By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 4, 1999; Page B01

Prince George's County police detectives arranged for a man charged with wounding an off-duty police officer to sleep for 10 hours at police headquarters instead of taking him to the county jail, then continued questioning him yesterday without taking him before a court commissioner, police said.

The unusually extended interrogation continued into the evening yesterday, 30 hours after the suspect, Carl Derek Havord Cooper, arrived at police headquarters in Palmer Park on Tuesday. Attempts to learn of any change in Cooper's status failed last night, as police did not respond to a reporter's inquiries.

Cooper, 29, has been questioned off and on by investigators about several violent crimes -- including the 1997 triple slaying at a Starbucks coffee shop north of Georgetown, sources said. The process began after he was arrested about 6:30 p.m. Monday near his home in Northeast Washington by FBI agents and D.C. and Prince George's officers.

Cooper was questioned overnight Monday at the FBI field office in the District, appeared in D.C. Superior Court about noon Tuesday, waived an extradition hearing and agreed to be returned to Prince George's. He was then taken there immediately.

Cooper has not been charged in the Starbucks case or in any other crime except the August 1996 shooting of Bruce Howard, a Prince George's patrol officer, during a robbery in a Hyattsville park.

"He's still here. He's still being interviewed," Prince George's police spokesman Royce Holloway said about 6 p.m. yesterday. "Last evening, he was perfectly content. All of his physical needs are being provided for. He got 10 hours of sleep last night. He's been fed regularly. Anything he's wanted, he's been given."

Under Maryland court rules, police are required to present a defendant to a court commissioner "without unnecessary delay and in no event later than 24 hours after arrest." Violation of the rule would not automatically cause any statements made during such questioning to be suppressed by a court, said Gary Bair, chief of the Maryland attorney general's appeals division.

Maryland courts have thrown out some confessions made after 24 hours of questioning but have admitted others into evidence, ruling they were made "voluntarily," considering the "totality of the circumstances."

Holloway said detectives had interrogated Cooper intermittently, allowing him to take breaks. He refused to say whether D.C. police or FBI agents were participating, what questions were being asked or whether Cooper has been answering them. Sources said D.C. officers were present at the continued questioning.

Holloway also declined to say whether Cooper has requested an attorney or asked detectives to stop questioning him. But he said: "Any time anyone's in custody, and requests an attorney, one is provided. Any time anyone asks us to stop the questioning, we stop."

D.C. police have been under enormous pressure to solve the Starbucks case, in which three employees were slain in an apparent robbery attempt. Mary Caitrin "Caity" Mahoney, 25, Emory Allen Evans, 25, and Aaron David Goodrich, 18, were found shot to death on July 7, 1997.

Law enforcement sources have said Prince George's detectives identified Cooper as a suspect in the Howard case more than six months ago but held off arresting him at the request of D.C. detectives and FBI agents. D.C. police had a wiretap authorized last year on Cooper's home phone, sources said.