No Baby-Dangling Charges for Jacko

At least that's the verdict of Berlin police, who announced Friday they were not going to pursue an investigation into the pop superstar's now infamous baby-waving episode earlier this week.

The decision comes a day after police officials indicated they were reviewing pictures and videotape of Jackson dangling the youngest of his three children, nine-month-old son Prince Michael II, over a fourth-floor balcony railing, showing off the infant to hundreds of fans massed in the square below.

In the clip, Jackson is seen emerging from his room at the opulent Adlon Hotel, aformentioned tyke (whose head was sheathed in a white towel) in tow. He lifts Prince II with one hand and briefly holds the boy over the railing. For an instant, it appears that struggling babe might wriggle out of Jacko's grasp, but the singer manages to yank the toddler back up, and the two disappeared into the family's hotel suite.

The video unspooled on newscasts worldwide Tuesday, and still photos of the incident became among the most emailed images on the Web. Tabloid newspapers in London and New York ripped Jackson, and child-advocacy groups suggested the singer might have foolishly imperiled his son.

However, child-protection agencies in New York and California, where Jackson maintains homes, said they could not take action, since the incident took place outside their jurisdiction. But the flurry of bad publicity triggered the Berlin police to launch a preliminary inquiry to determine if there was enough evidence to pursue charges of neglect and child endangerment.

Meanwhile, the (surgical) masked man's camp immediately went into damage-control mode, issuing a mea culpa on behalf of Jackson. "I offer no excuses for what happened. I made a terrible mistake. I got caught up in the excitement of the moment," he said in the statement.

"I would never intentionally endanger the lives of my children."

The usual suspects also rallied to Jackson's defense. Fans blamed a media conspiracy against their King of Pop.

Brother Jermaine appeared on NBC's Today show and said, "It wasn't a wise thing to do, but I think he got caught up in the moment, and you can judge a person by their intent. His intent was never to hurt the child. I mean, he loves his children very much."

And good pal Liza Minnelli was quoted in the New York Times saying, "It doesn't sound like him at all. The world 'dangling' is what I would look into. I don't see a picture where he is dangling the child dangerously. I see him holding [the child] up above a railing for the press to say hello to his kid."

That was the consensus of investigators, who said they found no evidence of any wrongdoing and declined to pursue the case. "The police checks have shown that the actions are not punishable," Berlin police spokesman Norbert Gunkel tells the Associated Press. German prosecutors concurred.

The baby thriller utterly overshadowed the reason for Jackson's Berlin excursion--to be honored as "pop artist of the millennium" and receive a special Bambi Award for his work on behalf of children from the Burda publishing company.

Turning up at the Thursday night ceremony in a glittering black jacket, black pants and shiny surgical mask, he was handed the silver deer trophy by retired tennis star Boris Becker. He later posed for pictures with Halle Berry, who received a film award.

He doffed the mask and kicked off his acceptance speech with a shout out to the locals: "Berlin, ich liebe dich," which translates as "Berlin, I love you," and then encouraged Germany's children "to work for your dreams, work for your ideals." He closed by issuing a why-can't-we-all-get-along plea.

"We are Christians, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu, we are black, we are white, we are a community of so many differences, so complex and yet so simple," Jackson said. "We do not need to have war."

Jackson, whose increasingly bizarro antics have drawn more attention over the past decade than his underperforming music efforts, will soon be bidding auf Wiedersehen to his beloved Berlin. He's due back in the States after Thanksgiving to resume testimony in a $21 million breach-of-contract civil case against him.