SUSPECT'S PROBATION QUESTIONED

The convicted drug dealer charged with killing an undercover Maryland state
trooper violated probation dozens of times after his sentencing more than a
year ago, but probation officials failed to file charges until after the
fatal shooting, court records show.

As the search for the officer's killer entered a third fruitless day,
hundreds of law enforcement officers gathered at a funeral home in
Northeast Baltimore for a viewing for Trooper 1st Class Edward M. Toatley.

Their sorrow was mixed with solemn fury that the court system had dealt
carelessly with Kofi Apea Orleans-Lindsay, a 23-year-old Montgomery County
man charged with Toatley's slaying.

"The anger runs very deep," Trooper 1st Class Cynthia Brown said. "It's
only a matter of time until that person will be brought to justice."

Orleans-Lindsay's record shows several arrests and two previous
drug-dealing convictions, both for relatively small amounts of drugs.

In July of last year, a little more than a month after receiving probation
instead of jail for his second drug-dealing conviction, Orleans-Lindsay
failed to report to his probation officer, according to complaints filed
Wednesday by his probation officer, Gisele Longchamp.

Orleans-Lindsay, a native of Ghana, missed seven subsequent appointments
with his probation officer, including a meeting scheduled for Sept. 21,
according to officials and court documents. He also skipped drug tests 61
times; tested positive for drugs three times, including as recently as June
9; and failed to attend a substance-abuse treatment program, records show.

Orleans-Lindsay also is listed as having violated probation after his first
drug-dealing conviction in April 1997. Despite his alleged pattern of
violating probation, Longchamp did not advise the court or bring any
charges until Wednesday. She would not comment, referring calls to
superiors instead.

Leonard A. Sipes Jr., spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public
Safety and Correctional Services, acknowledged the Parole and Probation
division's lapses.

"We are deeply saddened by the death of Trooper Toatley and the fact that
the suspected killer was under the supervision of the Maryland Division of
Parole and Probation," Sipes said.

He said the person handling Orleans-Lindsay's case had been saddled with
200 offenders, twice the normal caseload. And he noted that Orleans-Lindsay
tested negative for drugs 45 times and made contact with his probation
officer 12 times.

The division, which has sought help from the General Assembly, plans to
hire 44 new agents this year and 244 more over the next four years to
reduce caseload ratios to 50-1.

"We recognize that the way we supervise offenders in the community must
change, and we are embarked upon that plan," Sipes said.

As the justice system came under fire for the handling of Orleans-Lindsay's
case, Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler said that last
year prosecutors fashioned what they believed was a fair plea bargain for a
petty drug dealer with no record of violence.

Gansler said Orleans-Lindsay stayed clean between his last arrest, on Sept.
14, 1998, and his sentencing on June 3, 1999. Prosecutors agreed to seek no
more than six years. They did not object when Circuit Court Judge William
P. Turner suspended a 10-year sentence on one charge and a four-year
sentence on another. The sentences could have been imposed if he was found
guilty of violating probation, Gansler said.

"Who's to blame for this death? The defendant," Gansler said. "But where
did the criminal justice system fail, if anywhere? By not [acting to
revoke] this guy's probation."

Yesterday, mourners filed past the open coffin of the slain trooper, who
was laid out in his dress uniform, holding his rosary. Paying his respects
at a private ceremony, Gov. Parris N. Glendening pinned two new medals to
Toatley's chest. One was the Medal of Valor, the highest award a Maryland
state trooper can receive.

Witnessing the ceremony were Toatley's widow, Inez, and his 18-year-old
son, Antoinne; his 5-year-old son, Daniel; and his 18-month-old daughter,
Taylor. The governor, speaking afterward, quietly recounted a conversation
he had with Daniel after the boy asked, "Who shot my father?"

"I told him a very bad person did it," said Glendening, who appeared
shaken. "I told him his father was a hero."

Col. David B. Mitchell, head of the Maryland State Police, said the most
difficult moment was when Daniel wanted to give his father a kiss. The
boy's mother lifted the child up, and the boy said, "Momma, Daddy's cold."
Mitchell said the mother responded, "Your kiss has now warmed him up."

Staff writers Petula Dvorak and Phuong Ly and Metro researcher Bobbye Pratt
contributed to this report.