ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — A train hauling coal derailed on a bridge in this city’s historic district, killing two college students who had been drinking together and hanging out on the tracks. Nearly two dozen railroad cars flipped over, including some that fell onto vehicles in a parking lot below the bridge, officials said.
The students, both 19-year-old women, had posted photos and comments from what appeared to be the bridge shortly before the train derailed around midnight Monday, according to Twitter feeds with the same names as the victims, Rose Louese Mayr and Elizabeth Conway Nass.
Ellicott City is a small town where there are several bars, and gift and antique shops in converted old buildings. The railroad runs across Main Street in Ellicott City, about 13 miles west of Baltimore.
Two train operators were not harmed. Officials had to use cranes to remove some of the railroad cars.
‘‘Many of those train cars fell onto automobiles, literally fell onto automobiles with the coal,’’ Howard County executive Ken Ulman said.
Residents looked at the damage Tuesday morning and checked to see if their cars, or their friends’ cars, had been damaged. Several gray train cars were still on the bridge.
Jill Farrell, a 35-year-old assistant professor who lives across the street from the tracks, said she heard what sounded like squealing brakes and then a huge crash.
‘‘It actually sounded like trains went off the tracks, and then silence,’’ she said.
Young people often party in the nearby parking lot and often hang out on the tracks, despite fences around the area.
‘‘It’s just sort of a magnet for teenage high jinks,’’ said Shelly Wygant of the Howard County Historical Society.
Jim Southworth, investigator in charge for the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators will review video recording devices from the train to help them determine what happened.
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"Autopsy: Coal killed Md. derailment victims" Associated Press, August 24, 2012
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — Two young women were killed when a freight train derailed and toppled so much coal on them they couldn’t breathe, authorities said Thursday.
The bodies of Elizabeth Nass and Rose Mayr were found buried under coal but still seated on the edge of the bridge, police have said. They were not hit by the train, Howard County police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said.
She said an autopsy found that they died from accidental asphyxia.
Both were 19-year-old college students. Nass attended James Madison University in Virginia, and Mayr was a nursing student at the University of Delaware.
Tweets and photos from the women indicated they were drinking on the bridge together before heading back to school. “Drinking on top of the Ellicott City sign,” read one tweet....
Generations of young people have played and partied along the tracks....
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PERRY HALL, Md. — A 15-year-old student opened fire on the first day of classes Monday at a Baltimore County high school, getting off two shots and wounding a classmate before being rushed by teachers, authorities said.
Investigators do not believe the victim, a 17-year-old male, was targeted by the shooter, who is also a student at Perry Hall High School, Baltimore County police Chief James Johnson said. The 15-year-old boy was taken into custody after the shooting and was cooperating with investigators, police said. Police took the weapon, although they did not say what kind of gun it was.
Johnson said that a student walked into the cafeteria at about 10:45 a.m. and pulled out a gun. He fired one shot before being grabbed by teachers; another shot went off as teachers grabbed him, Johnson said.
Johnson said the shooter acted alone. He did not answer numerous questions from reporters about a motive.
Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger said it was too early to know what charges the shooter would face. Police said they would work with prosecutors to determine whether he would be charged as an adult.
The victim remained in critical condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center on Monday evening, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Jordan Coates, a 17-year-old who was in the cafeteria at the time of the shooting, said the student used a shotgun. Coates said he watched teachers, including guidance counselor Jesse Wasmer, pin the student against a vending machine.
‘‘My back was to the door. I heard a pop and thought it was a bag because people do that, but then I heard another one,’’ Coates said. ‘‘And I turned around and a teacher had a kid pinned up against the vending machine, and I saw the barrel, and another shot goes off and people just start running.’’
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PERRY HALL, Md. — A 15-year-old sophomore at a suburban Baltimore high school who made references to murder-suicide on Facebook has been charged as an adult in the shooting of a classmate on the first day of school, authorities said Tuesday.
