Cops

RICHARD DeCoatsworth, a five-year veteran police officer who was hailed as a hero after being shot in the face by a suspect in 2007 but who more recently drew controversial headlines, left the force last week. DeCoatsworth, whose most recent assignment was with the Marine Unit, took disability retirement from the department after it was determined that injuries from the 2007 shooting prevented him from continuing to do police work, said spokesman Lt. Ray Evers. After he caught the shotgun blast to the face as a rookie cop in 2007, DeCoatsworth was invited to attend a February 2009 presidential speech.

MEN SHUFFLED along Chancellor Street toward the Gold Club early Saturday, nearly getting past a line of Dumpsters to the strip club's dingy red carpet before cops standing outside told them that the business was closed for the night. After the guys walked back down the alley, police led two women from the club in handcuffs toward 15th Street, where a police van was waiting with its back doors flung open. The Pennsylvania State Police busted the pair of buxom blondes earlier in the night in an undercover prostitution sting.

MARK FIORINO'S story has three elements that tend to get people worked up - gun rights, Philly police and YouTube. On a mild February afternoon, Fiorino, 25, decided to walk to an AutoZone on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philly with the .40-caliber Glock he legally owns holstered in plain view on his left hip. His stroll ended when someone called out from behind: "Yo, Junior, what are you doing?" Fiorino wheeled and saw Sgt. Michael Dougherty aiming a handgun at him. What happened next would be hard to believe, except that Fiorino audio-recorded all of it: a tense, profanity-laced, 40-minute encounter with cops who told him that what he was doing - openly carrying a gun on the city's streets - was against the law. "Do you know you can't openly carry here in Philadelphia?"

THE PAGAN stationed on a corner of Atlantic Avenue in Wildwood stood with his burly arms crossed over his belly, guarding the infamous motorcycle club's hotel-turned-fortress like a living, breathing gargoyle. Behind him, yellow caution tape and blue tarps draped the Binns Motor Inn - a signal from the Pagan's Motorcycle Club for "citizens" and nosy cops to keep out during the 2011 Roar to the Shore biker rally this month. It's the same hotel where federal prosecutors say that leaders of the Pagan's Long Island chapter at last year's rally told their minions to prepare for death or prison as they plotted a hand-grenade attack on the rival Hells Angels.

The Democrats, at long last, had strung together a good day. They forced House Republicans to return, grumbling, from summer vacation for votes that allowed Democrats to show support for teachers, cops, and strong borders. Then they got Rangeled. "For what purpose does the gentleman from New York seek recognition?" the speaker asked of Rep. Charlie Rangel, the fallen Ways and Means chairman, when he rose from his seat early Tuesday afternoon. The gentleman from New York sought recognition to deliver, without warning, one of the most extraordinary pieces of political oratory in recent memory.

LET'S TALK about crooked cops. Philadelphia is known for many things - like cheesesteaks, pretzels, sports teams, and, yes, "crooked cops," too. It's a reality that has tarnished the image of this police department, and upsets the overwhelming majority of good cops who are doing a great job out there. I won't criticize any member of the public for making comments about crooked cops in Philly - instead I get disgusted with the dirty cops who give us this image. In my opinion, they are nothing but filthy pigs, and I'm tired of being embarrassed for their actions.

HAD THESE casinos broken ground, we would have had the money on the table to maybe have more police so they could keep from being shot and killed. All these people yapping not here, not there, no casino should be held responsible for the city not having the money for overtime. Moses Cook Philadelphia

YOUR op-ed page informing us of the total cost of providing a new police officer was very interesting. But what price do you put on their lives? Police officers are a good investment for our city. They do a great job and are often not respected enough for the dangerous job they do. They give up living a normal life because they are police officers 24 hours a day. So, hats off to them, and may God always keep them in his sight. Josephine Zirilli Philadelphia

A pleasant dinner was the plan, but as attorney Scott Lempert and his wife drove across traffic-jammed South Street near 4th, their first concern was a parking spot. Meanwhile, Officer Joseph Galie, a three-year veteran of the force, was frantically trying to keep the traffic moving. At about 9:40 p.m. on Saturday, March 23, 1996, Lempert met Galie. There was screaming and shouting, maybe some pushing and foul language. The couple never broke bread. Instead, Lempert was surrounded by cops and ticketed.

Cops were mostly close-mouthed about their reactions to mayor-elect Ed Rendell's plans for their department as they gathered last night for midnight shift roll call at the 6th District at 11th and Winter streets. But the few who talked expressed cautious optimism for the Police Department's future once Rendell takes office on Monday. Part of the future, according to Rendell, is the eventual addition of 1,000 officers to the ranks. Rendell also wants to reassign 100 desk cops to street patrol duty and start training sessions for 100 police and 100 fire recruits next month.

