The head of the FBI's Baltimore field office has been named assistant director of the bureau's inspection division in Washington, and is expected to leave the local office by the end of the month.

Lynne A. Hunt has served as special agent in charge at the office in Baltimore since May 2000, overseeing the office's response to national events such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to local cases, including the FBI shooting in March of an unarmed Pasadena man.

No replacement has been named, said Special Agent Barry Maddox, a spokesman for the Baltimore office. Hunt was not available to comment yesterday.

Hunt, 48, is a 23-year veteran of the bureau who previously served as an assistant special agent in charge at the Baltimore office. Immediately before returning to Baltimore, she had served as the section chief of the financial crime division at FBI headquarters in Washington.

Hunt's appointment to head the Baltimore field office, which oversees about 200 special agents in Maryland and Delaware, marked the first time a woman served as special agent in charge of the regional office.

As head of the local office, Hunt publicly apologized in March after an agent under her supervision shot Joseph Schultz of Pasadena in the face after mistaking him for a bank robbery suspect. A grand jury in Anne Arundel County cleared the agent of criminal wrongdoing; a Justice Department review has not been made public.

In a highly unusual move this year, FBI officials under Hunt's supervision asked federal prosecutors in another state to review a police moonlighting investigation after Maryland's U.S. attorney declined to bring charges. The case, involving police overtime at local Staples Inc. stores, also was turned down by prosecutors in Boston.

Hunt's husband, Richard J. Hunt, was hired last year by Baltimore officials under a one-year contract to help prevent terrorist attacks in the city. Richard Hunt, who retired as chief of the FBI's criminal intelligence unit, is expected to remain in the city post.