, harbor any animus toward victims.

He's come out on top in six contested elections as a Democrat in an increasingly conservative county, and has withstood criticism that he's both too soft and too tough, appeased minorities and disappointed minorities, said too little and said too much. He's been on the job a quarter-century, long enough to get his typewriter replaced by a computer with a flat-screen monitor, see defendants' locations pinpointed by cellphone towers and have DNA emerge as a key tool in criminal cases.

Soon after a massive tornado devastated Moore, Okla., last month, a Linthicum seamstress leaped into action, formulating a plan to help the victims. Kathy Furth began reaching out to thread-savvy friends from her parish and a local sewing organization to gauge interest. She asked them: Do you want to join forces to make clothes for children who lost everything in the disaster? The positive responses to her inquiries were overwhelming, she said. "It just spread like crazy," said Furth, owner of Sew Many Seams, a business that specializes in creating one-of-a-kind liturgical vestments.

The White Marsh man fatally shot by Baltimore County police Wednesday night was known to work on neighbors' cars and bring them big pots of "s'getti. " "I was kind of shocked when all of this went down. He wasn't very big," said Curtis Gardner, a lifelong friend of Arnett Myers. However, Gardner added, "he had this history" with police. Myers, 57, who police said reached for one officer's gun before a second shot him, was found guilty in 2006 of assault and resisting arrest. He was sentenced to eight months' incarceration and two years' probation, online court records show.

When Boston Marathon bombing victim Erika Brannock arrived home to Baltimore this week, the first item on her wish list was finding the stranger who saved her life amid the chaos that followed the April attack. The 29-year-old Towson preschool teacher looked directly into a bank of television cameras from an airport terminal and made a plea to the woman she knew only as "Joan from California. " She said, "I don't know if you're even watching, but Joan, I would love to find you and tell you thank you and give you a hug. " On Wednesday, she got that chance.

Five days after a brutal assault at an Orioles game at Camden Yards left a Hagerstown man hospitalized in serious condition, the issue was still percolating on local sports-talk radio Monday. As detailed vividly in a recent story in The Baltimore Sun by reporters Yvonne Wenger and Justin Fenton , the victim, 25-year old Matt Fortese, was punched in the head and sent over a railing before landing on a concrete floor five feet below. He suffered severe head trauma and a skull fracture.

The mother of a 22-year-old woman who was raped outside a house in North Baltimore early Saturday called with additional details of the horrific attack. Some information was incomplete in the initial police report. The woman had left Mad River Bar on South Charles Street in Federal Hill but told police she had blacked out and couldn't recall anything until she was attacked in the Lake Evesham neighborhood nearly seven miles away. The victim's mother, whom we are not identifying to shield the name of the young woman, said her daughter worked at Mad River, and had not been out drinking with friends, as the first report seemed to suggest.

The funeral for the man who was killed in Harford County, and had his organs eaten, has been scheduled for July 7 in Ghana, according to his sister's Facebook page . Still, little is known about the victim,Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie. I have been trying to reach the sister, Gloria Boahemaa Asante, for several weeks. She accepted a friend request on Facebook but has only corresponded briefly, and has not responded for an interview. An Associated Press reporter reached her a few weeks ago, but beyond brief comments, Asante has said little.

Erika Brannock saw flashes of yellow and orange, and she felt as if her body was falling in slow motion when the first of two homemade bombs at the Boston Marathon exploded inches away from where she stood near the finish line. She heard people crying and screaming. "I thought I was going to die, and I had this conversation with God in my head, and I said, 'I am not ready to go yet,'" Brannock, a 29-year-old Towson preschool teacher, said Monday. After 50 days at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Brannock became the last of the bombing victims to be discharged.

Monday's announcement that Johns Hopkins would join the Big Ten in 2015 can be viewed as a new beginning for the program. It also signals an end to its traditional status as an independent. Next season will be the Blue Jays' 131st and final campaign as an independent. During that time, they captured 44 national championships and nine NCAA titles and appeared in 41 of 43 NCAA tournaments. The program's run of success as an independent was not taken lightly by coach Dave Pietramala.