Robert Wayne Gladden Jr. was being held without bail on charges of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault, Baltimore County police said. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Sept. 7.
Gladden’s last status update on his Facebook page, posted the morning of the shooting, read: ‘‘First day of school, last day of my life. . . . ’’
His father said that his son had been bullied....
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Also see: Records show troubled life for accused Md. shooter
Attorney: Teen in Md. school shooting remorseful
"Arrested Md. skating coach accused of sex abuse" by Eric Tucker | Associated Press, September 07, 2012UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — A coach arrested on a warrant from New York is accused in a lawsuit in Maryland of fondling a teenage figure skater in his hotel room.
The lawsuit accuses Genrikh Sretenski of kissing the girl and touching her breasts against her will as the two were in Lake Placid, N.Y., for a competition in July 2011.
I'll bet there is another Genrikh you have never heard of.
The suit, filed in July in Prince George’s County, Md., by the girl’s father, also alleges Sretenski sent more than 500 text messages, including ‘‘I go crazy when I look at you’’ and ‘‘I love you,’’ and continued making advances even after she asked him to stop.
The girl, identified in court papers as an ‘‘elite, nationally acclaimed skater,’’ quit the sport because of what happened.
She suffered severe emotional distress, according to the lawsuit, which seeks $5 million in damages....
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Also see: Mother, infant escape Baltimore fire that leaves five dead
If only we could go back to a better time....
"Crucial Civil War battle recalled in Maryland; 150 years later, hundreds mark Antietam clash" by Michael E. Ruane | Washington Post, September 17, 2012
SHARPSBURG, Md. — Many parked their cars, donned period clothing, and eagerly left behind the turbulence of the 21st century for that of the 19th. They pitched tents, cooked bacon on open fires, and drank coffee from metal cups....
Kent Schod, 47, a hospital emergency management specialist from Ranson, W.Va., who was portraying a Confederate medical officer in the Sharpsburg reenactment, said he took part in the event because he loves history and the atmosphere of the past.
‘‘War is never good,’’ he said. ‘‘But we learn so much from it.’’
(Blog editor sighs)
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For the record, I object to those who "play" war. Go fight in a real one and see how much you "learn."
"Maryland studies repeal of death penalty" Washington Post, November 26, 2012
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Coming off some high-profile wins at the ballot box this month, Governor Martin O’Malley is considering another attempt at repealing the death penalty when lawmakers reconvene in January, aides say.
I'm all for that. There is enough death in the world. As for the bankers and war criminals, the bankers should be impoverished and forced to live that way while the war criminals are subjected to the same type of incarceration and torture they approved.
It is an issue that could add to his progressive legacy. But even if the law remains on the books, advocates on both sides agree that O’Malley, a Democrat, is all but certain to finish his two terms in office without having presided over a single execution of one of the state’s five condemned prisoners.
That is largely because O’Malley’s administration has yet to implement regulations required for executions to resume, nearly six years after Maryland’s highest court halted the use of capital punishment on a technicality.
And there is little reason to believe the governor will do so in his remaining two years, as drug shortages and other factors have complicated the mechanics of lethal injection in other states.
‘‘It’s legislating by inaction,’’ said Senator Joseph M. Getty, a Republican member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee and an O’Malley critic. ‘‘I’m among the members of the Maryland General Assembly who would like to see the law followed.’’
O’Malley aides said a decision about whether he will sponsor a death penalty repeal bill will be made in coming weeks. Administration officials responsible for drafting the rules needed for executions to resume offered no timetable for when they might be issued.
‘‘We’re still working on the regulations, still exploring best practices around the country,’’ said Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. ‘‘It’s a serious issue, and the department is being extra careful, and that’s obviously taking some time.’’
Maryland is one of 34 states with death penalty laws. Practices across the country have changed since 2005, when Maryland executed its last prisoner, under the watch of Governor Robert Ehrlich, a Republican, and those changes could make a return to capital punishment in the state even more unlikely.
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Time to put this post to rest.
