News Release

The West Oak Lane Jazz Festival, which had received millions in state funding with the help of Democratic State Rep. Dwight Evans, will not take place this year, organizers said Tuesday. The festival, which over the years featured such performers as Chaka Kahn and Al Jarreau, began in 2003. It came under scrutiny after a 2010 Inquirer article questioned whether organizers inflated crowd estimates to improve chances for state funding. For 2012, the state decided not to give the three-day festival any money.

DEERFIELD BEACH, FLA. - The winner of a roach-eating contest in South Florida died shortly after downing dozens of the live bugs, as well as worms, authorities said. The grand prize in Friday night's contest was a live python. The Broward County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that it is waiting for an autopsy to give the official cause of death. However, a news release on Monday said that 32-year-old Edward Archbold became ill soon after winning and collapsed in front of the Ben Siegel Reptile Store, where the contest was held.

A RETIRED Norristown detective has been arrested for allegedly buying $17,000 worth of crystal meth that authorities believe he planned to resell, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office.   In March, authorities received an anonymous tip that retired Norristown Police Detective Sgt. Jack Pennington, 66, was involved in drug trafficking, a news release said. On Tuesday, county detectives conducted surveillance on Pennington and watched him pull into the Plymouth Meeting Mall about 4:30 p.m. in his 2006 Cadillac with a Fraternal Order of Police license plate, authorities said.

A 34-year-old woman tried to avoid her estranged husband by moving to Montgomery County and obtaining a protection-from-abuse order, but those measures ultimately were not enough, authorities said yesterday. Joseph Lester Kramer, 45, of Berks County, told police that he went to Amy Kramer's Pottstown home on Friday, argued with her over a department store bill, and then strangled her, according to a news release from Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman and Pottstown Police Chief Mark D. Flanders.

A 50-year-old man who went to the State Police barracks in Trevose, Bucks County, to pick up a friend was arrested and charged with driving there drunk. Terry Clark Jones, of Penndel, was released after submitting to a chemical breath test and being processed at the barracks, State Police said. They said Jones had been asked to pick up a friend in custody at the barrack and was intoxicated when he arrived about 10:25 p.m. A news release does not indicate if the friend who was in custody also had been arrested on a DUI charge.

LIKE FATHER, like son. Or in this case, like son, like father. A Chadds Ford man was arrested for driving under the influence this weekend after showing up drunk at the State Police barracks in Media to pick up his son, who had been arrested earlier in the night for the same offense, according to a news release. Police said Timothy Smith arrived at the barracks about 10:45 p.m. Saturday and told troopers that he was there to pick up his son, who'd been arrested for drunk driving.

In a power play amid the widespread power failure left by Hurricane Sandy, a civilian employee of the New Jersey state police forced two vendors in Burlington County to hand over free a generator, authorities said Tuesday. Wearing a field jacket with the state police logo and carrying a police radio, Marcella Friedman, 49, of Oaklyn, threatened the two men with fines and confiscation if they did not give her a free generator, state Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa said in a news release.

Police evacuated 13 families from their homes last night while a 33-year-old man barricaded himself in a house in the 100 block of Conestoga Road and threatened to shoot himself. More than two hours later, police persuaded the man, whom they would not identify, to surrender and give up his weapon. Police transported him to the Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital Crisis Unit in Darby for a psychological evaluation, according to a news release issued by the Radnor Police Department. The man's father called police at 6:55 p.m. Officers barricaded the roadway and observed the man pacing inside the house, with a handgun in one hand and a bottle of liquor in the other, police said.

A young man was critically wounded by police early yesterday morning after barricading himself in a Pottstown home for more than six hours, threatening to commit suicide, then leading police on a car chase that ended in West Norriton. Sean Edelman, believed to be 19, was shot multiple times by police after he pointed a handgun at officers in the Wachovia Bank parking lot at Egypt Road and Ridge Pike, according to a news release from the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office.

This was real road rage: New Jersey police officers in a fistfight on a busy Burlington County highway. The opponents: an off-duty state trooper, his wife, who is a state investigator, and an off-duty Camden detective who is a mayoral bodyguard. The county prosecutor's office said the altercation began after the trooper and his wife exchanged insults with the detective late Sunday as they drove north on Route 295. Investigators said Trooper John O'Neil, 48, and his wife, Jennifer Calhoun-O'Neil, 39, were driving a 1988 Nissan and Camden Detective Kevin Moreland, 28, was driving a 1997 Dodge minivan when the two vehicles pulled off the freeway, and Moreland and O'Neil began fighting along Route 73 near Church Road.

