Around Maryland

Michael Owen Jr., the first Prince George’s County police officer to be charged with murder for actions taken in uniform, was found not guilty on all the counts he faced in the fatal shooting of a handcuffed man, including second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. The case hinged upon whether Owen, who fatally shot 43-year-old William Green six times while the man had his hands cuffed behind his back, pulled the trigger in self-defense on the night of the Jan. 27, 2020, shooting.

Neighbors in south Baltimore are frustrated with recent carjackings and auto thefts and they have decided to fight back. Residents are installing license plate readers on certain streets. Three community associations worked together to get the devices. “Our team of volunteers know Baltimore Police Department is understaffed. Our volunteers know there have been over 10,000 cars stolen in our city this year,” Federal Hill Neighborhood Association spokesman Brad O’Brien said.

City officials have been given a proposal: If they can’t eliminate vagrancy problems in a public park, why not make the area private? Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization President Ed Taylor Jr. on Tuesday asked the mayor and City Council to consider renting Cumberland’s George Washington Headquarters cabin at Riverside Park along Greene Street to the Cresap Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution for $1 per year.

It’s been a bumpy road getting students to and from school in Howard County, with the beginning of the school year riddled with bus driver shortages and route mishaps. Now, bus drivers employed by the district’s largest contractor, Zum, are trying to unionize. This morning, Howard County bus drivers employed by Zum Transportation Services joined members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1994 to hold a rally ahead of their representation vote scheduled for next week.

Hundreds of residents of the Avenel community in Potomac rallied Monday night to fight the decision by Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, or WSSC Water, to close the area’s equestrian center. The Avenel Equestrian Center is located on the 1,018-acre Avenel farm, which was developed into a residential community, golf course and equestrian facility, according to its website.

Maryland pharmacies aren’t stocking enough of the addiction treatment drug buprenorphine, threatening efforts to stem the growing number of overdose deaths from opioids like fentanyl. The drug, also known by the brand name Suboxone, has been proven to reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms that can send people to buy untrustworthy street drugs.

Several times a week these days, the woman who helped keep a roof over people’s heads during the pandemic gets a similar email from residents: “Do you have any rental assistance money? I need help.” Julie Peters, now the chief communications officer at SHORE UP Inc. and formerly the program manager for the rental assistance program at the Salisbury-based organization, helped her agency, in a few years, administer more than $8 million to more than 1,200 renter households on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The World Recycling Company has agreed to pay $200,000 as part of a settlement with the state over unauthorized disposal of solid waste at facilities in Baltimore City and Prince George’s County. According to the lawsuit, state inspectors repeatedly found illegally stored piles of trash at both facilities over the last nine years as litter and debris entered storm drains and polluted surrounding bodies of water.