"He liked to start fights," said Aretha Bickerstaff, 37, a neighbor and mother of four. " He was a bully. He was always with the crowd up to no good,"
Butler's troubles date to October 2004, when he was charged with pulling a fire alarm as a 12-year-old student at Thomas Fitzsimons School, sources said.
In 2005, he was sent to a juvenile-detention facility in the Poconos for robbery and had several run-ins with other teens there, police said.
"He had discipline problems there so they sent him back to Philadelphia," said police spokeswoman Officer Jill Russell.
Due to his incorrigible behavior, he was ordered to court where a judge was expected to place him in another facility. On June 27, Butler showed up at Family Court with his mom, but he fled before facing a judge. A bench warrant was issued, police said.
Butler's mom told cops that she had no idea of his whereabouts - until he allegedly floored the stolen Cadillac into a police cruiser with such force that it turned the police car into shards of twisted metal. Jaws of Life were used to help free the cops from the wreckage.
But neighbors said yesterday that this summer they regularly saw Butler hanging out on his porch, around the neighborhood and apparently casing cars to steal.
"He was clearly living there the whole time," George said. "If I knew he was wanted, I would have called the cops myself.
Said Bickerstaff: "He'd sit on the porch with friends and when the cops rolled by, he'd hide in the house till they left.
"He'd tell his family and friends to say he wasn't there."
At Butler's house yesterday afternoon, no one came to the door, but a woman yelled from a second-floor window, asking who was there. When a reporter indentified herself and asked for comment, there was no response.
