CORRUPTION FILES STOLEN FROM BALTIMORE POLICE

BALTIMORE, Jan. 3 (AP) — A Police Department campaign to weed out corrupt
officers has been compromised by a burglary at the headquarters of a secret
internal affairs unit.

Computer equipment was destroyed and internal affairs files apparently were
stolen in the Christmas Eve burglary in the suburban Middle River area of
Baltimore County, officials said.

No arrests have been made, and the police would not comment on possible
suspects.

"The possibility certainly exists that this may be an internal matter," a
police spokeswoman, Ragina Averella, said.

Among the files missing was one involving an officer who was charged in
October with planting drugs on a man and then arresting him.

Unidentified police officials told The Baltimore Sun that the office was
the headquarters of the department's anticorruption program. Few people
knew it existed, including top commanders, the newspaper said.