Law Enforcement

An audit announced yesterday by the state Attorney General's Office criticized the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office for the aggressive manner in which it has spent more than $648,000 in forfeiture funds since Andrew N. Yurick took over as prosecutor 21 months ago. The audit did not say the funds were misspent but indicated that Yurick could have been more prudent in "prioritizing law-enforcement needs. " Yurick's spending - on items ranging from bulletproof raincoats to high-tech weapons - has been criticized by county and state officials, including State Sen. Raymond J. Zane (D., Gloucester)

America has just won an acknowledged, much-publicized war. And now we find ourselves losing another one. It is the real war, down the street. It is the war we can somehow never bring ourselves to officially declare, properly name, dedicate songs to, form support groups for or rightfully acknowledge. Now it announces itself in the person of Rodney King of Los Angeles, kicked and clubbed by a group of police officers in a glaring police brutality case that has filtered into our living rooms on the television like those beams of light from the spaceship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

At least eight men founded the Junior Black Mafia in 1985, according to federal, state and local law enforcement sources, and street sources. They have been identified as: James Cole, 35, and his brother, Hayward Cole, 36, convicted drug traffickers who were enforcers in the 1970s for the old Black Mafia, police sources say. Some investigators believe the Coles, whom drug informants refer to as "The Big Bosses," continue to lead the...

Leroy "Bucky" Davis, a former amateur boxer who was the reputed head of the Junior Black Mafia's operations in Southwest Philadelphia, was shot to death early yesterday on the front porch of a JBM safe house in West Philadelphia, authorities said. Davis, 22, wearing a gold and diamond-studded necklace that said "Bucky," was struck four times from a fusillade of gunfire that left the street littered with shell casings and the white brick and stucco house on Creighton Street pocked by bullets.

Within hours of the discovery of Salvatore Testa's murdered corpse trussed up by the side of a lonely South Jersey road on the morning of Sept. 14, 1984, the theory was on the minds and lips of law enforcement authorities who study the mob: Nicky Scarfo did it. Even given the bloody factional war that had enveloped the Philadelphia mob since the execution of longtime boss Angelo Bruno in March 1980, law enforcement officers viewed the Sal...

They were known by such menacing names as "Warlocks," "Pagans" and "Hell's Angels," and they once roamed the eastern seaboard in rumbling packs, their chopped Harley-Davidson motorcycles a source of crude fascination to many they encountered. But then the fascination ended. Stripped of their mystery by a series of coordinated federal, state and local investigations in the early 1980s, several "outlaw motorcycle gangs" were revealed to be that and more. From their ragtag beginnings, they had become highly organized criminal conspiracies whose primary stock in trade was illegal drugs and whose calling cards were violence and intimidation.

The Philadelphia Police Explorer Cadet Program got an unexpected boost from Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church last week, when the church donated $5,000 to the program. "It was something you just don't expect," said Cpl. Bryan Coyle, a Police Department veteran who runs the cadet program. "It's a true blessing because now I can reach out to more kids. " Coyle said the surprise donation from Enon, on Vernon Road and Cheltenham Avenue, was presented to him during a ceremony he attended in which he was honored for his work with community youth.

On a day when Connecticut and Maryland legislators ushered in historic new gun laws, a bipartisan lineup of Pennsylvania legislators and law enforcement officials put forth a bill that would slap an added mandatory two-year prison term on anyone caught with an illegal firearm - but only in Philadelphia. "This is not about gun control," Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said Thursday, flanked by politicians and officials from the city and suburbs. "People who carry guns illegally are the people who are shooting people, murdering people, pistol-whipping people, threatening witnesses.

The massive raid at Graterford state prison earlier this week grabbed the attention of the outside world, but the biggest show of force was the quiet, hurried transfer of a dozen inmates who wielded the real power inside the prison walls. More than the unprecedented raid by 650 state troopers and prison guards, more than the forced retirement of two top prison officials, more than the strip-searches of the 3,490 inmates and the cell-by-cell shakedown for drugs and weapons, the biggest symbol of change was the dethroning of the reputed leader of prison wheeling-and-dealing.

There was a homicide in Gloucester County recently, but a new, energetic 20-student task force was on the case. The crime was a role-playing scenario, but the situation gave summer interns in the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office an interesting and uncommon look into the vast world of law enforcement and the criminal justice system. The focus of the four-week program, which ended Friday, ranged from gaining clues and photographs at a crime scene to a criminal trial. Tours of county and federal jails and a mock grand-jury presentation were included.

