An 8-year-old girl who took an authentic-looking toy gun to school in Delaware County on Monday will be suspended for 10 days, police said yesterday. The girl, a third grader at Highland Park Elementary School in Upper Darby, thought the gun was real, township Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said. She took it because she knew her older brother would not be able to walk her home from the bus stop that day, as he usually did, Chitwood said. “She’s afraid to walk home from the bus stop alone, so she takes this gun with her for protection,” Chitwood said. INQUIRER: […]

A Kensington man died early this morning after being shot several times on a subway concourse near Philadelphia City Hall. The shooting took place just before 2 a.m. near 15th Street and JFK Boulevard. Kenny Philogene, 22, of the 3100 block of Arbor Street, was found shot in the chest, stomach and left shoulder, police said. He was pronounced dead about a half-hour later at Hahnemann University Hospital. The homicide was the city’s 84th this year. [Via the Inquirer]

An undercover drug-and-weapons sting turned deadly in Port Richmond yesterday afternoon when an FBI agent shot a suspected dealer to death. Police Chief Inspector Joseph Fox told reporters after the shooting that the FBI agent who fired the shot feared for his life. As the agent was running after the suspect, he yelled, “Stop, freeze!” and told the man to show his hands, Fox said. Instead, the man “made a furtive move toward his waist,” Fox said. Then the agent took one shot – killing the suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Fox said the drama unfolded about […]

It all started when a 45-year-old man chased desperately after a Route 33 SEPTA bus in North Philadelphia shortly before 5 p.m., hoping to catch his ride. Watching the running man intently from inside the bus, police say, was a man in his late 50s or early 60s. The younger man must have thought he was in luck – the Route 33 bus stopped, allowing him to hop on board. Police say he paid his fare and was immediately confronted by the man who’d been watching him. The older man “began grabbing or shaking him, and asked him, ‘Where’s my […]

Philadelphia was very much on Gregory’s mind before his mother’s death, even as bombs exploded and people died at the hands of the Taliban. He took a few moments to do what military people do when they’re far from loved ones. He got on the Internet and ordered his mother bubble bath and lotion for her birthday. He included a note: Mummy, happy birthday to the best mother and grandmother in the world. Hope you will live to see many, many healthy and happy birthdays. Gregory paid extra to get the gift delivered to his mother’s home in West Philadelphia […]

Philadelphia police are investigating a double homicide that happened overnight in the city’s Mantua section. The victims, a man and a woman both appearing to be in their 50s, were found in a car near 32nd Street and Mantua Avenue shortly after 1 a.m. Both were shot once in the head, police said. They were pronounced dead at the scene. Names were not released this morning. The deaths raise the city’s 2007 homicide total to 65. INQUIRER: Dead & Deader ALSO: Philadelphia police were investigating yesterday morning’s murder of a man in the 4900 block of Master Street in the […]

Police have released the names of two men murdered yesterday in the city. The killings brought this year’s homicide total to 60.Early last night, Jamal Slade, 19, was fatally shot in Logan, police said. Slade, who lived in the 5200 block of North Second Street, was shot multiple times in the torso shortly before 7 p.m. at 11th and Louden Streets, police said. He was transported to Albert Einstein Medical Center and later pronounced dead. Police reported no arrests. Yesterday afternoon, Mondez Lloyd, 31, of 2800 North Van Pelt, was fatally wounded yesterday in a shooting on a North Philadelphia […]

A weekend of gun violence in Philadelphia left four dead and at least six people injured. One flare-up involved a shoot-out near an all-night Center City pharmacy early yesterday. Shortly after 2 a.m., two men were wounded when a disturbance in a nightclub apparently spilled out into the streets of Center City near a CVS Pharmacy, police said. Police identified them as New Jersey residents, ages 25 and 26. Police said the altercation may have resulted from an earlier dispute in the Tragos nightclub near 19th and Chestnut Streets. Police said that they weren’t sure if the incidents were connected, […]

(CBS 3) PHILADELPHIA Philadelphia native Bill Cosby is expected to discuss gun violence when he returns to the city Wednesday.Cosby will speak at a forum at the Community College of Philadelphia in an event sponsored by Men United for a Better Philadelphia.He is expected to addresses the topics of mentoring young people and violence during the discussion. KYW: Fold Your Hands, Child, You Walk Like A Peasant

Jamal Richardson, 18, of the 1800 S. 30th St., was shot once in the chest in the 2600 block of Dickinson Street in South Philadelphia. He was still alive when found shortly before 5 p.m, but was pronounced dead less than a half-hour later at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. No arrests have been made, and police are still trying to determine a motive. Wesley Powaserys, 52, of the 2900 block of Livingston is the man found dead yesterday in a car in Kensington, the victim of an apparent robbery, police said. He had been shot in the […]

Leissner’s patrol car raced down the Navy Yard’s desolate main road and stopped at Building 79 – a brick warehouse surrounded by silence. The 17-year military veteran, who had served in Kuwait and is a firearms instructor for the Air Force Reserve, could not have known he was seconds away from stepping into the scene of the city’s biggest mass murder in more than six years. Three businessmen had been shot dead inside a second-floor conference room. An accountant fought off the pain of bullet wounds to the stomach and managed to dial 911, alerting Leissner and other cops to […]

ASSOCIATED PRESS — PHILADELPHIA A gunman fatally shot three people [NOT pictured] at a business meeting before turning the gun on himself Monday night in an office building at the old Philadelphia Navy Yard, police said. The gunman appeared to get upset at a board of directors meeting for a company that might have been an investment firm, Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross said. The gunman also died, police Capt. Benjamin Naish said. Another person was critically injured. Another two people were present but not shot, police said. The shooting took place in a conference room in a business at the […]

A police official said yesterday that a man fatally shot by two officers Saturday night in Southwest Philadelphia – the fourth victim of deadly police force in 2007 – refused requests to drop his loaded .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Philadelphia Police Capt. Benjamin Naish said Raheem Pridgen, 27, caught the attention of the officers on patrol in the Elmwood neighborhood because he was sitting in his car, which was running and facing the wrong direction in the 6400 block of Dicks Avenue at 6:15 p.m. Naish said Pridgen got out of the vehicle and ran as an officer approached; the officer […]