Other policemen apprehended Terrance, who was then charged with murder.

Johnson's bail was first set at more than $1 million. Judge Jacob S. Levin, who will preside at the trial, later reduced it to $100,000, and Terrance went free pending trial.

In October, P.G. Circuit Court Judge Vincent J. Femia ruled that Johnson should stand trial as an adult, saying "There is no place for him in the juvenile system... We have no place for Terrance Johnsons."

Standing trial as an adult, Johnson could face two consecutive life sentences if convicted. In juvenile court he would have been engible for parole on his twenty-first Birthday.

Arthur A. Marshall Jr., Maryland attorney general, has decided to prosecute this case himself--for the first time in three years. Critics and Johnson supporters point out that Marshall did not try to get an indictment against the white policemen who shot unarmed black suspects last year. Marshall says, "I didn't go before the grand jury to seek an indictment in the Johnson case, either. I have always made it a policy to prosecute shootings involving the police, whether they are victims or defendants," once charges are brought.

No police officer involved in a shooting incident has ever been indicted in P.G. County.

The circumstances surrounding Johnson's trial, however, are quickly producing a sort of public indictment of the entire P.G. County police force. Recent events in the county and within the police department demonstrate a staunch resistance to change, especially when change means racial integration.

Under Justice Department pressure, former County Executive Winifred Kelly advocated plans to smoothly integrate black and white plans to smoothly integrated black and white P.G. communities and was bitterly criticized by many of his constituents.

Just as the community fought school desegregation, the rank and file of the police force resented, but were powerless to stop, the integration of blacks into their department.

Under Chief of Police John Rhoades, a Kelly appointee, the department instituted a mandatory, 20-hour human relations course for all members, and integrated classes of police recruits. Many policemen condemned Rhoades for being, as one officer put it, "Kelly's puppet" and "too responsive to the community at the expense of the department's needs."

Facing black community protest, Rhoades last summer fired Officer Peter F. Morgan for fatally shooting an unarmed black shoplifting suspect the previous Christmas Eve. The following week the county police union gave Rhoades a unanimous vote of no-confidence.

Commenting on the changes which the community and police have been resisting, 18-year veteran Sergeant Ralph Ross told the Washington Post last summer, "You have to understand one thing about this department; up until the mid-'70s, it was a known fact that if you came into P.G. County and made trouble the police would kick your head in. Simple as that. The county had that image and wanted it that way. The police were encouraged to be that way. But times have changes and that sort of thing wasn't allowed any more."

In this year's election, the county soundly rejected Kelly, returned two anti-desegregation spokesmen to positions of power and over-whelmingly approved a Proposition 13-style tax measure, prompting the Post to comment, "The voters seemed to be seeking a return to the days when life in Prince George's was simpler."

The Terrance Johnson trial is acting as a spotlight, forcing many hidden community attitudes out into the open. To some people, this is long overdue; to others, it is just one more unwelcome and complicating change.

Rev. Perry Smith, pastor of the Brentwood Baptist Church and a spokesman for the Terrance Johnson Defense Committee, said that an incident of this type "had to happen eventually; there are isolated instances of improved race relations here, but overt racism has not by any means been eradicated."