Tag Archives: Philadelphia

by | May 22, 2010

Philly police shoot, kill two men fighting over gun

Philadelphia police shot and killed two men during a confrontation in the Tioga section Friday evening, a police spokesman said.

The men were fighting over a handgun inside a second-floor apartment in the 1500 block of West Tioga Street shortly after 6 p.m., police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said.

They were ordered by two responding officers to drop the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, but they refused, Vanore said. Each uniformed officer fired one shot.

One of the men, whose age was not immediately available, was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene by medics at 6:30.

The other man was shot in the chest and died later at Temple University Hospital.

The officers, who are assigned to the 39th District, will be assigned to administrative duty until an investigation is completed, Vanore said.

The officers had been on patrol when they were approached by a woman who said the men were fighting inside an apartment and a gun was involved, Vanore said.

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by | May 19, 2010

Philly fugitive woman hid in coffin to ditch cops

Great stuff here. A woman that was on the lamb from the cops hid in a coffin to avoid being captured. It would have been funnier if the mortuary would have put her in a hole and filled it in.

MIFFLINTOWN – A Philadelphia woman facing charges in Juniata County hid in a coffin at a Mifflintown funeral home to avoid apprehension after escaping police custody May 13, according to documents filed Monday at Magisterial District Judge Barb Lyter’s office.

Court documents state Nicole April Kelly, 19, of Philadelphia, was being transported by the Juniata County Sheriff’s Department from Lyter’s office, where she was arraigned on two outstanding warrants from Delaware County, back to the Mifflin County Correctional Facility until she could be extradited to Delaware County. Authorities said the warrants were discovered when Kelly appeared in court in Juniata County that day on separate charges.

As Kelly was being brought to the correctional facility she told authorities that she “just couldn’t do this,” at which point she pulled free and fled while still in handcuffs, according to documents. Authorities chased Kelly but lost sight of her as she fled toward the Brown Funeral Home in Mifflintown.

Documents state Police used several dogs and a helicopter in their search for Kelly, which lasted for several hours, until she was found hiding inside a coffin at Brown Funeral Home by the business’s owner Dan Brown.

Brown returned to his business at approximately 9 p.m. and noticed a phone line was in use when no one was supposed to be at the business, authorities said. When Brown picked up the phone Kelly was on the line, but said that she had the wrong number, documents state. When Brown hung up the line was still busy, at which point he advised his wife to contact police while he went to the funeral home’s showroom, where he turned on the lights and saw Kelly run to hide, according to documents.

Authorities said Brown was able to prevent Kelly from fleeing the business by grabbing her wrist and arm and keeping her on the ground, where she then tried to bite him. Kent Smith from Mifflin Borough Police arrived at the scene and took Kelly into custody, according to documents. Kelly was lodged at Juniata County Jail before being transported to Mifflin County Correctional Facility.

Kelly now faces additional charges of escape, flight to avoid apprehension, burglary, criminal trespass, criminal mischief and simple assault.

Additionally, Brown Funeral Home is seeking restitution in the amount of $365 for the damage Kelly caused when she kicked out the rear of the coffin she was hiding in with her feet, according to documents.

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by | May 13, 2010

20,000 pieces of mail found in Philly Postal employees home

Checks, bills and even a college acceptance letter from 2007 were among 20,000 letters found inside the garage of a Philadelphia postal carrier.

When the mailman missed several days of work in April, postal officials went to his Port Richmond home and found tubs and tubs of undelivered and unopened mail.

The postal worker, who has yet to be identified, worked out of the Bustleton station in Northeast Philadelphia. The neighborhood most impacted is located near Castor Avenue and Benton Street.

One of those affected was desperate to receive a $900 check in December 2007. The letter just arrived on Thursday.

“I got mail today from 2007. Paychecks, things like that that I needed. Stuff from the Social Security Administration, I.R.S.,” resident Kevin Carpenter said.

Carpenter asked the worker he knew as “Dave the mailman” to be on the lookout for the check.

“I asked Dave and Dave said he hadn’t seen it, but as soon as he got it, he would call me,” Carpenter explained.

Some of mail found in the postal carrier’s home dated back to 1997.

One of the letters that was undelivered was a 2007 acceptance letter from West Chester University. The recipient, who received the letter on Thursday, is now a senior in college.

Investigators have yet to question the mailman because they have not been able to locate him.

However, delaying mail and stealing mail are both federal offenses.

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by | March 10, 2010

Jihad Jane’s ex-boyfriend: ‘The whole thing is crazy’

KURT GORMAN had no idea that his Texas girlfriend of four years was on the Internet calling herself JihadJane.

Colleen R. LaRose, whom he met in Ennis, Texas, left the couple’s Montgomery County apartment Aug. 23, the day after his father’s funeral, without telling him, he said.

“I came home and she’s gone. She packed up and left. Didn’t see it coming, didn’t know,” Gorman told the Daily News last night. “I was upset, worried. Maybe something happened to her. You don’t know.”

Yesterday, Gorman, of Pennsburg, 48 miles northwest of Philadelphia, said he finally found out – by reading about her on the Internet.

A federal grand jury indicted LaRose, who also called herself Fatima Rose, allegedly for providing material support for terrorists and for plotting with others to kill a Swedish artist who had depicted the pro-phet Muhammad as a dog.

“I don’t know the details. I don’t want to know them,” said Gorman, who appears to be an easygoing guy with a mustache and beard. Interviewed at his office in Quaker-town, he was dressed in a green and black plaid shirt, black jeans and work boots, and was holding a half-smoked cigarette.

“She never talked about international events, about Muslims, anything,” he said. “It’s very strange. I still can’t believe it.

“The whole thing is crazy.”

A few weeks after LaRose, 5-foot-2 with dirty-blond hair, disappeared, taking most of her clothes, two FBI agents visited him. He said they questioned him, including what she did during the day and whether she used the computer. Nothing to tip him off, he added.

In November or December, Gorman said, he was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to testify. He said he had been asked about his passport, whether he had given it to her. He said he told the jury no. She was charged with stealing the passport in the indictment.

Prosecutors and agents told him that they were in the middle of an investigation and could not share the details.

He said he figured: “Let them do their job. I don’t want anything to do with it.

“She seemed normal to me. She got mad about some things and happy about others,” he said. Asked what she would get mad about, he replied: “If I was not home when I was supposed to be, that I don’t spend enough time with her, that I work too much.”

As owner of a company that manufactures custom parts for radio towers, he said, “I work until the job gets done.”

The couple lived with his father in a second-floor apartment in a four-unit building on Main Street in Pennsburg. “She was a good person, taking care of my Dad, taking him to the doctor.”

His father sat in a lawn chair on the balcony, said neighbors. “He asked me to go for a cup of coffee,” said Joan Noon, 66, a next-door neighbor.

LaRose didn’t work, and had not graduated from college, but, he said, she was fun to be with.

“I wouldn’t have stayed with her if she was not nice,” he added.

“That’s why when I came home and she was gone, it was a shock to the system.”

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