Bandits

With all the Hollywood remakes of French pop movies floating around live and on tape these days - "Three Fugitives," "Cousins," "Three Men and a Baby" - you might want to catch the real McQuoi, subtitles and all. There is one in town for the next week at the Roxy that has all the elements. "Bandits" is a little character study/romance/mystery concoction featuring people who shrug, smoke cigarettes dangling from the lip and eat snails and rabbit in fancy restaurants. It's a little talky by American standards, but amusing.

The Buffalo Bandits scored in the first minute and never looked back, ending the Wings' four-game winning streak with a 12-8 victory last night in the National Lacrosse League Hall of Fame game at the Wachovia Center. John Tavares had a hat trick for Buffalo (4-4). Kyle Wailes led the Wings with three goals and an assist. The Wings (4-3) trailed, 10-4, after three quarters but scored three straight goals at the start of the fourth. Athan Iannucci netted two, Dan Marohl had a goal and four assists, and goalie Matt Roik made 23 saves.

The armed robber ordered three victims to the ground and bragged that he had already killed three men, so "one more won't hurt. " The man then pumped a bullet into the back of Sammy Cedano, 30, of Camden, killing him at 9th and Somerset Streets, shortly after midnight on July 7, said Assistant District Attorney Paul Laughlin. One of the surviving victims, William Cintron, said he was lying next to Cedano when the fatal shot was fired, and tried to get up and run. He said the killer's accomplice, James Lamb, 15, of Seltzer Street near 13th, then shot him in the back.

A ski-masked holdup team made a whopper of a mistake when they entered a packed Burger King in South Philadelphia last Dec. 20. They ended up in the wrong kind of sandwich - caught between two off-duty cops who were there as customers. One was arrested immediately, a second was caught later. The third man is still on the lam. Yesterday, Common Pleas Judge William J. Mazzola convicted Matthew Maxwell, 19, a former employee of a McDonald's restaurant, of robbery, aggravated assault and conspiracy charges.

Kevin Dostie scored with 7 seconds left to lift the host Bandits to a 13-12 win over the Wings in a National Lacrosse League game Saturday night. Sean Greenhalgh, Dan Marohl, Keith Cromwell, and Athan Iannucci scored two goals each for the Wings, who play the Rochester Knighthawks in their next game, 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Wachovia Center.

It was like a stagecoach stickup at sundown - in North Philadelphia. The coach - SEPTA's Route 33 bus - was swinging north along 21st Street with about 30 passengers aboard around 5:30 p.m. yesterday. Driver James Dye, 38, pulled up to the Dauphin Street stop and the doors swung open to more riders - and two or three bandits, police said. One man pulled out a revolver and pressed it to the back of Dye's head, said Detective Thomas Gaylord of the North Central Detective Division.

State police have released a composite sketch they hope will identify one of two men responsible for an armed robbery at a Chester County market on July 25. Police said two men confronted the 48-year-old owner of Mason's Market on West Baltimore Pike in Penn Township at 10:34 p.m., right after the store had been closed and locked for the night. The men, armed with a shotgun and a handgun, forced the owner back into the store, took money and other items, and bound him before leaving.

Three banks, including two in Center City, were robbed yesterday. The robberies brought the city's 1991 bank holdup tally to 156, compared with 97 for last year. The first robbery was at 11:30 a.m., when a man handed a demand note to a teller at Germantown Savings Bank at 11th and Market streets. He fled with $600. At 2:54 p.m., a bandit gave a note to a teller at Meridian Bank at 65th Street and Woodland Avenue. The teller handed over $1,833 in bait money, which included a red dye pack.

Not long ago, Rockledge became Raccoontown after sundown. Residents would report seeing groups of three to six of the pesty noctural creatures nonchalantly rummaging through garbage, crouching under cars and porches, attached to trees or casually standing on street corners and sidewalks. Police also would report seeing up to 30 raccoons as they and the raccoons made their respective evening rounds. After hearing a year's worth of complaints from irate, frustrated residents about the raccoons' garbage can tipping and late-night antics, the Rockledge Borough Council sprang into action in October.

City police are searching for three masked bandits who made off with $25,000 and several laptop computers in a Monday night home invasion. The three armed men were waiting when a man and his sister-in-law returned home from work about 11 p.m. in Southwest Philadelphia. A 15-year-old boy who lived in the house on the 800 block of S. 58th Street had already been tied up with speaker wire, police said. At gunpoint, one of the masked bandits forced the man to open a hidden safe that contained $25,000.

