Towson

Police investigate report of swastikas

Police are investigating the appearance of three swastikas in the hallway of an off-campus apartment building near Goucher College.

The Nazi symbols were scratched into the drywall outside the door of a 21-year-old female student's apartment and down the hall near the building's elevators between 10:30 p.m. Friday and just after midnight Saturday, Cpl. Michael Hill, a police spokesman, said yesterday.

The apartment building is in the first block of Lambourne Road in Towson, he said. The student, whom police did not identify, called authorities at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Jennifer McMenamin

Cockeysville

Teenager waives arraignment hearing

A Cockeysville teenager accused of killing his parents and two younger brothers waived his appearance at a scheduled arraignment hearing yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court.

Nicholas W. Browning, 16, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and four handgun offenses.

Browning, a Dulaney High sophomore, is accused of fatally shooting his parents, John W. Browning and Tamara Browning, and his brothers, Gregory, 14, and Benjamin, 11. All four were sleeping in their Cockeysville home when they were killed Feb. 2.

Browning is charged as an adult.

Arraignment hearings are commonly waived when a defendant is already represented by a lawyer. Defense attorney Joshua R. Treem is representing Browning. Neither he nor Browning appeared in court yesterday.

Jennifer McMenamin

Essex

Civil rights advocate is to speak at CCBC

Sherrilyn Ifill will be the guest lecturer for the President's Distinguished African American Lecture Series at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Community College of Baltimore County's Essex campus in the B Building theater.

A nationally recognized advocate in the areas of civil rights, Ifill will discuss "The Power of Law to Affect Social Justice."

She teaches at the University of Maryland and is a co-founder of the Re-entry of Ex-Offenders Clinic.