An AR-15 rifle - with a big boost from a controversy - has helped the Chester County Sheriff's Department raise more than $20,000 for its K9 unit. But the man who won the rifle in a raffle said it is unlikely a single shot will ever be fired from his prize. Mike Ivey, who has owned an auto-repair shop in West Chester for 27 years, said he entered the raffle after hearing about it on a TV news program. And he's so proud of his prize that he plans to frame it and hang it on his wall, right next to his winning ticket.

A relative of a boy who disappeared in 1972 from an orphanage outing in Burlington County has come forward to help investigators solve the cold case. It is the latest development in a 41-year-old mystery that has inspired a network of law enforcement officers using the latest technology to find Steven Soden, then 16, and his friend, Donald Caldwell, 12. This week, authorities announced that DNA samples from four bones found with a sneaker at Bass River State Park matched DNA from Soden's relatives.

A Camden man who a year ago was described as one of that troubled city's most violent offenders has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling the powerful hallucinogenic drug PCP. Kevin J. Hannah, 48, also known as ICU, was sentenced Friday by Camden County Superior Court Judge Michael J. Kassel. The sentence stipulates that he is ineligible for parole for 41/2 years. Hannah had pleaded guilty April 1 to first-degree distribution of PCP. On two separate occasions, he sold an ounce of "oil," a liquid form of PCP, to a witness cooperating with law enforcement, according to a spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office.

CLEVELAND - The three women rescued from a house a decade after they disappeared asked for privacy Sunday, saying through an attorney that while they are grateful for overwhelming support, they also need time to heal. Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight remain in seclusion, releasing their first statements since they were found May 6. They thanked law enforcement and said they were grateful for the support of family and the community. "I am so happy to be home, and I want to thank everybody for all your prayers," DeJesus said in a statement read by an attorney.

WACO, Texas - Texas law enforcement officials on Friday launched a criminal investigation into the massive fertilizer plant explosion that killed 14 people last month, after weeks of largely treating the blast as an industrial accident. The announcement came the same day federal agents said they found bomb-making materials belonging to a paramedic who helped evacuate residents the night of the explosion. Bryce Reed was arrested early Friday on a charge of possessing a destructive device, but law enforcement officials said they had not linked the charge to the April 17 fire and blast at West Fertilizer Co. "It is important to emphasize that at this point, no evidence has been uncovered to indicate any connection to the events surrounding the fire and subsequent explosion ... and the arrest of Bryce Reed by the ATF," a McLennan County Sheriff's Office statement said.

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.

Gov. Christie came to Camden Wednesday to hail the advent of a new county-run police force in the city as "a transformational moment for both the city of Camden and Camden County - most importantly for the people, the children, the families, and the neighborhoods that they live in. " Christie, an early supporter of the new Camden County Police, which Wednesday replaced the nearly 184-year-old city police department, said it would lead to "better, stronger,...

President Obama on Tuesday defended U.S. law enforcement's efforts in scrutinizing the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, while federal officials said the FBI had broadened its investigation into possible links between one of the suspects and foreign extremists. In his first news conference since the Boston attack, Obama said law enforcement agencies had performed in "exemplary fashion. " He accused critics of chasing headlines. His remarks came as the FBI expanded its investigation of the people who had contact with the two brothers suspected of planting two bombs near the finish line of the April 15 marathon.

HARRISBURG - Liquor privatization is bad. That seemed to be the sum total of testimony Tuesday at the first of three hearings in the state Senate on Gov. Corbett's push to get Pennsylvania out of the liquor business. The hearing in the Law and Justice Committee focused on the impact privatization would have on public health and law enforcement. Witnesses from the union for state troopers, who enforce liquor laws, and from drug and alcohol prevention and treatment groups said privatizing would lead to more liquor outlets, more drinking, and more alcohol-related crime and violence.

A raffle to raise money for the Chester County sheriff's K-9 unit ordinarily would qualify as the working definition of a low-profile event, but not this time. That's because one of the prizes this year, an AR-15 rifle, has been at the center of a national controversy. Law-enforcement officials identified an AR-15 as the primary weapon used in the shootings in Newtown, Conn., that killed 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December. Sheriff Carolyn Bunny Welsh said the rifle was one of several weapons donated last year to the charity raffle by "a private individual" at a dinner for hunters and law enforcement personnel.