Police Academy

When Hugh Wilson made the first Police Academy in 1984, the basic comic idea was that the city had abandoned all physical and psychological standards for entrance to its law-enforcement academy. The movie's sequels have proved that much the same policy is in force in the nation's movie theaters. Police Academy films have become one of the wrongs of spring. Now as the weather turns warmer, dread springs eternal. The Phillies come north with another team guaranteed to have grown men cringing by early May, and Warner Bros.

When Bubba Smith played football for Michigan State, the fans used to urge the giant defensive lineman to "Kill, Bubba, kill!" Bubba often nearly obliged, but it is too much to hope that he might turn on the makers of the Police Academy series with the same homicidal flair he once brought to the pursuit of enemy quarterbacks. For one thing, the astounding success of this witless series assures Smith and the other graduates a very good living. A Police Academy movie has now become one of the wrongs of spring.

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office and Camden County College have created a partnership to keep the county's police academy functioning, officials said Monday. Earl Coxson, who ran the academy as an employee of the Prosecutor's Office, was laid off this year, possibly jeopardizing the operations of the academy. Under the agreement, effective July 1, the college will assume Coxson's annual salary of about $60,000, according to the Camden County Board of Freeholders. The Prosecutor's Office will continue to assign an investigator and a clerical employee to staff the academy, which will not accept new recruits until January.

You can have being worked over with a nightstick or 10 hours of third- degree interrogation. For sheer police brutality, nothing comes close to sitting through Police Academy 5. In fact, it's so dreadful that I would recommend seeing it only with an attorney present. Except that no one - not even a lawyer - should be subjected to such cruel and unusual punishment. Anyone who has made it past 11 - in years or IQ - will know that you don't go to a Police Academy movie unprepared.

Cynics may scoff, but there really is one brief and shining moment in Police Academy 3: Back in Training. It comes at the opening of the film, when the numbskull governor of California suffers an attack of taste and says it's time to close down the academy. But before grown-ups have a chance to rise as one and cheer to the rafters, this is revealed to be another Hollywood lie on the order of "Steven (Spielberg) read your script, and he loves it. " The Police Academy series tries to get more out of old garbage than the nearest recycling plant.

The cameras were clicking, the videotapes were rolling, and the audience was on its feet, applauding, as 61 men and 29 women filed into the Philadelphia Civic Center yesterday to become members of the city's Police Department. The VIPs - including Mayor Goode and Police Commissioner Willie L. Williams - saluted the courage and determination of the new officers. Besides the speeches, there was rousing music from the Pasttimers, a police band. It was a day to celebrate - for all concerned.

David Wurzburg of Hainesport said his father had been trying for years to get him to cut his shoulder-length hair. "I had never had short hair before, and I was always afraid to get it cut, sir!" said the 18-year-old, who now sports a high-and-tight buzz cut. For the last week, Wurzburg, a heavy cigarette smoker, has been waking up each morning at 5:30, performing strenuous calisthenics and running 1.5 miles each day. He's also started addressing people he doesn't know as "Sir.

Police Officer Gerald Gallagher was like a proud parent. For the past five months he had helped guide 72 men and women through the rigors of Police Academy training. Yesterday, as they lined up to receive their diplomas, Gallagher reached out to shake their hands, slap their backs, and wish them "godspeed. " When it was Officer Franklin Steed's turn to thank Gallagher, he ignored his outstretched hand, threw his arms around the veteran cop, and hugged him instead. "He was like a father to me," said Steed, 30. If making it through the academy was a strain, it did not show on the faces of the 49 men and 23 women who graduated yesterday.

"Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol," a comedy starring Steve Guttenberg, Bubba Smith, G.W. Bailey, Bobcat Goldthwait and George Gaynes. Directed by Jim Drake. Screenplay by Gene Quintano. Running time: 87 minutes. A Warner Brothers release. "Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol" has jokes about bodily (and birds') functions, a pompous guy whose pants rip and who gets a bullhorn Krazy-glued to his face, some excellent skateboarding, rock music, a joke about Mace deodorant, a guy (Michael Winslow)

Crouched behind the door of the police car, with his weapon drawn, Thomas Thompson kept his eyes on the car in front that had been stopped in connection with an armed robbery. With loud, clear commands, Thompson, a cadet at the Delaware County Community College Municipal Police Academy, ordered the driver to show his hands, then slowly get out of the car. "Gun," he called out as he spotted a weapon in the driver's waistband. Thompson ordered the driver to keep his hands on his head and drop to his knees, crossing his ankles.

