(August 8, 2000) Baltimore police officer Charles Smothers shot and killed James Quarles in August, 1997, after the latter refused repeated requests that he drop a knife. One bystander videotaped he incident, as another shouted "Don't shoot that boy." Taxpayers in the City of Baltimore just paid half a million dollars to settle the wrongful death lawsuit which followed, a fact revealed only after the Sun sued for the information. Our question: Why do police hound us over lawful firearm ownership, but protect people like Smothers? At the time of the shooting, Smothers was reportedly on probation following a 1995 conviction for battery in a case of domestic violence. That type of conviction is sufficient to dispatch Ceasefire on a mission to seize guns from the rest of us, yet Smothers was handed his gun and sent out to fire a $500,000 bullet. Sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander in Maryland's new two-class society.