Law Enforcement Officers

"Open the door, so we won't have to break it down!" yelled Camden County Investigator John Fetzer as he stood outside the Pennsauken apartment in the 3000 block of Schleicher Avenue. What a wake-up call. It was six in the morning, and already Fetzer had arrested two Pennsauken residents as part of Operation Mop-Up, a sweep by local and state law-enforcement officers that netted 76 fugitives, each facing at least one serious criminal charge, in six counties. Moments earlier, Fetzer, New Jersey State Police Detective Mike Parmenter and Trooper Robert Little had noticed a face peeking out from behind white, opaque curtains in an upstairs window.

When the SWAT team kicked in the door of Room 207 at the Summit Hill Inn in Upper Darby, Anthony Galla was crouched between a bed and a window holding a fully loaded Glock handgun. He pointed his weapon toward the doorway; Officers fired. Law enforcement officers knew when they began looking for Galla that the former police officer with military training was heavily armed, was wanted in connection with a shooting, and had talked about committing "suicide by cop. " The four officers shot 52 times, killing Galla, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said.

NEW CASTLE, Del. - Eight people have been charged in a multiagency investigation into alleged drug distribution by members of a motorcycle club, according to Delaware state police. More than 100 law enforcement officers conducted the three-month investigation into the Thunderguards Motorcycle Club, state police said. On Monday and Tuesday, authorities executed search-and-seizure warrants on 11 sites in Delaware and Maryland. More than two kilograms of cocaine, with a street value of $100,000, was seized, along with handguns, long guns, vehicles, and cash.

New Jersey authorities have identified the armed man who was fatally shot outside a Camden home over the weekend by state troopers and city police. But what sparked the events that led to the death of Jeffrey Thomas, 23, of Camden, remained unclear Sunday. Several law enforcement officers responded to the home about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, after a resident there reported that Thomas was waving a handgun outside the house. A short time later, officials say, officers and troopers fired several shots.

AS A WOMAN with two generations of law-enforcement officers in the family, as well as loved ones who are like family serving in the Philadelphia Police Department, I know what it is like to worry as they leave their homes, wondering if they will make it back alive. Sadly, we live in violent times when it seems as if everyone has a weapon. In addition, the thugs who terrorize our streets have no respect for themselves or others, and especially for the men and women in blue. That is a bad combination.

The call came in late on the night of July 3, 1924 - a fire near Holland Avenue and County Line in Ardmore. Lower Merion Police Officers F.X. "Buck" Roy and Albert Miller arrived to find a wooden pole engulfed in flames on the edge of the Haverford College campus. They had come upon a Ku Klux Klan cross-burning. Deep in the woods, they spotted two men with gleaming weapons in their hands. Roy drew his own gun and shouted a warning. Shots rang out, and Roy and Miller were wounded.

IHAD entertained the pleasant notion that with recent appointments to the Supreme Court, this august body was now in the hands of a solid conservative, law-and-order majority that would give the benefit of the doubt to law enforcement in cases that come before it. But in a conclusion that defies logic and would appear to further enhance the rights of criminals and stymie the police, the court ruled 5-3 that when law-enforcement officers suspect...

Eighteen Burlington County people were arrested during early-morning raids yesterday and charged in connection with a marijuana distribution ring in the area. More than 75 law enforcement officers conducted the raids at dawn, said James J. Gerrow Jr., acting Burlington County prosecutor, and Col. Carl A. Williams, State Police superintendent. While making the arrests, officials said, they seized more than five pounds of marijuana with a street value of more than $10,000. Police also seized $3,000 in cash and four vehicles.

For more than two decades he's been a big-time drug dealer with ties to outlaw motorcycle gangs and organized crime, law enforcements officials said. Yesterday, he got busted in Philadelphia for violating probation. On May 16, Dennis "Chief" Virelli, 50, was charged with heading a $15-million-a-year methamphetamine business in New Jersey. In 1984, Virelli, of Hulseman Street near 18th, South Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to heading a multimillion-dollar methamphetamine ring, and served eight years of a 12-year sentence.

Vincent R. Mancusi, 98, the prison warden whose iron-fisted command of Attica Correctional Facility in Upstate New York failed to prevent the bloody inmate insurrection there in 1971, died July 5 at his home in Springfield, Va. Mancusi moved to Northern Virginia after his retirement from Attica in 1972. His removal as warden had been one of the demands made by inmates who staged the revolt in the maximum-security prison on Sept. 9, 1971 - one of the most dramatic confrontations in American criminal justice.

