Getaway Car

For the jurors who will decide if he lives or dies for his role in the killing of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, Eric DeShann Floyd has existed only as a color photo shown periodically on monitors in a Common Pleas courtroom. Floyd, 35, has watched his trial via closed circuit TV from an adjacent holding cell since June 9, the start of jury selection. On that day, angry because the judge would not let him represent himself, Floyd punched one of his defense lawyers. On Wednesday, Floyd is expected to return to the courtroom - live, and likely volatile as ever - to exercise his constitutional right to testify in his own defense.

At the end, Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski had barely enough time to slide from behind the wheel of his patrol car and begin to stand. He had time to plead "No! No! No!" before the first of eight shots from a military assault rifle tore into him, knocking him to the street and leaving him barely conscious, radio clutched in his right hand, service pistol still in its holster. Liczbinski's last moments before the deadly confrontation with three bank robbers in a getaway car were described in often brutal detail Thursday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court by four people who were at a quiet Port Richmond intersection on May 3, 2008.

At the end, Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski had barely enough time to slide from behind the wheel of his patrol car and begin to stand. He had time to plead "No! No! No!" before the first of eight shots from a military assault rifle tore into him, knocking him to the street and leaving him barely conscious, radio clutched in his right hand, service pistol still in its holster. Liczbinski's last moments before the deadly confrontation with three bank robbers in a getaway car were described in often brutal detail Thursday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court by four people who had been present at a quiet Port Richmond intersection on May 8, 2008.

North Philadelphia cabbie Aaron Savage did not know Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, but the veteran officer's death affected him profoundly. It could have been him. Less than 24 hours before Liczbinski, 39, was shot to death on May 3, 2008, the self-described "gypsy hack" stopped for three people at Broad Street and Allegheny Avenue, near Temple University Hospital. Savage told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury Tuesday that the pickup seemed like a safe-and-easy $5: "two sisters" covered in Muslim garb and an older man asking for a lift to Sixth Street and Allegheny.

North Philadelphia cabbie Aaron Savage did not know Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, but the veteran officer's death affected him profoundly. It could have been him. Less than 24 hours before Liczbinski, 39, was shot to death on May 3, 2008, the self-described "gypsy hack" stopped for three people at Broad Street and Allegheny Avenue near Temple University Hospital. Savage told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury Tuesday that the pick-up seemed like an safe-and-easy $5: "two sisters" covered in Muslim garb and an older man asking for a lift to Sixth and Allegheny.

A drug dealer who began working from home after being placed on house arrest was shot Sunday afternoon, along with two men who came to his Upper Darby home to rob him, police said. One of the alleged robbers died as a result of the Father's Day gunfight that occurred on a crowded street, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said. About 3 p.m., Christopher Bogan, of Sunshine Road near West Chester Pike, who is wearing an ankle monitor for a drug conviction, walked just outside his door to meet Kanard Jones, 25, and Latif Morris, 25, police said.

It was the old story: Boy meets girl, sparks fly, love ensues. Or, in this Philadelphia romance, bank robbery. Seven of them, plus a Target store. The take? Some $17,000 and a dye pack. For that, William Kusznir, 25, of Oxford Circle, yesterday got 36 months in jail after explaining how he and Bridget Carey, 27, met in a drug-treatment program last year and then proceeded to rob banks across Northeast Philadelphia. Kusznir would walk in with a note demanding money while Carey waited outside in her 2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue.

Before they knew his name, investigators referred to Joseph McAdams as the "Closing Time Bandit. " He was a prolific bank robber, getting away with $939,000 from New Year's Eve 2001 until his arrest last fall in North Jersey. Yesterday, McAdams, 53, admitted robbing 14 banks in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and pleaded guilty to related charges in federal court in Camden. He faces a mandatory seven years in prison but could spend life behind bars if U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle hands down the maximum term.

In a matter of moments, two suspected armed robbers crashed their getaway car in a Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood yesterday morning and exchanged as many as 60 shots with pursuing officers. When it was over, a highly regarded beat officer was wounded in the mouth, and two men with more than 50 prior arrests were in custody. Several hours later, police still were combing through evidence at 63d Street and Grays Avenue. Officers removed several guns and a large bag of cash from the suspects' Mazda, which had smashed into the back of a parked car. The injured officer, Adrian Hospedale, was grazed by a bullet or bullet fragment in the upper lip and gum. He was in stable condition at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

The son of murdered businessman Robert Chae told a rapt courtroom audience yesterday in Montgomery Township that he was shaken awake on the morning of Jan. 9 by two men, one of whom pistol-whipped him. Blank-faced and bespectacled, Richard Chae, 29, told how the pair had "dragged" him from his bedroom into the basement of the Chae family home in Montgomeryville, where they and a third man bound him with duct tape. The men wanted money from a safe; the family acquiesced, but it didn't appear to matter, the son testified.