BAGHDAD - A pair of bombings killed four people Sunday in attacks targeting Iraq's security forces, officials said, while the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad maintained it will continue training Iraqi police despite cutbacks to the program. The first bomb exploded near a security patrol in the western city of Ramadi, killing one police officer and wounding seven people. Hours later, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad, killing three people - including two police officers - and wounding nine more.

IT'S USUALLY TOUGH to get kicked out of Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of Police. You really have to screw up. Worse than, say, the cop who allegedly beat his girlfriend with a closed fist and left her a voice mail threatening to "stomp your f---ing heart out. " Or the officer convicted of child endangerment for pointing a loaded Glock at a kid who changed the radio station in his truck at the Police Academy. Or the cop who allegedly forced a suspect to perform oral sex on him in his police cruiser.

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber detonated his car Sunday as a group of police recruits left their academy in Baghdad, killing 20 in the latest strike on security officials that angry residents blamed on political feuding that is roiling Iraq. Police said the bomber was waiting on the street outside the fortified academy near the Interior Ministry in the Iraqi capital. As the recruits left the compound's security barriers about 1 p.m. and walked into the road, police said, the bomber drove toward them and blew up his car. "We heard a big explosion, and the windows of the room shattered," said Haider Mohammed, 44, an employee in the nearby Police Sports Club.

THE ACTIONS of retired police Captain Ray Lewis, as reported in the Daily News , was appalling. As a retired Philadelphia police officer, Lewis' behavior during the Occupy Philadelphia on Independence Mall was an embarrassment to not only Lewis, but the Philadelphia Police Department in general. Additionally, I'm a Vietnam veteran and am well aware of our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly. However, to hide behind the First Amendment and demonstrate in full police uniform goes beyond the pale.

THE NUMBERS tell you that the city is back to where it was four and five years ago, back to a murder or two a day and an incomprehensible number of shootings. Faced with that grim reality, Mayor Nutter yesterday announced at a news conference at Strawberry Mansion High School that the city is, in so many words, now throwing the kitchen sink at its crime problems. There was no clever, catchall nickname for the assortment of initiatives, just a clear sense that city leaders are ready to try anything to escape being forever known as "Killadelphia.

CITY COUNCILWOMAN Marian Tasco will retire today, collect a six-figure pension payment and then return to work after she's sworn in on Monday to serve her seventh term. Because of her enrollment in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), Tasco will collect $478,057 within 45 days, according to Francis Bielli, executive director for the city's Board of Pensions and Retirement. Most of that money will roll over into a tax-deferred account, Bielli said. What can Marian do with her winnings?

When the city police officer entered the room, she saw LaKanya Eskridge, her face covered in blood. "There was blood coming from her eyes, her nose, her mouth," Officer Cheryl Newton testified in court. "There was blood all over the place. " Eskridge begged Newton not to leave her: "He's going to hit me again," Eskridge told Newton, according to court testimony. It was Eskridge, however, who was arrested that day, Nov. 22, 2010, at Beeber Middle School in the Overbrook area, where her son was a student.

Philadelphia's top public-safety official plans to recommend that the school district overhaul how it hires and trains school police, but says arming them is an issue that needs more discussion. Everett Gillison, the deputy mayor for public safety and Mayor Nutter's chief of staff, said in an interview that school police - like regular city police - should be trained for 32 weeks at the Police Academy and go through the same drug and criminal-background screening. Under the proposal, which would likely have to be approved by the School Reform Commission, prospective officers also would have to undergo psychological evaluations and take a polygraph test.

PHILADELPHIA Fallen officer honored A police-hero plaque will be unveiled today at the Police Academy, on State Road near Pennypack Street, Holmesburg, to honor Lt. Edward C. Dohrmann, who died of a heart attack on April 13, 1969, while helping an accident victim near that location. Dohrmann, 42, an 11-year veteran of the department, found the accident victim trapped in his car. While helping to free him, Dohrmann collapsed. He was survived by his wife, Winnie, and daughters Eileen, Joanne Doyle and Lynne Campisi.