Bouncer

Cops had been hunting more than two months for the gunman who shot up a star-studded birthday bash for a popular rapper at a Delaware Avenue nightclub, killing a bouncer and wounding two other men. Yesterday, the FBI nailed a suspect. In Richmond, Va. Agents raided a home there shortly before 9 a.m. and arrested Joseph Rodgers, 30. Rodgers, of Wilmington, is accused of killing Antonio "Tony" Blackston, a bouncer who was working the bash at Gothum on Nov. 21. During a brawl outside the club, a man armed with an automatic weapon began shooting.

Ever since Eagles lineman Mike Mamula allegedly waved his penis at her in an Allentown bar, Sherri Happaney says her life hasn't been the same. She says she's been called lewd names, threatened, harassed and hounded. She's gotten nasty letters and phone calls at home. She's suffered sleeplessness, migraines and asthma attacks. She's been demoted and fired. And now, five months later, the 30-year-old single mother who vowed not to squeeze cash from the millionaire football player admits she asked him for $150,000 for the trouble he caused.

A proposed city ordinance requiring registration and professional training for bouncers at drinking establishments cleared a City Council committee Tuesday and appears likely to become law. "I think we've come up with a bill that is reasonable, that will protect the public and also be fair to business owners," said its sponsor, Councilman William K. Greenlee, citing similar programs in New York; Providence, R.I.; and Sacramento, Calif. Greenlee said no opposition had surfaced since he introduced the measure in September, provoked by a series of incidents where bouncers' overreactions or bad judgment led to serious injuries for patrons.

A burly tavern bouncer, who authorities say was so enraged by an acquaintance's early-morning visit last month that he beat the man to death with a baseball bat, was bound over for trial yesterday on murder charges. District Justice Joanne V. Adamchak ordered that Michael Scott, 46, be arraigned next month in Bucks County Court in connection with the death of Russell Tomasiello, 40, of Philadelphia, whose badly beaten body was found by a passerby along South Pennsylvania Avenue shortly after dawn April 10. Scott will remain in Bucks County prison without bail.

Larue Yusef Smith had just lost his job as a bouncer at Moda in the late spring 2007 and needed to raise some quick cash to pay bills and rent. Unfortunately for Smith, he decided to overcome his financial predicament by committing a string of convenience-store robberies in Philadelphia during June and July 2007 using a loaded handgun. The robberies netted Smith, of North Wales, $2,510 - enough to pay his bills and buy him life in prison. Smith, 37, who has been in federal custody since 2007, was sentenced yesterday to a mandatory minimum of 232.5 years in federal district court for 10 Hobbs Act robberies in which he brandished a loaded handgun and demanded money.

A West Philadelphia man went on trial Monday in last year's shootout at the "grand reopening" of a North Philadelphia bar that killed a bouncer, the stepgrandson of boxing legend Joe Frazier. Although the evidence points to the shooter of Peter Lyde Jr. as a short, red-shirted man who escaped, Assistant District Attorney Leon Goodman told the Common Pleas Court jury that Rodney Evans put events in motion and was as culpable as the man whose bullet hit Lyde. "When an innocent person gets killed," Goodman said, "both of them are responsible.

Sherri Happaney, the bouncer who accused Eagles defensive end Mike Mamula of exposing himself to her at an Allentown bar in August, filed a criminal complaint against him yesterday before a district magistrate in Lehigh County. But District Attorney Robert Steinberg still must decide whether to pursue the charges of indecent exposure and public lewdness. Happaney, 30, of Catasauqua, Pa., said she had not brought charges against Mamula earlier because she feared she would lose her job. She was fired Oct. 22 as a bouncer at the Sterling Hotel.

Patrick Swayze, who made the women of the world swoon in Dirty Dancing, is back knocking heads and tossing unruly customers out of a nightclub in Road House. Dirty Bouncing might be a more accurate title. There is more bouncing than dirt in Swayze's new film, so much so that one leaves it more punch-drunk and groggy than any of the club patrons. And if Earth Girls Are Easy didn't have a lock on the championship, Road House would be an early front-runner for dumbest movie of the year.

Taunts about his sensational Palm Beach rape trial and an insult aimed at his date sent William Kennedy Smith into a rage early Saturday that ended with his arrest in Virginia for punching a bouncer in a barroom brawl. Smith, acquitted in 1991 of raping a 30-year-old Florida woman at the sprawling Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, could face a maximum of one year in prison for blindsiding a bouncer outside an Alexandria, Va., bar. "My friends and I were hassled, baited and insulted by people who wanted to pick a fight with me," Smith said through his lawyer, Greg Craig.