DAVID PERRI became streets commissioner on Monday. By yesterday he'd gotten the Junk Cars guys to remove their junky signs. Well, that was quick. Only the day before, the Junk Cars guys - they say their names are Joe and John - had no intention of removing their 8-by-11 posters, which offer $200-$450 for beaters. "We know they're illegal, but we need to make a living," said Joe. I'd called him at 215-278-1161 to ask why he'd papered Fairmount and the Lower Northeast with the forbidden signs.

Authorities on Wednesday released the names of two suspected roving bandits who allegedly robbed a man of $6,000 at gunpoint in February at the Cherry Hill Mall after the victim responded to an online advertisement selling iPhones. Lance Kenney, 22, of Los Angeles, and Nathaniel Broadaway, 40, of Little Rock, met the victim at the mall on the afternoon of Feb. 3, said township Sgt. Joseph W. Vitarelli Jr. The victim was there to buy eight new iPhones offered at $540 apiece and met up with one of the men, Vitarelli said.

The bandit wasn't picky. On September 17, 2009, he struck the TD Bank at 2520 Grant Avenue. "Sweetheart, this is what you're going to do," he told the teller, "you're going to give me all the money in the top drawer. " He kept his hand hidden in his pocket so she couldn't see what he was holding. "Give me everything," he demanded. "The $2 bills, too. " She complied. Along with "everything," she also included an unexpected bonus. As he fled through a nearby parking lot, a dye pack inside his bag of booty exploded.

The bandit wasn't picky. On September 17, 2009, he struck the TD Bank at 2520 Grant Avenue. "Sweetheart, this is what you're going to do," he told the teller, "you're going to give me all the money in the top drawer. " He kept his hand hidden in his pocket so she couldn't see what he was holding. "Give me everything," he demanded. "The $2 bills, too. " She complied. Along with "everything," she also included an unexpected bonus. As he fled through a nearby parking lot, a dye pack inside his bag of booty exploded.

A suspected serial bank robber struck for the sixth time this afternoon making off with an undetermined amount of cash from a Center City bank branch. The bandit strode into the Republic Bank at 1818 Market Street about 12:20 p.m. and handed a teller a demand note. He collected cash and fled on foot, police said. Police believe the bank robber is responsible for five other bank jobs, including a previous robbery at the same Republic Bank on February 19, police said. He is described as a black male, about 40 years old, approximately 6-feet tall with a slender build and scruffy facial hair.

A Philadelphia man suspected as the serial bandit responsible for nine bank robberies this month has been caught, the FBI said today. Tarik Hooks, of the 6100 block of Spruce Street, was arrested Friday and charged today with nine counts of bank robbery. An affidavit filed in federal district court says Hooks confessed to the robberies, and to a 10th, in Wilmington, Delaware. Hooks, 35, was the most prolific and nettlesome robber during an unusual string of bank heists that unfolded in the region this year.

SEATTLE - The "Barefoot Bandit," who led police on a two-year, cross-country crime spree in stolen boats, cars and planes, is facing new charges in Washington state. Colton Harris-Moore is already serving a seven-year prison term after pleading guilty to state and federal crimes, but Skagit County Prosecutor Rich Weyrich filed theft and burglary charges this month against the 21-year-old, accusing him of stealing a couple's plane in 2010 and flying it to an airport 10 miles away.

Four masked men broke into the Main Line home of well-known jewelers, kidnapped the husband and forced him at gunpoint to drive to their Montgomery County store where he was robbed while the wife was held hostage. Police said the incident began around 7 p.m. Thursday night in Tredyffrin Township when the intruders confronted the owners of Shuler's Jewelers at their home in the 200 block of Wooded Way in Berwyn. The couple was bound with duct tape while the robbers ransacked the home, said Det. Sgt. Todd Bereda.

SCRANTON - A note-wielding holdup man dubbed the "Silent Bandit" was sentenced Wednesday to nearly six years in federal prison for robbing six banks, including three in the Philadelphia area. Fawzi Atra, 43, of Bethlehem, told a judge that he staged his two-week robbery spree because he owed the government $11,000 for unemployment benefits he received in error while out of work. U.S. District Judge James Munley called Atra's conduct outrageous and told the suspect he was either stupid or had a character defect.

The two armed men who robbed an upscale house in a remote section of Hilltown Township, Bucks County, on Friday entered through a first-floor bedroom window about 6 a.m., according to authorities, providing new information about the crime that left one man dead and two perpetrators on the loose. The men tied up Joseph Canazaro, 48; his girlfriend (whose name has not been released); and his 12-year-old son; held them at gunpoint, and scoured the house for valuables, according to Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler and Hilltown Police Chief Christopher Engelhart.