Pottstown Teen Charged In Columbine-Style School Shooting Plot
A 15-year-old freshman was charged yesterday with criminal attempt to commit first-degree murder for planning to “shoot everyone he did not like” at Pottstown High School, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said. Richard Yanis planned to use three firearms and ammunition that he had stolen from his father’s gun collection and given to a friend to hold, Ferman said at a news conference in Norristown. But the plan unraveled when the suspect’s father, Michael Yanis, 52, reported the guns stolen Nov. 11, touching off an intense, month-long investigation by police and Pottstown School District officials. That culminated Thursday when authorities took Richard Yanis into custody. Ferman wouldn’t say where he had been taken but said that it was local and that Yanis was getting mental-health care. [via INQUIRER]
BIG MEN IN TIGHTS: Don’t Be That Guy
One more touchdown by Brian Westbrook, and maybe Andy Reid should pay his star running back the ultimate tribute: By wearing tights. That’s what Reid promised he’d do, after all, back in 2004, if receiver/malcontent Terrell Owens scored 15 times. The pledge came after T.O., perhaps inspired by those old Joe Namath pantyhose commercials, begged to wear black spandex leggings at training camp. The coach said no. Not without shorts. But if T.O. got 15 TDs, not only could he wear tights, but Reid would, too. “I told him I’d wear the tights,” Reid said that June. He didn’t specify when this would occur. On the sidelines for the next game? More likely during a practice or the following training camp. Fifteen TDs would have been a remarkable feat, since only one Bird has ever done it — running back Steve Van Buren, who scored 18 times in 1945. In just 10 games. Reid in tights might have been an even more remarkable sight. And yet this fashion thunder-blunder almost came to pass. Owens scored 14 times in 14 games, setting an Eagles record for a receiver. Then a horse-collar tackle by Dallas Cowboys safety tackle Roy Williams sent Owens and his fractured fibula off to Hyperbaric Recuperation Land till the Super Bowl. After the injury, Reid extended the offer, according to ESPN. “The tights are on hold,” he said. “Now if he can come back and get one in the Super Bowl, I’ll don the tights.” [via INQUIRER]
THE DARK SIDE OF THE BUDGET CUTS: City Managing Director Gets Police Escort
Managing Director Camille Barnett is being driven to and from work by a uniformed officer in a marked police car because of a security threat made against her months ago, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said yesterday. Based on a security assessment conducted afterward, he decided that police should escort Barnett, particularly home from night meetings. “I don’t want to sound sexist, but I do take it more seriously. . . . You got a woman that’s all alone,” Ramsey said. That protection has become more visible — now, a marked car typically waits for her each morning – since Barnett moved last spring to a rowhouse southwest of Rittenhouse Square. Ramsey said yesterday that there is as much reason now as then to continue the practice. “She is a very high-ranking person in our government, and we are going through a period now when we’ve got all sorts of things going on: cutbacks in service, layoffs in personnel,” he said. “It’s no longer about some guy threatening because of dogs and so forth,” Ramsey continued. But given some of the anger displayed at the neighborhood meetings Mayor Nutter is holding about closing libraries and fire companies, he said: “The mayor is protected with security detail. … She is the No. 2 person in government, and I’m not going to leave her hanging out there.” The commissioner also added that he has “no plans of stopping” the daily escorts. [via INQUIRER]