The legal difficulties of two murder suspects - including a reputed organized-crime figure - have grown a little deeper with their indictment on charges of threatening to kill a bouncer at an Atlantic City nightclub last month. The pair - alleged mob member Philip Narducci, 25, of the 3200 block of South Broad Street in Philadelphia, and Jeffrey D'Orio, 22, of the 1600 block of Croatian Street in Philadelphia - were indicted last Thursday, but the indictment was not disclosed until yesterday to give authorities time to find and arrest D'Orio.

The prosecutor described the Genesis Bar in Nicetown as one of those friendly neighborhood tappies where - literally - "everyone knows your name. " And that, Genesis regulars testified Tuesday, was what made Wayne James stand out: No one remembered seeing him before. What they did remember, witnesses told a Philadelphia judge, was that James refused to stop smoking, blew smoke in a bouncer's face, and came back with a gun after being ejected. "I was in shock," said bouncer Curtis Aiken.

A proposed city ordinance requiring registration and professional training for bouncers at drinking establishments cleared a City Council committee Tuesday and appears likely to become law. "I think we've come up with a bill that is reasonable, that will protect the public and also be fair to business owners," said its sponsor, Councilman William K. Greenlee, citing similar programs in New York; Providence, R.I.; and Sacramento, Calif. Greenlee said no opposition had surfaced since he introduced the measure in September, provoked by a series of incidents where bouncers' overreactions or bad judgment led to serious injuries for patrons.

HANG ON, big fella. A bill that would require bouncers to receive proper training and register with the city before they start working in a club was approved yesterday by City Council's Committee on Licenses and Inspections. The bill was introduced earlier this year by Councilman Bill Greenlee, who was inspired to put legislation together after reading stories about out-of-control bouncers in a May issue of the Daily News . Greenlee said yesterday that he hopes the bill will come before Council for a final vote before the end of the year.

WILLIAM GREENLEE hasn't seen many bouncers booting boozehounds out of bars. "I don't hide out in my house or anything, but I'm too old to hang out in bars," the 58-year-old city councilman said with a laugh. But when he read a story in the Daily News in May about bouncers who go bonkers and hurt - or even kill - the patrons they evict, his politician's problem-solving instinct kicked in. The result was legislation he introduced Thursday that, if passed, would require bouncers to register with the city, for a onetime $40 fee, and undergo safety training in how to eject disorderly patrons without getting anyone bloody.

It was a weekend of violence and mayhem - brutal even by Philadelphia standards. From Friday through Sunday, 32 people were wounded, six fatally, in about 20 shootings across the city, police said, and a seventh person died in a stabbing. Police are also investigating four assaults and robberies committed by "roving packs of young people" leaving a North Philadelphia street festival Saturday night, Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said. Police had not yet determined if the 32 shooting victims represented the worst three-day span of violence in the department's recent history.

IT STARTED as a problem with the bill. "Your credit card doesn't work," the beefy bartender barked at Jim Bruno, a kid from the suburbs who'd come to the Field House bar in Center City for a Halloween party. No problem, Dean Bowser thought, as he headed to Bruno's side to bail out his buddy. Bowser reached to retrieve his friend's credit card and offer his own - and that's when everything went wrong. The bartender, believing that Bowser was throwing a punch at him, leaped over the bar and toppled Bowser to the floor.

Tucked inside the makeshift locker room at the Arena in South Philly, Imani Bell is sure of himself now. The 282-pounder unwrapped the tape around his bear-paw hands, embraced few friends and struggled to find words. After 4 years of football at Penn State and 11 years as a bouncer at various clubs, maybe boxing is his calling. "I'm going to take this as far as it will take me," said Bell, who won his pro debut by technical knockout over Lee Thomas, of Saginaw, Mich. The son of former Detroit Lions and St. Louis Cardinals defensive lineman Bob Bell, Bell overcame a rare disease as a youth, played offensive line at Penn State, flamed out in various pro leagues and settled down as a bouncer at a local strip club.

A man was socializing with a woman at the grand reopening of a North Philadelphia bar in May of last year. When the woman got up to go to the restroom, another man took her seat. The first man started an argument with the second man, then chased him outside where both men began shooting at each other. They survived their duel, but caught in the cross-fire was 425-pound bar bouncer Peter Lyde Jr. - the stepgrandson of former boxing champ Smokin' Joe Frazier and the stepson of his daughter, Municipal Judge Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde.

A West Philadelphia man went on trial Monday in last year's shootout at the "grand reopening" of a North Philadelphia bar that killed a bouncer, the stepgrandson of boxing legend Joe Frazier. Although the evidence points to the shooter of Peter Lyde Jr. as a short, red-shirted man who escaped, Assistant District Attorney Leon Goodman told the Common Pleas Court jury that Rodney Evans put events in motion and was as culpable as the man whose bullet hit Lyde. "When an innocent person gets killed," Goodman said, "both of them are responsible.