IN PLOTTING CRIMES, Jeffrey Walker allegedly gave plenty of directions to his accomplice. He advised him to wear gloves during a burglary. He decided they'd divide the proceeds down the middle. And they would commit their crimes on a Monday, according to an affidavit, "because that is [Walker's] day off and he does 'all my dirt on Mondays.' " Problem was, Walker is a cop. And his accomplice was a witness cooperating with the FBI. So two nights ago (although not a Monday), FBI agents arrested Walker, a 24-year police veteran who has worked in the Narcotics Field Unit since March 1999, as he strolled out of a drug dealer's Kingsessing house with $15,000 in stolen cash in hand, according to the affidavit.

IN THEIR third confrontation with an armed suspect that ended in gunfire in about 24 hours, police shot a man in North Philadelphia last night. Police were in the area of 23rd and Oxford streets about 9:45 p.m. when they heard gunfire and then spotted a man running on Oxford Street toward 24th with a gun in his hand, Chief Inspector Scott Small said. The officers got out of their patrol car and ordered the 21-year-old man to drop the gun several times, but the man refused and instead ran toward them with the gun pointed in their direction, Small said.

POLICE Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said yesterday that he has ordered Internal Affairs to reopen the 18 complaints civilians filed against disgraced narcotics cop Jeffrey Walker during his 24-year career. Walker, 44, was caught after allegedly stealing $15,000 from a Philadelphia Housing Authority-owned rowhouse in Kingsessing Tuesday in an FBI sting. Ramsey suspended him from the force with the intent to dismiss. The Daily News found that none of the previous Internal Affairs complaints, which accused Walker of misdeeds ranging from physical assaults to theft, was ever sustained.

JEFFREY WALKER, the veteran Philly narcotics cop who was federally charged yesterday with allegedly robbing a drug dealer, has been the subject of 18 Internal Affairs complaints during his career. The civilian complaints - none of which was sustained - included accusations of theft, physical and verbal abuse, and illegal searches. Walker, 44, joined the police force in 1989 and was assigned to the Narcotics Field Unit South 10 years later. Walker has worked with some of the six narcotics cops who were transferred to different assignments in December after the District Attorney's Office said that the officers would no longer be called to testify in drug cases.

PHILADELPHIA police have successfully launched a new city law aimed at clearing illegal ATV riders and dirt-bikers out of public parks and streets, but "bike life" has proven persistently deadly regionally, with at least four fatal wrecks in the last 14 months. Police impounded 26 ATVs and dirt bikes through Monday and issued 57 citations through May 7 (more recent figures are unavailable due to a paperwork lag) under a law first enforced April 6 that stiffens penalties for illegal riders, police data shows.

NEW ORLEANS - Police have identified a suspect in the shooting of 19 people during a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans. Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said last night that they were looking for 19-year-old Akein Scott. He said multiple people identified Scott as the shooter. Three gunshot victims remained in critical condition yesterday, though their wounds didn't appear to be life-threatening. Most of the injured had been released from the hospital. Video released earlier in the day shows a crowd gathered for a boisterous second-line parade Sunday suddenly scattering in all directions, with some falling to the ground.

A WOMAN caught on video being hit by police Lt. Jonathan Josey during a celebration after last year's Puerto Rican Day Parade will be awarded $75,000 in a settlement from the city. Mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald confirmed yesterday that the city agreed this week to pay the amount to Aida Guzman, 39, of Chester. Guzman suffered a busted lip when she was struck by Josey, at the time a decorated highway patrolman, during a raucous street party at 5th Street and Lehigh Avenue following the Sept.

CRIMINAL investigators descended on Delaware County's troubled Colwyn Borough yesterday in connection with a probe of a former Philadelphia cop who was secretly hired to oversee the suburban police department. The latest raid in Colwyn, a dysfunctional little burg on the border of Southwest Philly, appeared to be focused on Rochelle Bilal, who recently left her city job but has been quietly working a side gig in the borough since September, apparently in violation of city police rules, the Daily News reported last month.

MIKE CHITWOOD was a rookie cop fresh out of the Police Academy on Nov. 7, 1964, when he was walking a beat on Susquehanna Avenue in North Philadelphia with a seasoned officer who was teaching him the ropes. Chitwood - who went on to become a much-honored Philly cop and is now the police superintendent of Upper Darby Township - and his partner, Mike Muto, might not have been prepared for heroics that day, but that's what they got. On the 1600 block, they saw flames shooting out of a house and a woman with a baby hanging onto a rope between the second and third floors, calling for help.

HARRISBURG - As Pennsylvania's top law enforcement officials gathered in the Capitol recently to announce another jaw-dropping round of corruption charges, a Marine veteran in a dark suit stood quietly in the back. But when the time came to take questions about the pay-to-play allegations against the men who ran the Pennsylvania Turnpike, State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan had the answers. Noonan, 66, may well be one of the most influential law enforcement officials you've never heard of. As the state's top cop for the last two years, and before that as head of criminal investigations at the state Attorney General's Office, he has helped guide some of the biggest prosecutions in recent Pennsylvania memory: The Bonusgate cases.