OXFORD, Miss. - A Mississippi man charged with making a deadly poison sent to President Obama and others was ordered held without bond until a hearing later this week when prosecutors are expected to describe what evidence they have against him. James Everett Dutschke made a brief appearance Monday in federal court wearing an orange jumpsuit with his hands shackled. Authorities spent several days last week searching Dutschke's home and former business but have said very little about the suspect beyond a news release announcing the charge of making and possessing ricin over the weekend.

The bishop of the Trenton Diocese says he will not reconsider his decision this month to shutter the 150-year-old St. Mary School in Bordentown. But the school's supporters are mobilizing and won't rule out the possibility of an appeal to keep it open. "If we have enough of a groundswell . . . from the community, we're willing to move forward," said David Burden, who heads the Save St. Mary Committee, a coalition of parents, teachers, alumni, and others. He wants supporters to petition the diocese for a reversal of the bishop's decision.

The bishop of the Trenton Diocese says he will not reconsider his decision this month to shutter the 150-year-old St. Mary School in Bordentown. But the school's supporters are mobilizing and won't rule out the possibility of an appeal to keep it open. "If we have enough of a groundswell . . . from the community, we're willing to move forward," said David Burden, who heads the Save St. Mary Committee, a coalition of parents, teachers, alumni, and others. He wants supporters to petition the diocese for a reversal of the bishop's decision.

A female jogger was fatally injured Monday afternoon when hit from behind by a car while running on the side of North Lewis Road in Limerick Township, police said. The jogger, whose age was not released, was not identified pending notification of relatives. The 18-year-old driver was not identified, Limerick Township Police Chief William J. Albany said in a news release. Although she was running facing southbound traffic, Albany said witnesses reported that "they observed the northbound vehicle cross over into the southbound lane just prior to impact.

THREE UNIVERSITY of Alabama football players have been charged with knocking students unconscious and stealing their wallets, while a fourth player has been charged with using a stolen debit card, officials in Montgomery said Tuesday. Linebacker Tyler Hayes, 18, and safety Eddie Williams, 20, confessed to robbing a student who was punched in the head and face and kicked in the ribs and back early Monday morning, according to court documents. Williams said D.J. Pettway, 20, a defensive lineman, and Hayes waited in a nearby vehicle about an hour later while he knocked out and robbed another student.

In a power play amid the widespread power failure left by Hurricane Sandy, a civilian employee of the New Jersey state police forced two vendors in Burlington County to hand over free a generator, authorities said Tuesday. Wearing a field jacket with the state police logo and carrying a police radio, Marcella Friedman, 49, of Oaklyn, threatened the two men with fines and confiscation if they did not give her a free generator, state Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa said in a news release.

An Atlantic County man was sentenced Tuesday to 7-1/2 years in prison for leaving the scene of an accident that took the life of a bicycling teen. The victim's family, however, continues to assert that the actions of defendant William Simkins, now 33, were far more sinister, despite his being acquitted by a jury in September on a charge of second-degree vehicular homicide. The Egg Harbor Township man deliberately pursued the victim, Jacob Broschard, 16, and two friends on Sept. 6, 2010, because one of them had knocked a side mirror off Simkins' car, the family contends.

Natina Reed, 32, an R&B singer who was a member of the female group Blaque, was killed after being stuck by a car in metro Atlanta. The Gwinnett County Police Department said in a news release Sunday that Ms. Reed, who would have turned 33 on Sunday, was hit late Friday while in the roadway. Police said that the driver called 911 and that someone tried to revive Ms. Reed on the scene. She was later pronounced dead at Gwinnett Medical Center. Police say the driver was not at fault and will not be charged.

DEERFIELD BEACH, FLA. - The winner of a roach-eating contest in South Florida died shortly after downing dozens of the live bugs, as well as worms, authorities said. The grand prize in Friday night's contest was a live python. The Broward County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that it is waiting for an autopsy to give the official cause of death. However, a news release on Monday said that 32-year-old Edward Archbold became ill soon after winning and collapsed in front of the Ben Siegel Reptile Store, where the contest was held.

Child protection workers were preparing to close their case on a Camden mother reunited with her son when, on Wednesday, the woman decapitated the boy and then committed suicide, according to a state news release issued Friday. The New Jersey Department of Children and Families provided more information about Chevonne Thomas, 34, including details about her Nov. 28, 2010, arrest on a child endangerment charge when she first lost custody of son Zahree, who was 2 when he died. The release noted at least one drug relapse that caused the department to take the boy from Thomas a second time.