Police fatally shoot armed man
A man armed with a shotgun was fatally shot by police last night, and another man was being sought after the armed robbery of an East Baltimore grocery store, a police spokesman said. None of the three plainclothes officers involved was injured.
About 9 p.m., three detectives assigned to the Violent Crime Impact Division were in the 2800 block of McElderry St. waiting for a tow truck to remove a vehicle when a citizen told them of a robbery in progress at a grocery store about 30 feet away, said Sterling Clifford, the spokesman.
He said the two men were running down Kenwood Avenue and were about 20 yards from the pursuing officers when the gunman turned and pointed the weapon at the officers, who had identified themselves as police.
Clifford said at least one of the officers fired his .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic handgun, hitting the man multiple times. In the confusion, the gunman's accomplice fled and was being sought.
The wounded man was pronounced dead at a hospital. His name was not released.
Clifford said the three officers were placed on administrative duty while the shooting is investigated by homicide detectives and the internal affairs division.
Richard Irwin
Man guilty in child porn case
A 78-year-old Annapolis man has pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to conversing and sending Internet images of children engaged in sex to an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl, federal prosecutors said yesterday.
Frank Pierce Young faces a mandatory sentence of at least five years in prison and supervised probation for life for transporting child pornography when he is sentenced May 9 by U.S. Judge Richard D. Bennett.
Prosecutors said that in January of last year, Young entered an Internet session on America Online and invited a person he thought was a teenage girl to have a private e-mail chat.
The supposed youngster, billed by the undercover officer as a 14-year-old girl from Ohio, chatted with Young from January through July. Prosecutors said Young sent the person "images of children in sexually explicit poses and engaged in sexually explicit conduct."
Prosecutors said that Young had been "collecting, receiving and trading child pornography for approximately 10 years."
Public works employee charged in robbery
Baltimore police charged a city employee yesterday in the robbery of a man who remembered the license number of his assailant's getaway vehicle -- a pickup truck emblazoned with the city's seal -- and reported it to police, according to court records.
Police said in charging documents that Charles Payne, 51, a Department of Public Works employee based at the Loch Raven substation, pulled up Wednesday in front of two 45-year-old men crossing Preston Street in his work vehicle, a white 2005 Ford Ranger.
An unidentified passenger riding with Payne ordered the men to put their hands on the truck and took $296 and paperwork from the pocket of one of the victims, according to charging documents. During the robbery, one of the victims, Tyrone Epps, told the passenger, "You ain't the police," and he replied, "Yeah, today I am," according to court records.
Epps remembered the license number of the truck, which was registered to "The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore."
In 1999, Payne was suspended from the department after allegations that he took kickbacks from a group of workers in exchange for approving up to $60,000 for each employee in unearned overtime. State prosecutors raided Payne's office in 1999 and said they were still investigating the case in 2000. Payne denied any wrongdoing, and no charges were filed against him, according to court records.
Payne did not receive any overtime in the past fiscal year, according to city documents, which list him as a superintendent in the wastewater management department. He has worked for the city since May 1979 and earns $61,500 a year, according to those records.
Police said that Payne, after waiving his Miranda rights, gave them multiple versions of Wednesday's encounter before saying that "the guy got smart with him so he pulled up fast onto the grass and asked the guy if there was a problem," police said. He denied participating in a robbery.
Soon thereafter, Payne asked for a lawyer. Police charged Payne, of the 1400 block of Limit Ave., with robbery, theft and second-degree assault.
Melissa Harris and John Fritze