AS A WOMAN with two generations of law-enforcement officers in the family, as well as loved ones who are like family serving in the Philadelphia Police Department, I know what it is like to worry as they leave their homes, wondering if they will make it back alive. Sadly, we live in violent times when it seems as if everyone has a weapon. In addition, the thugs who terrorize our streets have no respect for themselves or others, and especially for the men and women in blue. That is a bad combination.

When the SWAT team kicked in the door of Room 207 at the Summit Hill Inn in Upper Darby, Anthony Galla was crouched between a bed and a window holding a fully loaded Glock handgun. He pointed his weapon toward the doorway; Officers fired. Law enforcement officers knew when they began looking for Galla that the former police officer with military training was heavily armed, was wanted in connection with a shooting, and had talked about committing "suicide by cop. " The four officers shot 52 times, killing Galla, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said.

The release of scores of kinky emails written by a powerful New Jersey Democrat to a lobbyist has sparked an investigation by prosecutors in Sussex County, according to reports. Joe Cryan, an assemblyman from Union County, was a rising star in the state's Democratic Party. Until 2010, he was majority leader in the state assembly and state party chairman. The New York Post published an enormous cache of sexually salacious emails allegedly written by Cryan documenting the details of a sado-masochistic affair he had with lobbyist Karen Golding.

BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. - Officials said Thursday that the burned remains found in a mountain cabin have been positively identified as those of fugitive former police officer Christopher Dorner. Jodi Miller, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County sheriff-coroner, said the identification was made through Dorner's dental records. Miller did not give a cause of death. The search for Dorner began last week after authorities said he had launched a deadly revenge campaign against the Los Angeles Police Department for his firing, warning that he would bring "warfare" to LAPD officers and their families.

A MURDEROUS WAR of revenge by a rogue ex-Los Angeles cop against the department that fired him appeared to come to a fiery end Tuesday night inside a charred cabin near the remote town of Big Bear, Calif. Several news outlets reported that a burned body had been found inside the cabin, presumably that of Christopher Dorner - the man tied to the killing of four people, including two law-enforcement officers, and the wounding of three others. Late Tuesday night, law-enforcement officials at the scene said authorities had not been able to enter the house to confirm that Dorner was inside but said there was no evidence to indicate he'd made it out alive.

HOURS AFTER a gunman opened fire at a courthouse in his home state of Delaware on Monday, Vice President Joe Biden held a roundtable on gun violence with a slew of local officials in North Philadelphia. Biden said that the group of law-enforcement officers and Democratic politicians supported much of President Obama's recently announced gun-control plan, including an improved system for background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. "The nation is demanding that we act responsibly," Biden said of recent calls for gun control following the massacre in Newtown, Conn.

IRVINE, Calif. - A heavy police presence sectioned off a block of homes in a quiet Southern California suburb Sunday, as residents adjusted to life at the center of a sprawling manhunt for a fugitive whose police and military background and vitriolic online manifesto has put the region on high-alert. Joe Palacio lives down the street from a home surrounded by authorities protecting a police captain mentioned as a target in Christopher Dorner's Facebook rant against those he held responsible for his dismissal from the LAPD five years ago. Dorner, 33, is suspected of killing three people, including one police officer, and as the manhunt entered its fourth day with no success, authorities posted a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.

The Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office is turning over prosecution of 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale accused killers to Camden County after being notified that members of her family planned to sue the office. In a statement Wednesday, the office said going ahead with a prosecution under the cloud of a likely suit "created a potential conflict. " The announcement came shortly after it was learned that Autumn's mother, Jennifer Cornwell, had filed a suit against her ex-husband, Anthony Pasquale, in a dispute over control of a memorial fund set up in their daughter's name.

Camden's plan to lay off all its uniformed police officers and replace them with a new, county-run force has received approval from the New Jersey Civil Service Commission, according to Mayor Dana L. Redd's office. The mayor also announced this afternoon that the layoff of more than 250 officers is now set for April 30. "We cannot sit back and allow our children and families to experience another 2012. We have an opportunity to improve public safety by bringing back community policing and adding more law enforcement officers to patrol our neighborhoods and business corridors," she said in a statement.

Border agent's family sues PHOENIX - The family of a slain Border Patrol agent has sued federal officials over the botched "Fast and Furious" gun operation. Agent Brian Terry was mortally wounded Dec. 14, 2010, in a firefight between U.S. agents and five men who had sneaked into the United States to rob marijuana smugglers. The lawsuit filed Thursday and made publicly available Friday came from Terry's parents against six managers and investigators for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.